It was not until the late hour of nine o'clock that he said goodbye to his foster parents, for he was next day to repair to the lodging of Sir Walter Manny, who was to sail again before the week was out for the Low Countries, from which he had only returned for a few days to have private converse with the king on the state of matters there.

His friends would have delivered to him his mother's ring and other tokens which she had left, but thought it better to keep these, with the other proofs of his birth, until his claim was established to the satisfaction of the lord justiciaries.
The next morning early, when Walter descended the stairs, he found Ralph Smith waiting for him.

His face was strapped up with plaster and he wore his arm in a sling, for his armour had been twice cut through as he led his party in through the sally-port.
"How goes it with you, Ralph ?" Walter said.

"Not much the worse, I hope, for your hard knocks ?" "Not a whit," Ralph replied cheerfully, "and I shall be all right again before the week is out; but the leech made as much fuss over me as if I had been a girl, just as though one was not accustomed to hard knocks in a smithy.

Those I got yesterday were not half so hard as that which you gave me the day before.