They were Roundheads and Cavaliers, and a splendid hero, who had once been a bad fellow, but was now sorry, fought nine Roundheads at once, and was tortured "off" with red lights and his lady waiting for results before a sympathetic audience.
During the torture scene John's heart stopped entirely, his brow was damp, his hand sought his mother's, found it, and held it very hard.
She, as she felt his hot fingers pressing against hers, began to see the stage through a mist of tears.

She had behaved very well during the past weeks, but the soul that she adored was, to-morrow morning, to be hurled out, wildly, helter-skelter, to receive such tarnishing as it might please Fate to think good.
"I _can't_ let him go! I _can't_ let him go!" The curtain came down.
John turned, his eyes wide, his cheeks pale with a pink spot on the middle of each.
"I say, pass those chocolates along!" he whispered hoarsely.

Then, recovering himself a little: "I wonder what they did to him?
They _must_ have done something to his legs, because they were all crooked when he came out." EPILOGUE HUGH SEYMOUR I It happened that Hugh Seymour, in the month of December, 1911, found himself in the dreamy orchard-bound cathedral city of Polchester.
Polchester, as all its inhabitants well know, is famous for its cathedral, its buns, and its river, the cathedral being one of the oldest, the buns being among the sweetest, and the Pol being amongst the most beautiful of the cathedrals, buns and rivers of Great Britain.
Seymour had known Polchester since he was five years old, when he first lived there with his father and mother, but he had only once during the last ten years been able to visit Glebeshire, and then he had been to Rafiel, a fishing village on the south coast.

He had, therefore, not seen Polchester since his childhood, and now it seemed to him to have shrivelled from a world of infinite space and mystery into a toy town that would be soon packed away in a box and hidden in a cupboard.

As he walked up and down the cobbled streets he was moved by a great affection and sentiment for it.