My head rings yet with the thought of it.

But I have not come to talk about myself.

Is the story true which they tell of you, Master Walter, that you are not the son of Giles the bowyer, but of a great noble ?" "Not of a great noble, Ralph, but of a gallant knight, which is just as good.

My father was killed when I was three years old, and my mother brought me to Bertha, the wife of Giles the bowyer, who had been her nurse in childhood.

I had forgotten all that had passed, and deemed myself the son of the good citizen, but since I have heard the truth my memory has awakened somewhat, and I have a dim recollection of a lordly castle and of my father and mother." "And they say, Walter, that you are going with Sir Walter Manny, with the force which is just sailing to the assistance of Lady De Montford." "That is so, Ralph, and the good knight has taken me among his esquires, young as I am, although I might well have looked for nothing better than to commence, for two years at least, as a page, seeing that I am but eighteen now.