It seems to have been arranged between them that Frank, the elder brother, who at nineteen would be of some use at his father’s side, should, with Marcombes’s assistance, make his way as quickly as he could to Ireland and to Youghal. There is no mention of Betty in this moment of decision. Marcombes was evidently able to scrape together enough money out of what they still had to carry one of the boys home—and it was to be Frank. And Robyn? Robyn at fifteen was an “Eale” still. Had Marcombes sometimes exaggerated, in his letters to the Earl, Robyn’s stature and strength? The sequel will show. Poor Carew, in the Eton days, and Marcombes himself, wrote of Robyn as a boy of sedentary habits, and a little “thicke.” If the truth must be told, there was not much of the soldier in Robert Boyle. He was the student, thinker, dreamer; and he knew himself to be unqualified, at fifteen, “to be received among the troops.” And, without money, it was quite impossible to provide himself with the necessary “equipage.” Apparently they all three—Marcombes, Frank, and Robyn—went on as far as Lyons; and there it seems likely they parted: Frank in the saddle, his horse’s head turned towards Ireland, and Robyn and Marcombes returning in deep melancholy to Geneva. There Robyn was to wait for further orders—to employ his time in learning to make “an honourable living.” It is all told in his sad little letter, written from Lyons to the Earl at Youghal: a letter which may have been carried to Ireland in Frank’s pocket. “My most honoured Lord and Father, Having according to your Lordship’s order and directions seriously pondered and considered the present estate of our affairs, we have not thought it expedient for divers reasons that my Brother will tell your Lordship by word of mouth that I should goe into Holland; for besides that I am already weary and broken with a long journey of above eight hundred miles, I am as yet too weake to undertake so long a voyage in a strange country, where when I arrive I know nobody and have little hope by reason of my youth to be received among the troops....” He explains that the money had not come; but M. Marcombes had offered to keep him at Geneva till they should hear further from the Earl, “or till it pleased God to change the face of the affaires”; and Robyn had gratefully accepted this offer. He hoped to fit himself to defend his religion, King, and country, “according to my little power.... “... If your Lordship hath need of me in Ireland, I beseech your Lordship to acquaint me therewith and to believe that I have never beene taught to abandon my parents in adversity, but that there and in all other places I will always strive to shew myself an obedient sonne....” Frank, he said, was ready to take horse to “goe towards Ireland, to secoure your Lordship according to his power,” and would carry all their news. And Robert ends his letter—