Debatable Land, a Storey of Netherby, and of me, in our country speech,
it used to be said that I was "a mother's bairn." For I had ever my
greatest joy in her, whom I lost ere I was sixteen years of age, and she
in me: not that she favoured me unduly, for she was very just, but that,
within ourselves, we each knew who was nearest to her heart. She was,
indeed, a saintly woman, yet of a merry wit, and she had great pleasure
in reading of books, and in romances. Being always, when I might, in her
company, I became a clerk insensibly, and without labour I could early
read and write, wherefore my father was minded to bring me up for a
churchman. For this cause, I was some deal despised by others of my age,
and, yet more, because from my mother I had caught the Southron trick of
the tongue. They called me "English Norman," and many a battle I have
fought on that quarrel, for I am as true a Scot as any, and I hated the
English (my own mother's people though they were) for taking and holding
captive our King, James I. of worthy memory. My fancy, like that of most
boys, was all for the wars, and full of dreams concerning knights and
ladies, dragons and enchanters, about which the other lads were fain
enough to hear me tell what I had read in romances, though they mocked at
me for reading. Yet they oft came ill speed with their jests, for my
brother had taught me to use my hands: and to hold a sword I was
instructed by our smith, who had been prentice to Harry Gow, the Burn-the-
Wind of Perth, and the best man at his weapon in broad Scotland. From
him I got many a trick of fence that served my turn later.

But now the evil time came when my dear mother sickened and died, leaving
to me her memory and her great chain of gold. A bitter sorrow is her
death to me still; but anon my father took to him another wife of the
Bethunes of Blebo. I blame myself, rather than this lady, that we dwelt
not happily in the same house. My father therefore, still minded to make
me a churchman, sent me to Robert of Montrose's new college that stands