r a position in it, I gladly accept any hand that may
be stretched out to help me in the struggle."

"Just as I would have it," Sir Francis thought, "The very man I took him
for. As I am a true gentleman, mine shall not be wanting, my good
youth," he added aloud, with apparent cordiality, and affecting to
regard the other with great interest; "and when I learn the particular
direction in which you intend to shape your course, I shall be the
better able to advise and guide you. There are many ways to fortune."

"Mine should be the shortest if I had any choice," the young man
rejoined with a smile.

"Right, quite right," the crafty knight returned. "All men would take
that road if they could find it. But with some the shortest road would
not be the safest. In your case I think it might be different. You have
a sufficiently good mien, and a sufficiently good figure, to serve you
in lieu of other advantages."

"Your fair speech would put me in conceit with myself, worthy Sir," the
young man rejoined with a well-pleased air; "were I not too conscious of
my own demerits, not to impute what you say of me to good nature, or to
flattery."

"There you wrong me, my good young friend--on my credit, you do. Were I
to resort to adulation, I must strain the points of compliment to find
phrases that should come up to my opinion of your good looks; and as to
my friendly disposition towards you, I have already said that your
attentions have won it, so that mere good nature does not prompt my
words. I speak of you, as I think. May I, without appearing too
inquisitive, ask from what part of the country you come?"

"I am from Norfolk, worthy Sir," the young man answered, "where my life
has been spent among a set of men wild and uncouth, and fond of the
chase as the Sherwood archers we read of in the ballads. I am the son of
a broken gentleman; the lord of a ruined house; with one old servant
left me out of fifty kept by my father, and with scarce a hundred acres
that I can still call my own, out of the thousands swept away from me.
Still I hunt in my father's woods; kill my father's deer; and fish in my
father's lakes; since no one molests me. And I keep up the little church
near the old tumble-down hall, in which are the tombs of my ancestors,
and where my father lies buried; and the tenantry come there yet on
Sundays, though I am no longer their master; and my father's old
chaplain, Sir Oliver, still preaches there, though my father