"Well, lads," the earl said, "so you want to follow my cousin
Francis to the wars?"

"That is our wish, my lord, if Captain Francis will be so good as
to take us with him."

"And what will my good tutor your father say to it?" the earl asked
smiling.

"I think, my lord," Geoffrey said boldly, "that if you yourself
will tell my father you think it is for our good, he will say naught
against it."

"Oh, you want to throw the responsibility upon me, and to embroil
me with your father and Mistress Vickars as an abettor of my cousin
Francis in the kidnapping of children? Well, Francis, you had better
explain to them what their duties will be if they go with you.

"You will be my pages," Francis Vere said, "and will perform the
usual duties of pages in good families when in the field. It is
the duty of pages to aid in collecting firewood and forage, and in
all other ways to make themselves useful. You will bear the same
sort of relation to the gentlemen volunteers as they do towards
the officers. They are aspirants for commissions as officers as
you will be to become gentlemen volunteers. You must not think that
your duties will be light, for they will not, and you will have to
bear many discomforts and hardships. But you will be in an altogether
different position from that of the boys who are the pages of the
company. You will, apart from your duties, and bearing in mind