Letters!  They were hailed like drops of water in a thirsty land.  No doubt they had been long on the way, ere they had reached the hands of the Chevalier de Ribaumont, and it was quite possible that they had been read and selected; but, as Berenger said, he defied any Frenchman to imitate either Lord Walwyn’s style or Sir Marmaduke’s, and when late in the autumn the packet was delivered to him, the two captives gloated over the very outsides before they opened them.

The first intelligence that greeted them made them give a cry of amusement and surprise.  Lady Thistlewood, whose regrets that each of her girls was not a boy had passed into a proverb, had at length, in Dolly’s seventh year, given birth to a son on Midsummer Day.

‘Well,’ said Philip, sighing, ’we must drink his health tonight!  It is well, if we are to rot here, that some one should make it up to them!’

‘And join Walwyn and Hurst!’ said Berenger; and then both faces grew much graver, as by these letters, dated three months since, they understood how many they must have missed, and likewise that nothing had been heard of themselves since they had left Paris sixteen months ago.  Their letters, both to their relations and to Sir Francis Walsingham, had evidently been suppressed; and Lord North, who had succeeded Walsingham as ambassador, had probably been misled by design, either by Narcisse de Nid-de-Merle himself, or by some of his agents, for Lord Walwyn had heard from him that the young men were loitering among the castles and garrisons of Anjou, leading a gay and dissipated life, and that it was universally believed that the Baron de Ribaumont had embraced the Catholic faith, and would shortly be presented to Henry III. to receive the grant of the Selinville honours, upon his marriage with his cousin, the widow of the last of the line.  With much earnestness and sorrow did good old Lord Walwyn write to his grandson, conjuring him to bethink himself of his some, his pure faith, his loving friends, and the hopes of his youth:  and, at least, if he himself had been led away by the allurements of the other party, to remember that Philip had been intrusted to him in full confidence, and to return him to his home.  ’It was grief and shame to him,’ said the good old man, ’to look at Sir Marmaduke, who had risked his son in the charge of one hitherto deemed trustworthy; and even if Berenger had indeed forgotten and cast away those whom he had once seemed to regard with love and duty, he commanded him to send home Philip, who owed an obedience to his father that could not be gainsaid.’  Lord Walwyn further bade his grandson remember that the arrangements respecting his inheritance had been made in confidence that his heir was English in heart and faith, and that neither the Queen nor his own conscience would allow him to let his inheritance pass into French of Papist hands.  There was scarcely a direct reproach, but the shaken, altered handwriting showed how stricken the aged man must be; and after his signature was added one still more trembling line, ’An ye return not speedily, ye will never see the old grandsire more.’