Both Sides the Border | Page 8

in border forays. He could already draw the strongest bow to the arrowhead, and send a shaft with a strength that would suffice to pierce the light armour worn by the Scotch borderers. It was by the bow that the English gained the majority of their victories over their northern neighbours; who did not take to the weapon, and were unable to stand for a moment against the English archers, who not only loved it as a sport, but were compelled by many ordinances to practise with it from their childhood.
Of other education he had none, but in this respect he was no worse off than the majority of the knights and barons of the time, who were well content to trust to monkish scribes to draw up such documents as were required, and to affix their seal to them. He himself had once, some six years before, expressed a wish to be sent for a year to the care of the monks at Rothbury, whose superior was a distant connection of his father, in order to be taught to read and write; but John Forster had scoffed at the idea.
"You have to learn to be a man, lad," he had said, "and the monks will never teach you that. I do not know one letter from another, nor did my father, or any of my forebears, and we were no worse for it. On the marches, unless a man means to become a monk, he has to learn to make his sword guard his head, to send an arrow straight to the mark, to know every foot of the passes, and to be prepared, at the order of his lord, to defend his country against the Scots.
"These are vastly more important matters than reading and writing; which are, so far as I can see, of no use to any fair man, whose word is his bond, and who deals with honest men. I can reckon up, if I sell so many cattle, how much has to be paid, and more of learning than that I want not. Nor do you, and every hour spent on it would be as good as wasted. As to the monks, Heaven forfend that you should ever become one. They are good men, I doubt not, and I suppose that it is necessary that some should take to it; but that a man who has the full possession of his limbs should mew himself up, for life, between four walls, passing his time in vigils and saying masses, in reading books and distributing alms, seems to me to be a sort of madness."
"I certainly do not wish to become a monk, Father, but I thought that I should like to learn to read and write."
"And when you have learnt it, what then, Oswald? Books are expensive playthings, and no scrap of writing has ever been inside the walls of Yardhope Hold, since it was first built here, as far as I know. As to writing, it would be of still less use. If a man has a message to send, he can send it by a hired man, if it suits him not to ride himself. Besides, if he had written it, the person he sent it to would not be able to read it, and would have to go to some scribe for an interpretation of its contents.
"No, no, my lad, you have plenty to learn before you come to be a man, without bothering your head with this monkish stuff. I doubt if Hotspur, himself, can do more than sign his name to a parchment; and what is good enough for the Percys, is surely good enough for you."
The idea had, in fact, been put into Oswald's head by his mother. At that time the feud with the Bairds had burned very hotly, and it would have lessened her anxieties had the boy been bestowed, for a time, in a convent. Oswald himself felt no disappointment at his father's refusal to a petition that he would never have made, had not his mother dilated to him, on several occasions, upon the great advantage of learning.
No thought of repeating the request had ever entered his mind. His father had thought more of it, and had several times expressed grave regret, to his wife, over such an extraordinary wish having occurred to their son.
"The boy has nothing of a milksop about him," he said; "and is, for his age, full of spirit and courage. How so strange an idea could have occurred to him is more than I can imagine. I should as soon expect to see an owlet, in a sparrow hawk's nest, as a monk hatched in Yardhope Hold."
His wife discreetly kept silence as to the fact that she, herself, had first