"Sir Robert is a stout fighter, and the Scots, laden as they must be with booty, and having hitherto met with no resistance, will be careless and like to be taken by surprise.

Methinks the abbot ought to send off a contingent, to aid Sir Robert." Oswald laughed.
"I suppose he wants to keep them for more urgent work, and thinks that the Church should only fight when in desperate straits.

However, Father, you may have an opportunity yet; for we cannot regard it as certain that Sir Robert will defeat the Scots." Three days later, however, the news arrived that Sir Robert had attacked the Scots, at Fulhetlaw, and utterly defeated them; taking prisoner Sir Richard Rutherford and his five sons, together with Sir William Stewart, John Turnbull, a noted border reiver, and many others; and that those who had escaped were in full flight for the border.
The Scotch incursion had made no change in Oswald's work.

He continued to study hard with the monk.

As a rule, he fully satisfied his teacher; but at times, when he failed to name the letters required to make up a certain sound, the latter lost all patience with him; and, more than once, with difficulty restrained himself from striking him.