ard there looking after things,
seeing that all goes well, and that the house is kept in order. But
it is best, as you say, that a few years should pass before you go
to reside there. We need not settle, for a time, whether you shall
return to France, or go to see service with those sturdy Dutchmen
against the Spaniards. But I should say that it is best you should
go where you have already made a name, and gained many friends.

"There is no saying, yet, how matters will go there. Charles is but
a puppet in the hands of Catherine de Medici; and with the pope,
and Philip of Spain, and the Guises always pushing her on, she will
in time persuade the king, who at present earnestly wishes for
peace, to take fresh measures against the Huguenots. She is never
happy unless she is scheming, and you will see she will not be long
before she begins to make trouble, again."

The news spread quickly through Canterbury that Philip Fletcher had
returned, and the next day many of his old friends came up to see
him. At first they were a little awed by the change that had come
over him, and one or two of them even addressed him as Sir Philip.
But the shout of laughter, with which he received this well-meant
respect, showed them that he was their old schoolfellow still; and
soon set them at their ease with him.

"We didn't think, Philip," one of them said, "when you used to take
the lead in our fights with the boys of the town, that you would be
so soon fighting in earnest, in France; and that in three years you
would have gained knighthood."

"I did not think so myself, Archer. You used to call me Frenchie,
you know; but I did not think, at the time, that I was likely ever
to see France. I should like to have had my old band behind me, in
some of the fights we had there. I warrant you would have given as
hard knocks as you got, and would have held your own there, as well
as you did many a time in the fights in the Cloisters.

"Let us go and lie down under the shade of that tree, there. It
used to be our favourite bank, you know, in hot weather; and you
shall ask as many questions as you like, and I will answer as best
I can."

"And be sure, Philip, to bring all your friends in to supper," John
Fletcher said. "I warrant your mother will find plenty for them to
eat. She never used to have any difficulty about that, in the old
times; and I don't suppose their appetites are sharper, now, than
they were then."

Philip spent six months