"I know not that he is a mean-hearted caitiff, Myles," said he atlast, hesitatingly. "The Earl hath many enemies, and I have heardthat he hath stood more than once in peril, having been accusedof dealings with the King's foes. He was cousin to the Earl ofKent, and I do remember hearing that he had a narrow escape atthat time from ruin. There be more reasons than thou wottest ofwhy he should not have dealings with thy father.""I had not thought," said Myles, bitterly, after a little pause,"that thou wouldst stand up for him and against me in thisquarrel, Gascoyne. Him will I never forgive so long as I maylive, and I had thought that thou wouldst have stood by me.""So I do," said Gascoyne, hastily, "and do love thee more thanany one in all the world, Myles; but I had thought that it wouldmake thee feel more easy, to think that the Earl was not againstthee. And, indeed, from all thou has told me, I do soothly thinkthat he and Sir James mean to befriend thee and hold thee privilyin kind regard.""Then why doth he not stand forth like a man and befriend me andmy father openly, even if it be to his own peril?" said Myles,reverting stubbornly to what he had first spoken.
Gascoyne did not answer, but lay for a long while in silence.
"Knowest thou," he suddenly asked, after a while, "who is thisgreat enemy of whom Sir James speaketh, and who seeketh so todrive thy father to ruin?""Nay," said Myles, "I know not, for my father hath never spokenof these things, and Sir James would not tell me. But this Iknow," said he, suddenly, grinding his teeth together, "an I donot hunt him out some day and slay him like a dog--" He stoppedabruptly, and Gascoyne, looking askance at him, saw that his eyeswere full of tears, whereupon he turned his looks away againquickly, and fell to shooting pebbles out through the open windowwith his finger and thumb.
"Thou wilt tell no one of these things that I have said?" saidMyles, after a while.
"Not I," said Gascoyne. "Thinkest thou I could do such a thing?""Nay," said Myles, briefly.
Perhaps this talk more than anything else that had ever passedbetween them knit the two friends the closer together, for, as Ihave said, Myles felt easier now that he had poured out hisbitter thoughts and words; and as for Gascoyne, I think thatthere is nothing so flattering to one's soul as to be made theconfidant of a stronger nature.
But the old tower served another purpose than that of a spot inwhich to pass away a few idle hours, or in which to indulge theconfidences of friendship, for it was there that Myles gathered abacking of strength for resistance against the tyranny of thebachelors, and it is for that more than for any other reason thatit has been told how they found the place and of what they didthere, feeling secure against interruption.
Myles Falworth was not of a kind that forgets or neglects a thingupon which the mind has once been set. Perhaps his chiefobjective since the talk with Sir James following his fight inthe dormitory had been successful resistance to the exactions ofthe head of the body of squires. He was now (more than a monthhad passed) looked upon by nearly if not all of the younger ladsas an acknowledged leader in his own class. So one day hebroached a matter to Gascoyne that had for some time beendigesting in his mind. It was the formation of a secret order,calling themselves the "Knights of the Rose," their meeting-placeto be the chapel of the Brutus Tower, and their object to be therighting of wrongs, "as they," said Myles, of Arthur hisRound-table did right wrongs.""But, prithee, what wrongs are there to right in this place?"quoth Gascoyne, after listening intently to the plan which Mylesset forth.
