he was able to give it with a heart full of hope and tender confidence; and he felt sure that whether the lads went forth for weal or woe, he should (if they and he both lived through the following years) see their faces again in this selfsame spot.  They would not forget old friends —­ they would seek them out in years to come; and if fate smiled upon their path, others would share in the sunshine of their good fortune.

And so the boys rose to their feet again to meet a proud, glad smile from the eyes of the kind old man; and though Margot’s face was buried in her apron, and honest Jean was not ashamed to let the tears run down his weatherbeaten face, there was no attempt made to hinder or to sadden the eager lads.  They kissed their good nurse with many protestations of love and gratitude, telling her of the days to come when they would return as belted knights, riding on fine horses, and with their esquires by their side, and how they would tell the story of how they had been born and bred in this very mill, and of all they owed to those who had sheltered them in their helpless infancy.

The farewells once over, with the inevitable sadness that such scenes must entail, the boys’ spirits rose with wonderful celerity.  True, they looked back with fond glances at the peaceful homestead where their childhood had been passed, as they reached the ridge of the undulating plain from which the last glimpse of the red roofs and tumbling water was to be had.  Raymond even felt a mist rise before his eyes as he stood and gazed, and Gaston dashed his hand impatiently across his eyes as though something hindered his vision; but his voice was steady and full of courage as he waved his right arm and cried aloud: 

“We will come back! we will see this place again!  Ah, Raymond, methinks I shall love it better then than I do today; for though it has been a timely place of shelter, it has not been —­ it never could be —­ our true home.  Our home is Basildene, in the fair realm of England’s King.  I will rest neither day nor night until I have looked upon the home our mother dwelt in, and have won the right to call that home our own.”

Then the brothers strode with light springy steps along the road which would in time lead them to the great seaport city of Bordeaux, towards which all the largest roads of the whole province converged.

The royal city of the Garonne was full forty leagues away —­ over a hundred British miles —­ and the boys had never visited it yet, albeit their dream had long been to travel thither on their feet, and see the wonders of which travellers spoke.  A day’s march of ten leagues or more was as nothing to them.  Had the days been longer they would have done more, but travelling in the dark through these forest-clad countries was by no means safe, and the Father had bid them promise that they would always strive to seek shelter ere the shades of night fell; for great picks of wolves ravaged the forests of Gascony until a much later date, and though the season of their greatest boldness and fierceness had not yet come, they were customers not to be trifled with at any time, and a hunting knife and a crossbow would go but a small way in defence if a resolute attack were to be made by even half-a-dozen of the fierce beasts.