At that time the feud with the Bairds had burned very hotly, and it would have lessened her anxieties had the boy been bestowed, for a time, in a convent.

Oswald himself felt no disappointment at his father's refusal to a petition that he would never have made, had not his mother dilated to him, on several occasions, upon the great advantage of learning.
No thought of repeating the request had ever entered his mind.

His father had thought more of it, and had several times expressed grave regret, to his wife, over such an extraordinary wish having occurred to their son.
"The boy has nothing of a milksop about him," he said; "and is, for his age, full of spirit and courage.

How so strange an idea could have occurred to him is more than I can imagine.

I should as soon expect to see an owlet, in a sparrow hawk's nest, as a monk hatched in Yardhope Hold." His wife discreetly kept silence as to the fact that she, herself, had first put the idea in the boy's head; for although Mary Forster was mistress inside of the hold, in all other matters John was masterful, and would brook no meddling, even by her.