My horse is weary of the stall,

And I am sick of captive thrall.--LADY OF THE LAKE

Letters! They were hailed like drops of water in a thirsty land.

No doubt they had been long on the way, ere they had reached the

hands of the Chevalier de Ribaumont, and it was quite possible that

they had been read and selected; but, as Berenger said, he defied

any Frenchman to imitate either Lord Walwyn's style or Sir

Marmaduke's, and when late in the autumn the packet was delivered

to him, the two captives gloated over the very outsides before they

opened them.

The first intelligence that greeted them made them give a cry of

amusement and surprise. Lady Thistlewood, whose regrets that each

of her girls was not a boy had passed into a proverb, had at

length, in Dolly's seventh year, given birth to a son on Midsummer

Day.

'Well,' said Philip, sighing, 'we must drink his health tonight!

It is well, if we are to rot here, that some one should make it up

to them!'

'And join Walwyn and Hurst!' said Berenger; and then both faces

grew much graver, as by these letters, dated three months since,

they understood how many they must have missed, and likewise that

nothing had been heard of themselves since they had left Paris

sixteen months ago.

Their letters, both to their relations and to

Sir Francis Walsingham, had evidently been suppressed; and Lord

North, who had succeeded Walsingham as ambassador, had probably

been misled by design, either by Narcisse de Nid-de-Merle himself,

or by some of his agents, for Lord Walwyn had heard from him that

the young men were loitering among the castles and garrisons of

Anjou, leading a gay and dissipated life, and that it was

universally believed that the Baron de Ribaumont had embraced the

Catholic faith, and would shortly be presented to Henry III. to

receive the grant of the Selinville honours, upon his marriage with

his cousin, the widow of the last of the line.

With much

earnestness and sorrow did good old Lord Walwyn write to his

grandson, conjuring him to bethink himself of his some, his pure

faith, his loving friends, and the hopes of his youth: and, at

least, if he himself had been led away by the allurements of the

other party, to remember that Philip had been intrusted to him in

full confidence, and to return him to his home. 'It was grief and

shame to him,' said the good old man, 'to look at Sir Marmaduke,

who had risked his son in the charge of one hitherto deemed

trustworthy; and even if Berenger had indeed forgotten and cast

away those whom he had once seemed to regard with love and duty, he

commanded him to send home Philip, who owed an obedience to his

father that could not be gainsaid.'




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