"I have been looked upon as one able to strike as hard a blow as any on the border; but assuredly, you would strike a heavier one.

Why, man, you must be five or six inches bigger, round the chest, than I am." "You have been an active man from your youth," Roger replied, "ever on horseback and about, while I spent years with nought to do but eat and drink, and build up my frame, in a monastery." "Oswald told us, in his letters, that you had been a monk; but had, with the consent of the abbot, unfrocked yourself." "It was so," Roger replied, with a laugh.

"Methinks that it was a happy day for the abbot, as well as for myself, when I laid aside my gown; for I fear that I gave him more trouble than all the rest of his convent.

Besides, it was as if a wolf's cub had been brought up among a litter of ladies' lapdogs--it was sure to be an ill time for both." "And for how long are you at home with us, brother Alwyn ?" John Forster asked, presently.
"I am here for a week only, John; but Oswald has leave for a month, seeing that, at present, there is no great chance of Hotspur needing his services.

The Scotch are quiet since the king returned, I hear." "Ay, they are as quiet as is their nature to be, but 'tis not likely to last long.