"The first letter is 'A'. There it is, in that horn book, you see. It looks like two men, or two trees, leaning against each other for support; with a line, which might be their hands, in the middle.

"Now, make a letter like that, on your board. The little 'a' is a small circle with an upright, with a tail to it; you might fancy it a fish, with its tail turned up.

"Now, write each of those, twelve times."

So he continued with the first six letters.

"That will be as much as you will remember, at first," he said. "Now we will begin spelling with those letters, and you will see how they are used. You see, it is a mixture of the sounds of the two: 'b a' makes ba, and 'b e' be, 'c a' ca, 'da' da, 'd e' de, and so on. Now, we will work it out."

Oswald was intelligent, and anxious to learn. He had been accustomed, when riding, to notice every irregularity of ground, every rock and bush that might serve as a guide, if lost in a fog, and he very quickly took in the instruction given him; and, by the time the convent bell rung to dinner, he had made a considerable progress with the variations that could be formed with the six letters that he had learned; and the friar expressed himself as highly satisfied with him.

"You have learned as much, in one morning, as many of the boys who attend schools would learn in a month," he said. "If you go on like this, I will warrant that, if Percy delays his return for two months, you will know as much as many who have been two years at the work. I have always said that it is a mistake to teach children young; their minds do not take in what you say to them. You may beat it into them, but they only get it by rote; and painfully, because they don't understand how one thing leads to another, and it is their memory only, and not their minds, that are at work."

The next day came news that the Scotch had crossed the border, and there was great excitement in the castle; but it was soon learned that the invasion was not on a great scale, neither the Douglases nor the Earl of March having taken part in it.

"There is no fear of our being attacked, here," Alwyn Forster said to Oswald. "The sheriffs of the county will call out their levies, and will soon make head against them. At the same time, we shall make preparations against any chance of their coming hither."

This was done. Vast quant.i.ties of arrows were prepared, stones collected and carried up to the points on the wall most exposed to attack; and orders sent out, by the governor of the castle in the Percys' absence, to the people for many miles round, that on the approach of the Scots all were to retire to refuge, the women and children taking to the hills, while the men capable of bearing arms were to hasten to the defence of the castle.

For a time, the Scots carried all before them, wasting and devastating the country. Oswald heard that they had captured, without resistance, his father's hold. He rejoiced at the news, for he feared that, not knowing the strength of the invading force, resistance might have been attempted; in which case all in the hold might have been put to the sword. He had no doubt, now, that his father and mother had retired with their followers to the hills, as they had always determined to do, in case of an invasion by a force too strong to resist.

Had the Percys been at home, they might have held out, confident that the Scotch would be attacked before they could effect its capture; but as all the northern lords, with their retainers, were away in the south, it would be some time before a force could be collected that could make head against the Scots.

A portion of the Scottish army laid siege to the castle of Wark, on the Tweed. This castle had always played a conspicuous part in the border wars. It had been besieged and captured by David of Scotland, in the reign of Stephen; and two or three years later was again besieged, but this time repulsed all attacks. David, after his defeat at the battle of the Standard, resumed the siege. It again repulsed all attacks, but at last was reduced to an extremity by famine, and capitulated.

The castle was demolished by the Scots, but was rebuilt by Henry the Second. In 1215 it was again besieged, this time by King John, who resented the defection of the northern barons; and it was captured, and again destroyed. In 1318 it was captured and destroyed by Robert Bruce.

In 1341 it was besieged by David Bruce, but held out until relieved by King Edward, himself. In 1383 it was again besieged by the Scots, and part of its fortifications demolished. On the present occasion it was again captured, and razed to the ground.

Another portion of the Scottish army, plundering and burning, advanced along the valley of the Coquet. As they approached, the inhabitants of the district round Alnwick began to pour into the castle; but orders were issued that all the fighting men should join the force of Sir Robert Umfraville, the sheriff of the district, who was gathering a force to give the Scots battle.

"I fear that there is small chance of the Scots making their way hither," Oswald's instructor said, in lugubrious tones. "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. Spelling in those days, however, had by no means crystallized itself into any definite form, and there was so large a lat.i.tude allowed that, if the letters used gave an approximate sound to the word, it was deemed sufficient.

