CHAPTER XXI.
“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.”