For a moment the idea possessed him. He was Sir Gaston Robert Belward,
Baronet. He remembered now how, at Prince Rupert's side, he had sped on
after Ireton's horse, cutting down Roundheads as he passed, on and on,
mad with conquest, yet wondering that Rupert kept so long in pursuit
while Charles was in danger with Cromwell: how, as the word came to wheel
back, a shot tore away the pommel of his saddle; then another, and
another, and with a sharp twinge in his neck he fell from his horse. He
remembered how he raised himself on his arm and shouted "God save the
King!" How he loosed his scarf and stanched the blood at his neck, then
fell back into a whirring silence, from which he was roused by feeling
himself in strong arms, and hearing a voice say: "Courage, Gaston." Then
came the distant, very distant, thud of hoofs, and he fell asleep; and
memory was done.

He stood for a moment oblivious to everything: the evening bird
fluttering among the rafters, the song of the nightingale without, the
sighing wind in the tower entry, the rustics in the doorway, the group in
the choir. Presently he became conscious of the words sung:

"A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

"Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day."