shed his face and hands with the other squires
and pages in a great tank of water in the armory court-yard, he
presently found himself splashing and dashing with the others, laughing
and shouting as loud as any, and calling some by their Christian names
as though he had known them for years instead of overnight. During
chapel he watched with sympathetic delight the covert pranks of the
youngsters during the half-hour that Father Emmanuel droned his Latin,
and with his dagger point he carved his own name among the many cut
deep into the back of the bench before him. When, after breakfast, the
squires poured like school-boys into the great armory to answer to the
roll-call for daily exercise, he came storming in with the rest, beating
the lad in front of him with his cap.

Boys are very keen to feel the influence of a forceful character. A lad
with a strong will is quick to reach his proper level as a greater or
lesser leader among the others, and Myles was of just the masterful
nature to make his individuality felt among the Devlen squires. He was
quick enough to yield obedience upon all occasions to proper authority,
but would never bend an inch to the usurpation of tyranny. In the school
at St. Mary's Priory at Crosbey-Dale he would submit without a murmur or
offer of resistance to chastisement by old Father Ambrose, the
regular teacher; but once, when the fat old monk was sick, and a great
long-legged strapping young friar, who had temporarily taken his place,
undertook to administer punishment, Myles, with a wrestling trip, flung
him sprawling backward over a bench into the midst of a shoal of small
boys amid a hubbub of riotous confusion. He had been flogged soundly
for it under the supervision of Prior Edward himself; but so soon as
his punishment was over, he assured the prior very seriously that should
like occasion again happen he would act in the same manner, flogging or
no flogging.

It was this bold, outspoken spirit that gained him at once friends and
enemies at Devlen, and though it first showed itself in what was but a
little matter, nevertheless it set a mark upon him that singled him out
from the rest, and, although he did not suspect it at the time, called
to him the attention of Sir James Lee himself, who regarded him as a lad
of free and frank spirit.

The first morning after the roll-call in the armory, as Walter Blunt,
the head bachelor, rolled up the slip of parchment, and the temporary
silence