“He sends love, duty, blessing.  Oh, he talks of coming home, so do not fear, sir!” cried Anne, a vivid colour on her cheeks.

“But what is it?” asked the father.  “Tell me first—­the rest after.”

“It is in the side—­the left side,” said Anne, gathering up in her agitation the sense of the crabbed writing as best she could.  “They have not extracted the bullet, but when they have, he will do well.”

“God grant it!  Who writes?”

“Norman Graham of Glendhu—­captain in his K. K. Regiment of Volunteer Dragoons.  That’s his great friend!  Oh, sir, he has behaved so gallantly!  He got his wound in saving the colours from the Turks, and kept his hands clutched over them as his men carried him out of the battle.”

Philip gave another little spring, and his grandfather bade Anne read the letter to him in detail.

It told how the Imperial forces had met a far superior number of Turks at Lippa, and had sustained a terrible defeat, with the loss of their General Veterani, how Captain Archfield had received a scimitar wound in the cheek while trying to save his commander, but had afterwards dashed forward among the enemy, recovered the colours of the regiment, and by a desperate charge of his fellow-soldiers, who were devotedly attached to him, had been borne off the field with a severe wound on the left side.  Retreat had been immediately necessary, and he had been taken on an ammunition waggon along rough roads to the fortress called the Iron Gates of Transylvania, whence this letter was written, and sent by the messenger who was to summon the Elector of Saxony to the aid of the remnant of the army.  It had not yet been possible to probe the wound, but Charles gave a personal message, begging his parents not to despond but to believe him recovering, so long as they did not see his servant return without him, and he added sundry tender and dutiful messages to his parents, and a blessing to his son, with thanks for the pretty letter he had not been able to answer (but which, his friend said, was lying spread on his pillow, not unstained with blood), and he also told his boy always to love and look up to her who had ever been as a mother to him.  Anne could hardly read this, and the scrap in feeble irregular lines she handed to Sir Philip.  It was—­

With all my heart I entreat pardon for all the errors that have grieved you.  I leave you my child to comfort you, and mine own true love, whom yon will cherish.  She will cherish you as a daughter, as she will be, with your consent, if God spares me to come home.  The love of all my soul to her, my mother, sister, and you.”

There was a scrawl for conclusion and signature, and Captain Graham added—­

Writing and dictating have greatly exhausted him.  He would have said more, but he says the lady can explain much, and he repeats his urgent entreaties that you will take her to your heart as a daughter, and that his son will love and honour her.