’Madame—­If you were still my subject I should command you, as you are ever my old playfellow.  Meg, I entreat you to come without delay to a true subject and old playfellow of mine, who, having already sorely imperiled his neck and his health, and escaped, as they say, by the skin of his teeth, would fain follow me into the same jeopardy again did I not commit him to such safe warship as that of Madame de Bellaise.  Probyn will tell you further.  He also bears a letter that will secure you letters and passports from the Queen-Regent.  When next you hear of me it will be with one of my crowns on my head. 
                                    Charles R.’

Therewith was a brief note from Eustace himself:—­

’Sweet Meg—­Be not terrified at what they tell you of me.  I have been preserved by a miracle in the miserable destruction of our armament and our noble leader.  Would that my life could have gone for his!  They take such a passing ailment as I have often before shaken off for more than it is worth, but I will write more from shipboard.  Time presses at present.  With my loving and dutiful greetings to my mother, and all love to my sister,
’Thine,
‘E.  Walwyn and Ribaumont.’

Mr. Probyn told us more, and very sad it was, though still we had cause for joy.  When Montrose’s little troop was defeated and broken up at the Pass of Invercharron my brother had fled with the Marquis, and had shared his wanderings in Ross-shire for some days; but, as might only too surely have been expected, the exposure brought back his former illness, and he was obliged to take shelter in the cabin of a poor old Scotchwoman.  She—­blessings be on her head!—­was faithful and compassionate, and would not deliver him up to his enemies, and thus his sickness preserved him from being taken with his leader by the wretched Macleod of Assynt.

Just as he grew a little better her son, who was a pedlar, arrived at the hut.  He too was a merciful man, and, moreover, was loyal in heart to the King, and had fought in Montrose’s first rising; and he undertook to guide my brother safely across Scotland and obtain his passage in one of the vessels that traded between Leith and Amsterdam.  Happily Eustace always had a tongue that could readily catch the trick of dialects, and this excellent pedlar guarded him like his own brother, and took care to help him through all pressing and perplexing circumstances.  Providentially, it was the height of summer, and the days were at their longest and warmest, or I know not how he could have gone through it at all; but at last he safely reached Leith, passing through Edinburgh with a pack on his back the very day that the Marquis of Huntly was executed.  He was safely embarked on board at Dutch lugger, making large engagement of payment, which were accepted when he was known to have estates in France as well as in England; and thus he landed at Amsterdam, and made his way to the Hague, where all was in full preparation for the King’s expedition to Scotland on the invitation of the nation.