“’Tis a horse galloping,” he cried; and as they all turned to look he flung his cap in the air. “’Tis the messenger,” he burst forth, “and he waves his hat in his hand as if he had gone mad with joy.  Off go I to the church tower as fast as legs will carry me.”

And off he hobbled, and the messenger galloped onward, flourishing his hat as he rode, and giving it no rest till he drew rein before the Plough Horse door, and all gathered about him to hear his news.

“An heir—­an heir!” he cried. “’Tis an heir, and as lusty as a young lion.  Gerald Walter John Percy Mertoun, next Duke of Osmonde!  Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!”

And at the words all the men shouted and flung up their hats, the landlord with his wife and children ran forth, women rushed out of their cottages and cried for joy—­and the bells in the old church’s grey tower swung and rang such a peal of gladness as sounded as if they had gone wild in their ecstacy of welcome to the new-born thing.

In all England there was no nobleman’s estate adorned by a house more beautiful than was the Tower of Camylott.  Through the centuries in which it had stood upon the fair hill which was its site, there had passed no reign in which a king or queen had not been guest there, and no pair of royal eyes had looked from its window quite without envy, upon the richly timbered, far reaching park and the broad lovely land rolling away to the sea.  There was no palace with such lands spread before it, and there were few kings’ houses as stately and beauteous in their proportions as was this one.

The fairest room in the fair house had ever been the one known as her Grace’s White Chamber.  ’Twas a spacious room with white panelled walls and large mullioned windows looking forth over green hill and vale and purple woodland melting into the blue horizon.  The ivy grew thick about the windows, and birds nested therein and twittered tenderly in their little homes.  The Duchess greatly loved the sound, as she did the fragrance of flowers with which the air of the White Chamber was ever sweet, and which was wafted up to it by each wandering breeze from the flower-beds blooming on the terrace below.

In this room—­as the bells in the church tower rang their joyous peal—­her young Grace lay in her great bed, her new-born child on her arm and her lord seated close to her pillow, holding her little hand to his lips, his lashes somewhat moist as he hung over his treasures.

“You scarce can believe that he is here,” the Duchess whispered with a touching softness.  “Indeed, I scarce believe it myself.  ’Twas not fair of him to keep us waiting five years when we so greatly yearned for his coming.  Perhaps he waited, knowing that we expected so much from him—­such beauty and such wisdom and such strength.  Let us look at him together, love.  The physician will order you away from me soon, but let us see first how handsome he is.”

She thrust the covering aside and the two heads—­one golden and one brown—­pressed closer together that they might the better behold the infant charms which were such joy to them.