“My son and Dr. Rochecliffe are half starving,” said the knight. “And there is a lad, too, below,” said Joceline; “a page, he says, of Colonel Albert’s, whose belly rings cupboard too, and that to no common tune; for I think he could eat a horse, as the Yorkshireman says, behind the saddle. He had better eat at the sideboard; for he has devoured a whole loaf of bread and butter, as fast as Phœbe could cut it, and it has not staid his stomach for a minute—and truly I think you had better keep him under your own eyes, for the steward beneath might ask him troublesome questions if he went below—And then he is impatient, as all your gentlemen pages are, and is saucy among the women.” “Whom is it he talks of?—what page hast thou got, Albert, that bears himself so ill?” said Sir Henry. “The son of a dear friend, a noble lord of Scotland, who followed the great Montrose’s banner—afterwards joined the King in Scotland, and came with him as far as Worcester. He was wounded the day before the battle, and conjured me to take this youth under my charge, which I did, something unwillingly; but I could not refuse a father, perhaps on his death-bed, pleading for the safety of an only son.” “Thou hadst deserved an halter, hadst thou hesitated” said Sir Henry; “the smallest tree can always give some shelter,—and it pleases me to think the old stock of Lee is not so totally prostrate, but it may yet be a refuge for the distressed. Fetch the youth in;—he is of noble blood, and these are no times of ceremony—he shall sit with us at the same table, page though he be; and if you have not schooled him handsomely in his manners, he may not be the worse of some lessons from me.” “You will excuse his national drawling accent, sir?” said Albert, “though I know you like it not.” “I have small cause, Albert,” answered the knight—“small cause.—Who stirred up these disunions?—the Scots. Who strengthened the hands of Parliament, when their cause was well nigh ruined?—the Scots again. Who delivered up the King, their countryman, who had flung himself upon. their protection?—the Scots again. But this lad’s father, you say, has fought on the part of the noble Montrose; and such a man as the great Marquis may make amends for the degeneracy of a whole nation.” “Nay, father,” said Albert, “and I must add, that though this lad is uncouth and wayward, and, as you will see, something wilful, yet the King has not a more zealous friend in England; and, when occasion offered, he fought stoutly, too, in his defence—I marvel he comes not.” “He hath taken the bath” said Joceline, “and nothing less would serve than that he should have it immediately—the supper, he said, might be got ready in the meantime; and he commands all about him as if he were in his father’s old castle, where he might have called long enough, I warrant, without any one to hear him.” “Indeed?” said Sir Henry, “this must be a forward chick of the game, to crow so early.—What is his name?”