"You could have no better recommendation, Master Ormskirk," the young king said, pleasantly, "and I trust that although your father cares not for knighthood, you will have an opportunity of gaining that honour for yourself." "I should value it, if won fairly, your Majesty, as the greatest honour I could gain. It is not that my father holds the honour more lightly than I do, but I know that 'tis his opinion that if given merely for possession of land 'tis but an accident of birth, but that if the reward of bravery, 'tis an honour that is of the highest, and one that, were it not that his thoughts are wholly turned towards scholarship and to discovering the secrets of nature, he himself would gladly have attained." "Methinks that he is right," the king said. "In the time when every landowner held his feu on condition of knightly service rendered whenever called upon, it was well that he should be called a knight, such being the term of military command; but now that many are allowed to provide substitutes, methinks that it is an error to give the title to stay-at-homes. I shall be glad, young sir, to see you also at Court, though, methinks," he added, with a smile, "that you have inherited some of your father's sobriety of nature, and will hold our pleasures at small price." "I thank your Majesty for your kindness," Edgar said, bowing; "but indeed I should not presume to judge amusements as frivolous because I myself might be unused to them; but in truth two years ago I studied at the convent of St. Alwyth, and my spare time then and most of my time since has been so occupied by my exercises in arms that I have had but small opportunity for learning the ways of Courts, but I hope to do so, seeing that a good knight should bear himself as well at Court as in the field." "You will have small opportunity now," the king said, rather dolefully. "Our royal mother is absent, and our talk is all of riots and troubles, and none seem even to think of pleasure." After leaving the king Sir Ralph presented his son and Edgar to Sir Michael de la Pole, who held high office; Robert de Vere, one of the king's special favourites; and several other young nobles, who all received them kindly for the sake of Sir Ralph. CHAPTER V A RESCUE