learn something from us, he will assuredly be able to
tell us much that is new of the doings on the border, of which nothing
but vague reports have reached our ears."

"Thanks, Allonby," Hotspur said. "I expected nothing less from you. He
will, of course, practise at arms regularly, when not occupied in
carrying messages; and you will be surprised to hear that he will go
for two hours daily to the monastery, where he has, for the last three
months, been learning reading and writing at the hands of Brother
Roger, the fighting monk. It is his own desire, and a laudable one; and
when I say that he has succeeded in giving Brother Roger satisfaction,
you may well imagine that he must have made great progress."

A smile ran round the faces of the esquires, for Brother Roger's
pugnacious instincts were widely known.

"Truly, Sir Henry, if brother Roger did not lose patience with him, it
would be hard, indeed, if we could not get on with him; and in truth,
this desire to improve himself speaks well for the lad's disposition."

When Hotspur left, Allonby said, "Take a seat, Master Oswald. But
first, have you dined?"

"I took my meal an hour since, with my uncle," Oswald replied.

"Ay, I remember that your uncle sticks to the old hours. Tell us, were
you with your father in that foray he headed, to carry off some cattle
that had been lifted by the Bairds? We heard a report of it, last
night."

"I was not with him, to my great disappointment; for he said that
another year must pass, before I should be fit to hold my own in a
fray. The affair was a somewhat hot one. Three of my father's men were
killed, and some ten or twelve of those under other leaders; and my
father and several of the band were wounded, some very sorely. It
happened thus."

And he then told the details of the affair.

"It might well have been worse," Allonby said, "for, had the Bairds had
time to assemble, it would have gone hardly with your father's party;
especially as there is, as I have heard, a blood feud between him and
them."

"They have scored the last success," Oswald said, "seeing that they
accompanied Sir Richard Rutherford in his raid, nigh two months ago;
and, as I hear, while the rest came on harrying and plundering
Croquetdale, the Bairds and their gathering remained at our hold, which
they found deserted, for indeed my father could not hope to defend it
successfully, against so large a force; and there they employed
themselves in dem