"Your mother is willing that you should go. She says, and truly enough, that if you stay here it will be but to engage, as I and my forebears have done, in constant feuds with the Scots; harrying and being harried, never knowing, when we lie down to rest, but that we may be woke up by the battle shout of the Bairds; and leaving behind us, when we die, no more than we took from our fathers. "I know not how your own thoughts may run in the matter, Oswald, but methinks that there is much in what she says; though, for myself, I wish for nothing better than what I am accustomed to. Percy would have knighted me had I wished it, years ago; but plain Jock Forster I was born, and so will I die when my time comes; for it would alter my condition in no way, save that as Jock Forster I can lead a raid across the border, but as Sir John Forster it would be hardly seemly for me to do so, save when there is open war between the countries. "It is different, in your case; You are young, and can fit yourself to another mode of life; and can win for yourself, with your sword, a better fortune than you will inherit from me. Besides, lad, I am like enough, unless a Baird spear finishes me sooner, to live another thirty years yet; and it is always sure to lead to trouble, if there are two cocks in one farmyard. You would have your notions as to how matters should be done, and I should have mine; and so, for many reasons, it is right that you should go out into the world. If matters go well with you, all the better; if not, you will always be welcome back here, and will be master when I am gone. "What say you?" "It comes suddenly upon me, Father; but, as I have always thought that I should like to see something of the world beyond our own dales, I would gladly, for a time at least, accept my uncle's offer; which is a rare one, and far beyond my hopes. I should be sorry to leave you and my mother but, save for that it seems to me, as to you, that it would be best for me to go out into the world, for a time." "Then that is settled, and tomorrow you shall ride to Alnwick and see, at any rate, if aught comes of the matter. "Do not cry, Wife. It is your counsel that I am acting upon, and you have told me you are sure that it is best that he should go. It is not as if he were taking service with a southern lord. He will be but a day's ride away from us, and doubtless will be able to come over, at times, and stay a day or two with us; and once a year, when times are peaceable, you shall ride behind me, on a pillion, to see how things go with him at the Percys' castle. At any rate it will be better, by far, than if he had carried out that silly fancy of his, for putting himself in the hands of the monks and learning to read and write; which would, perchance, have ended in his shaving his crown and taking to a cowl, and there would have been an end of the Forsters of Yardhope. "Now, put that cold joint upon the table, again. Doubtless the lad has a wolf's appetite."