"While I lay there, a battle was fought beneath the very walls of the town, wherein the Emperor's troops got the upper hand, but suffered heavy loss. Their wounded men were brought in sorry state into our town, which speedily was filled to overflowing. A piteous sight it was to see those poor fellows dying, more than one, for mere lack of tendance!
"Now when night was falling on the groaning town, there halted at my door a rude country cart, in which lay a man who seemed near unto death, and a fair woman, who held his head on her knees and wept as one distraught. She made shift to tell me that she was born Venetia Fernefould, daughter to his Grace of Barrisden, and that the man she tended was her husband, Edward Lucas, a captain in the Emperor's service.
"She had been with him on this expedition, and when the battle was over, she had sought and found him amid the slain. She had given all that she had to some country folk to fetch him in that poor cart unto the town. But now that she had brought him thither, she could find neither roof to shelter him, nor surgeon to dress his hurt. So she had sought me, as a fellow-countryman, and she prayed me, in the name of our common English blood, to give her husband succor.
"Thus Captain Lucas and Lady Venetia, his wife, found harborage in my quarters. He was sore wounded indeed, with a great sword slash in the breast and shoulder, yet against all expectation he made a happy recovery. This was thanks partly to his own great vigor, and more, perhaps, to the loving care that his wife spent upon him.
"While Lucas lay upon his bed of sickness, his son was born, there in my quarters. I myself, as nearest friend to the poor parents, had him christened and called him Robert, and stood sponsor for him. 'Twas in those days I saw the red mark on his breast and shoulder—the seal that his birth had set upon the lad, as it seemeth now, for his later happiness.
"Now when my godson was a month old, Captain Lucas was well recovered. He went his way with his wife and child, and I went mine upon my embassy, and never again did I set eyes on any of the three until this hour. For though much kindness had been between us and affection,—for Lucas was a gallant fellow, and his wife was one to win all hearts,—yet so distracted was the country that there was little sending of letters, or hope that friend might hear from friend.
"'Twas only through roundabout channels that I learned, near two years later, that Lucas and his sweet lady, who was ever at his side, had perished months before of a fever that had swept their camp. And I made no doubt but that their little child had died with them."
By this time, if Merrylips had been any but a sweet-tempered little girl, she would have been almost jealous of Rupert. For her own adventures had quite paled beside this story of Captain Lucas's son, who had been so many years lost and was now so strangely found. She stood almost unheeded by Lord Caversham's chair, while the men asked Rupert questions, as if they were ready to believe him, at last.
Thus encouraged, Rupert told Lord Caversham all that he had told Merrylips, on that bleak day among the willows, and showed the ring that had been his mother's. And then Merrylips was bidden show her ring, and tell all that she had learned of the Lady Venetia's story.
"Mark it well," said Lord Caversham, when all had been told. "The lady's English kinsfolk knew only of two children of hers, that were dead in infancy. They had been told no word of the birth of this third child. No doubt letters were sent, and in the chances of war were lost. So there was none to seek and find this little waif, when his parents were taken from him.