The consequence was that Oswald's education progressed at a speed that would, in these more rigid days, be deemed impossible. He was intensely interested in the work, and even his martial exercises were, for the time, secondary to it in his thoughts. He felt so deeply grateful to his instructor that, even if he had struck him, he would have cared but little. In those days rough knocks were readily given, and the idea that there was anything objectionable, in a boy being struck, had never been entertained by anyone. Wives were beaten not uncommonly, servants frequently; and from the highest to the lowest, corporal punishment was regarded as the only way to ensure the carrying out of orders.

Oswald was slower in learning to write down the letters than he was to read them. His hands were so accustomed to the rein, the bow, and the sword that they bungled over the work of forming letters. Nevertheless, by the time the Percys returned, three months and a half after his arrival at the castle, he could both read and write short and simple words; and as these formed a large proportion of English speech, at the time, he had made a considerable step in the path of learning, and the monk was highly pleased with his pupil.

"I shall not be able to come tomorrow, Father," he said to the monk, one day. "The earl and Sir Henry will be back tonight, and my uncle says that I must keep near him, tomorrow; so that, if opportunity offers, he may present me to the knight."

"I feared it would come to that," the monk said. "I wish they had all stopped away, another three or four months; then you would have got over your difficulty of piecing together syllables, so as to make up a long word. 'Tis a thousand pities that you should stop altogether, just when you are getting on so well."

"I will come as often as I can, Father, if you will let me."

"No, no, lad. I know what it is, when the family are at home. It will be, 'Here, Oswald, ride with such a message;' or Hotspur, himself, may be going out with a train, and you will have to accompany him. There will always be something.

"Indeed, save but for your teaching, it is high time that the Percys were back again; for there has already been a great deal of hot work, on the border, and report says that the Scots are mustering strongly, and that there is going to be a great raid into c.u.mberland; so you will be busy, and so shall I. The lay brothers have made but a poor hand of it, while I have been busy. I went down in the evening, yesterday, to see them drill; and it was as much as I could do to prevent myself from falling upon them, and giving them a lesson of a different sort.

"As it was, I gave it to their instructor heartily, and was had up before the abbot on his complaint, this morning; and am to eat Lenten fare for the next ten days, which accords but ill either with my liking or needs."

In the evening, the courtyard was ablaze with torches as, amid the cheers of the garrison, the Earl of Northumberland and his son rode in, with a strong body of men-at-arms. The greater portion of the following with which they had met Henry of Lancaster on his landing, and escorted him to London, had long since returned to their homes; being released from service, when it was seen that no opposition was to be looked for from the adherents of Richard. The followings of the various n.o.bles and knights of the northern counties had left the main body on the way home, and Northumberland had brought with him, to Alnwick, only the men-at-arms who formed the regular force retained under his standard.

Oswald was greatly struck with the splendid appearance, and appointments, of the earl and the knights who attended him, and with the martial array of his followers. Hitherto, he had seen but the roughest side of war; the arms and armour carried not for show, but for use, and valued for their strength, without any reference to their appearance. On the border there was not the smallest attempt at uniformity in appearance, polished armour was regarded with disfavour, and that worn was of the roughest nature, the local armourer's only object being to furnish breast and back pieces that would resist the strongest spear thrust. Of missiles they made little account, for the Scots had but few archers, and their bows were so inferior in strength, to those carried by the English archers, that armour strong enough to resist a spear thrust was amply sufficient to keep out a Scottish arrow.

There was not, even in the array of the Earl of Northumberland's men-at-arms, any approach to the uniformity that now prevails among bodies of soldiers. The helmets, breast and back pieces, were, however, of similar form, as the men engaged for continued service were furnished with armour by the earl; but there was a great variety in the garments worn under them, these being of all colours, according to the fancy of their wearers. All, however, carried spears of the same length, while some had swords, and others heavy axes at their girdles.

The helmets and armour were all brightly polished, and as the lights of the torches flashed from them and from the spearheads; Oswald, for the first time, witnessed something of the pomp of war.

His uncle, as captain of the men-at-arms left in the castle, was invited to the banquet held after the arrival of the force. Oswald, therefore, was free to wander about among the soldiers, listening to their talk of what they had seen in London, and of the entertainments there in honour of the new king; exciting, thereby, no small amount of envy among those who had been left behind in garrison.

