One fine evening, old Ralph stood before the door, his bald forehead and thin iron-gray locks unbonneted, and his dark ruddy-brown face (marked at Halidon Hill with a deep scar) raised with an air of deference, and yet of self-satisfaction, towards the Lady who stood on the steps of the porch.  She was small and fragile in figure; her face, though very lovely, was pale and thin, and her smile had in it something pensive and almost melancholy, as she listened to his narration of his dealings with a refractory tenant, and at the same time watched a noble-looking child of seven or eight years old, who, mounted on an old war-horse, was led round the court by a youth, his elder by some ten or eleven years.

“See mother!” cried the child, “I am holding the reins myself.  Uncle Eustace lays not a finger on them!”

“As I was saying, madam,” continued Ralph, disregarding the interruption, “I told him that I should not have thought of one exempted from feudal service in the camp, by our noble Knight, being deficient in his dues in his absence.  I told him we should see how he liked to be sent packing to Bordeaux with a sheaf of arrows on his back, instead of the sheaf of wheat which ought to be in our granary by this time.  But you are too gentle with them, my Lady, and they grow insolent in Sir Reginald’s long absence.”

“All goes ill in his absence, said the Lady.  “It is a weary while since the wounded archer brought tidings of his speedy return.”

“Therefore,” said the youth, turning round, “it must be the nearer at hand.  Come sweet sister Eleanor, cheer up, for he cannot but come soon.”

“So many soons have passed away, that my heart is well-nigh too sick for hope,” said Eleanor.  “And when he comes it will be but a bright dream to last for a moment.  He cannot long be spared from the Prince’s side.”

“You must go with him, then, sister, and see how I begin my days of chivalry—­that is, if he will but believe me fit to bear shield and lance.”

“Ah!  Master Eustace, if you were but such as I have seen others of your race,” said Ralph, shaking his head.  “There was Sir Henry —­at your age he had made the Scottish thieves look about them, I promise you.  And to go no further back than Sir Reginald himself—­ he stood by the Prince’s side at Crecy ere he was yet fifteen!”

“It is not my fault that I have not done as much, Ralph,” said Eustace.  “It is not for want of the will, as you know full well.”

“No.  Thanks to me, I trust you have the will and the teaching, at least, to make a good Knight,” said Ralph.  “And yet, while I think of the goodly height and broad shoulders of those that have gone before you—­”

“But hark! hark!” cried Eustace, cutting short a comparison which did not seem likely to be complimentary.  “Dost not hear, Ralph?  A horn!”