With an elbow on the table, and one hand toying with his long riding-whip, sat, booted and spurred, the jovial figure of Sir Marmaduke, who called out, in his hearty voice, ’A good riddance of an outlandish Papist, say I!  Read the letter, Berenger lad.  No, no, no!  English it!  I know nothing of your mincing French!  ’Tis the worst fault I know in you, boy, to be half a Frenchman, and have a French name’—­a fault that good Sir Marmaduke did his best to remedy by always terming his step-son Berenger or Berry Ribmount, and we will so far follow his example as henceforth to give the youth the English form of his Christian name.  He was by this time a tall lad of eighteen, with straight features, honest deep blue eyes, very fair hair cut short and brushed up to a crest upon the middle of his head, a complexion of red and white that all the air of the downs and the sea failed to embrown, and that peculiar openness and candour of expression which seems so much an English birthright, that the only trace of his French origin was, that he betrayed no unbecoming awkwardness in the somewhat embarrassing position in which he was placed, literally standing, according to the respectful discipline of the time, as the subject of discussion, before the circle of his elders.  His colour was indeed, deepened, but his attitude was easy and graceful, and he used no stiff rigidity nor restless movements to mask his anxiety.  At Sir Marmaduke’s desire, he could not but redden a good deal more, but with a clear, unhesitating voice, he translated, the letter that he had received from the Chevalier de Ribaumont, who, by the Count’s death, had become Eustacie’s guardian.  It was a request in the name of Eustacie and her deceased father, that Monsieur le Baron de Ribaumont—­who, it was understood, had embraced the English heresy—­would concur with his spouse in demanding from his Holiness the Pope a decree annulling the childish marriage, which could easily be declared void, both on account of the consanguinity of the parties and the discrepancy of their faith; and which would leave each of them free to marry again.

‘Nothing can be better,’ exclaimed his mother.  ’How I have longed to free him from that little shrew, whose tricks were the plague of my life!  Now there is nothing between him and a worthy match!’

‘We can make an Englishman of him now to the backbone,’ added Sir Marmaduke, ’and it is well that it should be the lady herself who wants first to be off with it, so that none can say he has played her a scurvy trick.’

‘What say you, Berenger?’ said Lord Walwyn.  ’Listen to me, fair nephew.  You know that all my remnant of hope is fixed upon you, and that I have looked to setting you in the room of the son of my own; and I think that under our good Queen you will find it easier to lead a quiet God-fearing life than in your father’s vexed country, where the Reformed religion lies under persecution.  Natheless, being a born liegeman of the King of France,