I commend them to your good offices. Their father is a learned and
reverend gentleman who was my tutor, and also tutor to my cousin, the
Earl of Oxford, by whom he is greatly valued. They are lads of spirit,
and have been instructed in the use of arms at Hedingham as if they had
been members of our family, I am sure, gentlemen volunteers, that you
will receive them as friends. I propose that they shall take their
meals with you, but of course they will lodge here with me and my
officers; but as you are in the next house this will cause no
inconvenience. I trust that we shall not remain here long, but shall
soon be on the move. We have now been here seven months, and it is high
time we were doing something. We didn't bargain to come over here and
settle down for life in a dull Dutch town."

In a few hours the boys found themselves quite at home in their new
quarters. The gentlemen volunteers received them cordially, and they
found that for the present their duties would be extremely light,
consisting chiefly in carrying messages and orders; for as the officers
had all servants of their own, Captain Vere dispensed with their
attendance at meals. There was much to amuse and interest them in
Bergen-op-Zoom. It reminded them to some extent of Harwich, with its
narrow streets and quaint houses; but the fortifications were far
stronger, and the number of churches struck them as prodigious. The
population differed in no very large degree in dress from that of
England, but the people struck them as being slower and more deliberate
in their motions. The women's costumes differed much more widely from
those to which they were accustomed, and their strange and varied head-
dresses, their bright-coloured handkerchiefs, and the amount of gold
necklaces and bracelets that they wore, struck them with surprise.

Their stay in Bergen-op-Zoom was even shorter than they had