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.'