La Sablerie,—­that entrance which, alas! he had found only too easy.  He had therefore only to obtain horses and a guide, and this could be done at la Motte-Achard, where the party could easily be guided on foot, or conveyed in a boat if the fog should not set in again, but all the coast-line of Nissard was dangerous in autumn and winter; nay, even this very August an old man, with his daughter, her infant, and a donkey, had been found bewildered between the creeks on a sandbank, where they stood still and patient, like a picture of the Flight into Egypt, when an old fisherman found them, and brought them to the beneficent shelter of the Presbytere.

Stories of this kind were told at the meal that was something partaking of the nature of both breakfast and early dinner, but where Berenger ate little and spoke less.  Philip watched him anxiously; the boy thought the journey a perilous experiment every way, but, boyishly, was resolved neither to own his fears of it nor to leave his brother.  External perils he was quite ready to face, and he fancied that his English birth would give him some power of protecting Berenger, but he was more reasonably in dread of the present shock bringing on such an illness as the last relapse; and if Berenger lost his senses again, what should they do?  He even ventured to hint at this danger, but Berenger answered, ’That will scarce happen again.  My head is stronger now.  Besides, it was doing nothing, and hearing her truth profaned, that crazed me.  No one at least will do that again.  But if you wish to drive me frantic again, the way would be to let Hobbs carry me home without seeking her child.’

Philip bore this in mind, when, with flood-tide, Master Hobbs landed, and showed himself utterly dismayed at the turn affairs had taken.  He saw the needlessness of going to Lucon without royal authority; indeed, he thought it possible that the very application there might give the alarm, and cause all tokens of the child’s identity to be destroyed, in order to save her from her heretic relations.  But he did not at all approve of the young gentlemen going off to Paris at once.  It was against his orders.  He felt bound to take them home as he has brought them, and they might then make a fresh start if it so pleased them; but how could he return to my Lord and Sir Duke without them?  ’Mr. Ribaumont might be right—­it was not for him to say a father ought not to look after his child—­yet he was but a stripling himself, and my Lord had said, ‘Master Hobbs, I trust him to you.’’ He would clearly have liked to have called in a boat’s crew, mastered the young gentlemen, and carried them on board as captives; but as this was out of his power, he was obliged to yield the point.  He disconsolately accepted the letters in which Berenger had explained all, and in which he promised to go at once to Sir Francis Walsingham’s at Paris, to run into no needless danger, and to watch carefully over Philip; and craved pardon, in a respectful but yet manly and determined tone, for placing his duty to his lost, deserted child above his submission to his grandfather.  Then engaging to look out for a signal on the coast if he should said to Bordeaux in January, to touch and take the passengers off, Captain Hobbs took leave, and the brothers were left to their own resources.