I would have done much for you, old friend, and would have taken him in some capacity, whatever he might have turned out; but, frankly, I doubted whether John Forster, valiant moss trooper as he is, would have been like to have had a son whom I could enroll in my household, where the pages and esquires are all sons of knights and men of quality.

It is true that his father might have been a knight, had he chosen, since the earl offered him that honour after Otterburn; for three times he charged, at the head of a handful of his own men, right into the heart of the Scottish army, to try and rescue me; but he has always kept aloof in his own hold, going his own way and fighting for his own hand; and never once, that I can recall, has he paid a visit to us here, or at our other seats.

I feared that under such a training as he would be likely to have, the lad would have been but a rough diamond.

However, from his appearance and bearing, he might well have come of a noble family." "'Tis his mother's doing, methinks, Sir Henry.

She is of gentle birth.
Her father was Sir Walter Gillespie.