“Religious ideas and religious emotions, under the influence of the Puritan habit of mind, seek to realise themselves, not in art, but, without any intervening medium, in character, in conduct, in life. It is thus that the gulf between sense and spirit is bridged; not in marble or in colour is the invisible made visible, but in action public and private—‘ye are the temples of the Holy Ghost.’”—Professor E. Dowden.

It was something of a relief to Gabriel to see the well-known spires and towers of Oxford, but he had lived through so much since his undergraduate days that he felt like a returned ghost—aloof from all his past interests, alone in a crowd, remorselessly stared at and criticised by the inhabitants.

At the city gate they were halted while arrangements were made as to their reception. Gabriel was thankful enough for the brief respite; for Norton’s treatment at Marlborough had set up keen pain in his old wound, while the thirty miles’ march from Devizes, bareheaded under a blazing sun, had given him a racking headache.

The last time he had passed out of Oxford by this gateway, three years before, he had been riding home to Herefordshire with Ned Harley, little dreaming of the future that lay before them. He fell now to wondering whether Ned had recovered from the wound he had got at Lansdown, and whether the letter he had left with him had by this time reached his father at Hereford.

Just then the sound of a mellow voice, with a mocking ring about it which spoilt its pleasantness, roused him from his reverie.

“Well, Mr. Harford!” said Norton. “’Tis warm work, isn’t it? You seem exhausted.”

Gabriel at once drew himself up with the undaunted look which had taken Prince Rupert’s fancy. He glanced at the prisoner with the bandaged head who leant heavily upon him, utterly spent with the march. The poor fellow, Passey by name, was one of his own men, and had been wounded and taken in the pursuit.

“This man is in far worse case,” he said. “But I know it is waste of breath to ask mercy of you, sir.”

Norton laughed. “You know me better than the day we spoke together at the gate of Wells. I told you I was not one to be baulked, and mark my words, Mr. Harford, the rest of my prophecy will follow in due time. I shall yet have the hanging of you.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed Gabriel, stung into a bitter retort, “you seem better fitted to play the part of a hangman, sir, than that of an English gentleman.”

“Bravely said, Ecclesiastes! You have clearly studied under the most virulent Puritan preachers of the day,” said Norton, regarding his victim with an amused smile.

“Pardon me, sir,” said Gabriel, ashamed of his words, “I should have held my tongue, for, truth to tell, on first sight of you at Gloucester, I thought you——”

He broke off, puzzled by that same hint of a better nature which made itself visible in his enemy’s face, as if in response to his unspoken idea.

“You thought me as generous and good-hearted a man as ever you had clapped eyes on,” said Norton, laughing. “They all do on occasion, but quickly discover their mistake.”

He strolled away from the prisoners, and entering the alehouse hard by, called for a cup of claret.

“A second,” he said, when he had drained it. “Here, Tarverfield, you are always for pampering these rebels, take this to Mr. Harford, I’ll warrant his throat is as dry as a lime-kiln.” The Captain was willing enough to undertake the errand, and Norton saw the look of surprise on the prisoner’s face when he heard who had sent the claret.

But the next minute an oath burst from the Colonel’s lips. “Curse the fellow! doth he fancy himself at the Sacrament? He but tastes it and passes it on to that wounded wretch beside him, and he again to his neighbour.”

For the third time a twinge of shame dragged him for a little while out of the slough of brutality which threatened to engulph him, and once more there rose before him the vision of the dead wife he still loved, though his profligacy had broken her heart and brought her to the grave.

The incident drove from Gabriel’s mind the despair he had felt since passing the King. He insensibly learnt that in the most unlooked-for ways good would manifest itself in those who seemed most uncongenial, and thus with a brave heart went to meet the troubles that awaited him in Oxford Castle.

Prince Rupert had very truly observed that the prisoners of war were not pampered. The cruelties of Provost-Marshal Smith, the Governor, had been revealed by the Lady Essex, who had been called into the House of Commons some six months before, and had given evidence on her return from Oxford of what the prisoners had to undergo. This had been fully confirmed by Captain Wingate, who after months of imprisonment at Oxford had obtained an exchange.

Still bound to Passey, Gabriel was ordered up to the highest room in one of the towers of the Castle with four other officers and six of the rank and file. The place seemed already full of men, and the exhausted prisoners looked round blankly enough, wondering how they were to find room in these wretched quarters.

The unhappy inmates, however, gave them a warm welcome, and it was pitiful to see the way in which these half-famished men crowded round them, eager to gain some news from the outer world.