Oswald already knew that the earl had been appointed Constable of England, for life, and now heard that the lordship of the Isle of Man had since been conferred on him.

Chapter 4: An Unequal Joust.

"You must don your best costume tomorrow, Oswald," his uncle said, when he returned from the banquet. "Sir Henry Percy's first question, after asking as to the health of the garrison, was:

"'Has this nephew of yours, of whom you were speaking to me, come yet?'

"I told him that you had been here well-nigh four months, that you had been practising in arms with my best swordsmen, who spoke highly of you, and that the whole of your spare time had been spent at the monastery, where you had been studying to acquire the art of reading and writing, thinking that such knowledge must be useful to you in his service. I told him that brother Roger had reported that you had shown marvellous sharpness there, and could already read from a missal, barring only some of the long words.

"'Oh, he had the fighting monk for his master!' Sir Henry said, laughing. 'Truly he must have been a good pupil, if he has come out of it without having his head broken, a dozen times. The friar is a thorn in the abbot's flesh, and more than once I have had to beg him off, or he would have been sent to the monastery of Saint John, which is a place of punishment for refractory monks. But in truth he is an honest fellow, though he has mistaken his vocation. He is a valiant man-at-arms, and the abbot's contingent would be of small value, without him.

"'Well, I will see your nephew in the morning. His perseverance in learning, and his quickness in acquiring it, show him to be a youth of good parts, and intelligent; but until I see him, I cannot say what I will make of him.'"

Accordingly, the next morning the lad accompanied his uncle to Sir Henry's private apartment, and found the knight alone. Sir Henry, Lord Percy, was now about forty years old. He had received the order of knighthood at the coronation of Richard the Second, when his father was created earl; and, nine years later, he was made governor of Berwick and Warden of the Marches; in which office he displayed such activity in following up and punishing raiders, that the Scots gave him the name of Hotspur. He was then sent to Calais, where he showed great valour.

Two years later he was made Knight of the Garter, and was then appointed to command a fleet, sent out to repel a threatened invasion by the French. Here he gained so great a success that he came to be regarded as one of the first captains of the age.

At Otterburn, his impetuosity cost him his freedom; for, pressing forward into the midst of the Scotch army, he and his brother Ralph were taken prisoners, and carried into Scotland. He had just been appointed, by King Henry, sheriff of Northumberland, and governor of Berwick and Roxburgh, and received other marks of royal favour.

Although of no remarkable height, his broad shoulders and long, sinewy arms testified to his remarkable personal strength. His face was pleasant and open, and showed but small sign of his impetuous and fiery disposition.

"So this is the young springal," he said, with a smile; as, with a quick glance, he took in every detail of Oswald's figure and appearance. "By my troth, you have not overpraised him. He bears himself well, and is like to be a stout fighter, when he comes to his full strength. Indeed, as the son of John Forster of Yardhope, and as your nephew, good Alwyn, he could scarce be otherwise; although I have not heard that either his father, or you, ever showed any disposition for letters."

"No indeed, Sir Henry; nor have we, as far as I have ever seen, been any the worse for our lack of knowledge on that head. But with the lad here, it is different. Under your good patronage he may well hope to attain, by good conduct and valour, a promotion where book learning may be of use to him; and therefore, when he expressed a desire to learn, I did my best to favour his design."

"And you did well, Alwyn. And since he has gained so much, in so short a time, it were a pity he should not follow it up; and he shall, if it likes him, so long as he is in this castle, have two hours every morning in which he can visit the fighting monk, until he can read and write freely.

"Now, young sir, the question is, how can we best employ you? You are too old for a lady's bower, but not old enough, yet, for an esquire."

"Nor could I aspire to such a position, my lord, until I have proved myself worthy of it. My uncle told me that he had suggested that I might be useful as a bearer of messages, and orders; and as I know every foot of the border, from near Berwick to c.u.mberland, methinks that I might serve you in that way. I ride lightly, know every mora.s.s and swamp, and every road through the fells; and have at times, when there was peace, crossed the Cheviots by several of the pa.s.ses, to pay visits to my mother's sister, who is married to one of the Armstrongs, near Jedburgh. If your lordship will deign to employ me in such service, I can promise to do so safely, and to justify my uncle's recommendation; and shall be ready, at all times, to risk my life in carrying out your orders."