them knit the two friends the closer together, for, as I have said,
Myles felt easier now that he had poured out his bitter thoughts and
words; and as for Gascoyne, I think that there is nothing so flattering
to one's soul as to be made the confidant of a stronger nature.


But the old tower served another purpose than that of a spot in which
to pass away a few idle hours, or in which to indulge the confidences of
friendship, for it was there that Myles gathered a backing of strength
for resistance against the tyranny of the bachelors, and it is for that
more than for any other reason that it has been told how they found the
place and of what they did there, feeling secure against interruption.

Myles Falworth was not of a kind that forgets or neglects a thing upon
which the mind has once been set. Perhaps his chief objective since
the talk with Sir James following his fight in the dormitory had been
successful resistance to the exactions of the head of the body of
squires. He was now (more than a month had passed) looked upon by nearly
if not all of the younger lads as an acknowledged leader in his own
class. So one day he broached a matter to Gascoyne that had for some
time been digesting in his mind. It was the formation of a secret order,
calling themselves the "Knights of the Rose," their meeting-place to be
the chapel of the Brutus Tower, and their object to be the righting
of wrongs, "as they," said Myles, "of Arthur his Round-table did right
wrongs."

"But, prithee, what wrongs are there to right in this place?" quoth
Gascoyne, after listening intently to the plan which Myles set forth.

"Why, first of all, this," said Myles, clinching his fists, as he had a