Sir Lancelot, however, would not hear of admitting the outlaws.  Young Clifford and the Lord of Peelholm should be welcome, or more truly he could not help receiving them, but the archers must stay outside, their entertainment in beef and ale being committed to Bunce and the chief warder, while the two noblemen were conducted to the castle hall.  For the first time in his life Clifford was received in his mother’s home, and accepted openly, as he knelt before her to ask her blessing.  A fine, active, handsome youth was he, with bright, keen eyes, close-curled black locks and hardy complexion, telling of his out-of-door life, and a free use of his limbs, and upright carriage, though still with more of the grace of the free mountain than of the training of pagedom and squiredom.

Nor could he speak openly and freely to her, not knowing how much he might say of his past intercourse with King Henry, and of her endeavour to discover it; and he sat beside her, neither of them greatly at ease, at the long table, which, by the array of silver cups, of glasses and the tall salt cellar separating the nobility and their followers, recalled to him dim recollections of the scenes of his youth.

He asked for his sister—­he knew his little brother had died in the Netherlands—­and he heard that she had been in the Priory of St. Helen’s, and was now in the household of my Lady of Hungerford, who had promised to find a good match for her.  There was but one son of the union with the knight of Threlkeld, and him Hal had never seen; nor was he at home, being a page in the household of the Earl of Westmoreland, according to the prevailing fashion of the castles of the great feudal nobles becoming schools of arms, courtesy and learning for the young gentlemen around.  Indeed, Lady Clifford surveyed her eldest son with a sigh that such breeding was denied him, as she observed one or two little deficiencies in what would be called his table manners—­not very important, but revealing that he had grown up in the byre instead of the castle, where there was a very strict and punctilious code, which figured in catechisms for the young.

She longed to keep him, and train him for his station, but in the first place, Sir Lancelot still held that it could not safely be permitted, since he had little confidence in the adherence of the House of Nevil to the Red Rose; and moreover Hal himself utterly refused to remain concealed in Cumberland instead of carrying his service to the King he loved.

In fact, when he heard the proposal of leaving him in the north, he stood up, and, with far more energy than had been expected from him, said, ’Go I must, to my lawful King’s banner, and my father’s cause.  To King Harry I carry my homage and whatever my hand can do!’

Such an expression of energy lighted his hitherto dreamy eyes, that all beholders turned their glances on his face with a look of wonder.  Sir Lancelot again objected that he would be rushing to his ruin.