ughly teased
by her spoilt children. He had done nothing worse than growl and show
his teeth, but the town-bred dame had taken alarm, and half in terror,
half in spite, had insisted on his instant execution, since he was too
old to be valuable. Stephen, who loved the dog only less than he loved
his brother Ambrose, had come to high words with her; and the end of the
altercation had been that she had declared that she would suffer no
great lubbers of the half-blood to devour her children's inheritance,
and teach them ill manners, and that go they must, and that instantly.
John had muttered a little about "not so fast, dame," and "for very
shame," but she had turned on him, and rated him with a violence that
demonstrated who was ruler in the house, and took away all disposition
to tarry long under the new dynasty.

The boys possessed two uncles, one on each side of the house. Their
father's elder brother had been a man-at-arms, having preferred a
stirring life to the Forest, and had fought in the last surges of the
Wars of the Roses. Having become disabled and infirm, he had taken
advantage of a corrody, or right of maintenance, as being of kin to a
benefactor of Hyde Abbey at Winchester, to which Birkenholt some
generations back had presented a few roods of land, in right of which,
one descendant at a time might be maintained in the Abbey. Intelligence
of his brother's death had been sent to Richard Birkenholt, but answer
had been returned that he was too evil-disposed with the gout to attend
the burial.

The other uncle, Harry Randall, had disappeared from the country under a
cloud connected with the king's deer, leaving behind him the reputation
of a careless, thriftless, jovial fellow, the best company in all the
Forest, and capable of doing every one a work save his own.

The two brothers, who were about seven and six years old at the time of
his flight, had a lively recollection of his charms as a playmate, and
of their mother's grief for him, and refusal to believe any ill of her
Hal. Rumours had come of his attainment to vague and unknown greatness
at court, under the patronage of the Lord Archbishop of York, which the
Verdurer laughed to scorn, though his wife gave credit to them. Gifts
had come from time to time, passed through a succession of servants and
officials of the king, such as a coral and silver rosary, a jewelled
bodkin, an agate carved with Saint Catherine, an ivory pouncet box with
a pierc