"That is to be hoped; it is truly to be hoped," said the other, "for you have had better chances than I. This red silk, left in our hands by a fair lady, who was taking it to waste it in embroidery in some friend's castle, was all the thread I had for my mending. Now, you could have all things suitable for your mending, whether of clothes or of mind or of body, if it should so happen that you should have rents in any of these. But tell me, now, about your letter."
"There is nothing to tell," said Louis, "excepting that your Captain wishes me to write a letter to my mother, urging her to send good ransom for me, and that he said you could give me pen and ink and something to write upon."
"Pen and ink are well enough," said the man, who, as Louis now believed, was really Jasto, "for I can make them. But something to write on is a more difficult matter to find. Paper is too scarce, and parchment costs too much; and so there is none of either in this company. But I shall see to it that you have something to write on when you are ready to write. It strikes me that the chief trouble will be to put together the three things—the pen and the ink and the something to write on—in such a manner as to make a letter of them. Did you ever write a letter?"
"Not yet. But I know how to do it," said Louis; and, as he spoke, he remembered how he had promised his brother to write a letter to him. He was now going to send a letter to Viteau, but under what strange circumstances it would be written! If he were at the castle, Agnes would help him. He wished he had thought of asking her, weeks ago, to help him.
"I have written a letter myself," said Jasto, "but before I had written it I trembled to say I could do it. And I was a grown man, and had fought in three battles. But pages are bolder than soldiers. Would you like to hear about my letter?"
"Indeed I should," said Louis, anxious to listen to anything which might give him a helping hint regarding the duty he had taken upon himself.
"Well, then," said Jasto, stretching out his legs, "I shall tell you about my letter. It was just before——"
"Jasto!" rang out a voice from the opposite side of the inclosure formed by the huts.
"There!" cried Jasto, jumping to his feet, "that is the Captain. I must go. But you sit still, just where you are, and when I come back, which will be shortly, I shall tell you about my letter."