“Where do you come from?” demanded a grey-haired prisoner, seizing upon Gabriel.

“We lay at Marlborough last night, sir,” he replied, looking with something like awe at the emaciated face of the speaker.

“Marlborough!” cried the prisoner, his eyes lighting up; “I was carried off from Marlborough last winter.”

And he poured out question after question in the vain hope of gaining news of his family.

“But may you not receive visitors?” asked Gabriel, knowing that even criminals were not debarred from this privilege.

“We may see no one,” said the poor lawyer, for such he proved to be. “Come, you are unbound now, sit here and I will tell you what to expect.”

“With your permission, sir, I will first find some place for my companion to lie; he is wounded, and well-nigh spent.”

“I should stow him in yonder corner, next to the man with the fever,” said the lawyer, bitterly. “The air is so foul there that he’ll get a few inches more space.”

Gabriel went to reconnoitre the ground, but was fairly beaten back by the pestilent atmosphere.

“Any crowding is better than that,” he said. “Here, Passey, stretch yourself by the wall; maybe they will give us food presently.”

“Not till to-morrow morning,” said the lawyer; “and then the Provost-Marshal will not overfeed you, my friend. For though the King allows sixpence a day for the prisoners—a fair enough sum—this miserable governor of ours keeps for himself all but five farthings a head.”

“And what doth that furnish?” asked Gabriel, beginning to understand the lean and hungry looks of his companions.

“A pennyworth of bread, and a little can of a most vile mixture of beer and water,” said the lawyer.

Gabriel reflected that by the next morning hunger and thirst would probably be so keen that any diet would be endurable. To him the worst trial at present was the sickening atmosphere of the overcrowded room, which, to one accustomed to sleeping more often than not in the open air, seemed on this hot July night well-nigh insufferable. In a space measuring, perhaps, twenty feet square, some fifty prisoners were pent up night and day.

“’Twas here that Mr. Franklyn, Member of Parliament for Marlborough, died,” said the lawyer, in his melancholy voice, “and yonder man with the fever will scarce recover, I think. But hark! there is the curfew ringing, we shall have prayers before settling for the night.”

The prisoners all stood, and a short service, led by one of the captive officers, was held. It was this habit which kept the place from becoming the hell on earth which most prisons of the day were apt to become. And that grand simplicity which is the strength of Puritanism made its mighty influence felt, for all present, from the highest to the lowest, held the same religious ideal, and were ready to die for their conviction that each individual soul should have direct communion with God.

Wearied by all that he had undergone in the last few days, Gabriel soon slept with Falkland’s cloak wrapped about him, and though stretched on the bare boards of the prison floor, his sleep was more profound and restful than any that for many months had visited the careworn Secretary of State.

It was sheer hunger that at last disturbed him, and feeling stiff and miserable he raised himself, looking in a bewildered way round the room. The moonlight shone in patches on the grim stone walls, and on the strange spectacle of the prisoners lying in rows on the bare floor. The dismal sound of clanking fetters echoed through the place, when some of the men, who for attempted escape were heavily ironed, stirred in their sleep. The man with the fever was muttering and groaning horribly.

A sudden wave of realisation swept over Gabriel. He was in prison, and must starve and pine, and as likely as not die, in this horrible place, no longer a free agent, but wholly at the mercy of tyrants. The bitterness of death seemed already to overwhelm him.

“Let me out! Let me out!” moaned the sick man in his delirium “My house is burning—my children—my wife! How can you do it, you fiends? Let me go home, I say! Let me out!”

Gabriel roused himself from the despair into which he had fallen, and picking his way cautiously across the forms of the sleeping prisoners, sat down beside the man with the fever. There was still a little water left in the earthenware mug near him, and, raising the poor fellow into an easier posture, he held this to his parched lips.

“Where do you come from?” he asked.

“From Marlborough,” said the man, speaking rationally for a minute. “I was one of the wealthiest of the burgesses; my name is Rawlyns.” Then suddenly relapsing into his fevered ravings, “Let me out! Let me out! They are burning my home.”

“I came from Marlborough yesterday, and there was no house burning,” said Gabriel soothingly. “Come, be at rest, you’ll need all your strength.”

His quiet words, and perhaps some subtle magnetism in his hands as he smoothed back the sick man’s hair, certainly calmed the poor fellow. The Hereford people always declared that Dr. Harford had what they called “the healing touch,” and possibly Gabriel had inherited a similar power. At any rate, the patient fell into a sound sleep, and his sore need had done much to chase despair from the mind of his helper.

Noiselessly he stole back to his former place and once more lay down, and as he mused over past and f............