As to the earl, he is too great a personage for me to ask a favour from, but Sir Henry is different.

I taught him the first use of his arms, and many a bout have I had with him.

He treats me as a comrade, rather than as the captain of his father's men-at-arms, here; and when I spoke to him about you, he said at once: "'Bring him here, and we will see what we can do for him.

If he is a fellow of parts and discretion, I doubt not that we can make him useful.

You say he knows every inch of our side of the border, and something of the Scottish side of it, his mother's sister being married to one of the Armstrongs.