the Adour and its many tributary streams; and although at this time, the
year of grace 1342, the name of De Brocas was no more heard, but that of
the proud Sieur de Navailles who now reigned there instead, the old name
was loved and revered amongst the people, and the boys were bred up in
all the traditions of their race, till the eagle nature at last asserted
itself, and they felt that life could no longer go on in its old
accustomed groove. Had they not been taught from infancy that a great
future lay before them? and what could that future be but the winning
back of their old ancestral lands and rights?

Perhaps they would have spoken more of this deeply-seated hope had it
not been so very chimerical -- so apparently impossible of present
fulfilment. To wrest from the proud and haughty Sieur de Navailles the
vast territory and strong castle that had been held by him in open
defiance of many mandates from a powerful King, was a task that even the
sanguine and ambitious boys knew to be a hundred times too hard for
them. If they had dreamed of it in their hearts, they had scarce named
the hope even to each other. But today the brooding silence had been
broken. The twins had taken counsel one with the other; and now burning
thoughts of this other fair inheritance were in the minds of both. What
golden possibilities did not open out before them? How small a matter it
seemed to cross the ocean and claim as their own that unknown Basildene!
Both were certain that their mother had held it in her own right. Sure,
if there were right or justice in the kingdom of the Roy Outremer, they
would but have to show who and what they were, to become in very fact
what their mother had loved to call them -- the twin brothers of Basildene.

How their young hearts swelled with delighted expectation at the thought
of leaving behind the narrow life of the mill, and going forth into the
wide world to seek fame and fortune there! And England was no such