_Somerset_. "Let him that is no coward
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me."
_First Part of King Henry VI_.

Early next morning I was returning, a rosebud in my hand, from the
neglected garden to the east of the house, when I spied my father
coming towards me along the terraces, and at once felt my ears
redden.

"Good morning, lad!" he hailed. "But where is mine?"

I turned back in silence and picked a bud for him. "So," said I,
"'twas you, sir, after all, that wrote the advertisement?"

"Hey?" he answered. "I? Certainly not. I noted it and sent you the
news-sheet in half a hope that you had been the advertiser."

"You were mistaken, sir."

He halted and rubbed his chin. "Then who the devil can he be, I
wonder? Well, we shall discover."

"You ride to Falmouth this morning?"

"We have an army to collect," he answered, gripping me not unkindly
by the shoulder.

We rode into Falmouth side by side in silence, Billy Priske following
by my father's command, and each with a red rose pinned to the flap
of his hat. Upon the way we talked, mainly of the Trappist Brothers,