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 latitude 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