a-wearying with their manners and their courtesies and such like
daft woman's gear! Why could not his father be content to let
him grow up like his fellows, rough and free and ready?

'And knowing nothing better--nothing beyond,' said Eleanor.

'What would you have better than the hill and the brae? To tame
a horse and fly a hawk, and couch a lance and bend a bow!
That's what a man is made for, without fashing himself with
letters and Latin and manners, no better than a monk; but my
father would always have it so!'

'Ye'll be thankful to him yet, Davie,' put in his graver
brother.

'Thankful! I shall forget all about it as soon as I am
knighted, and make you write all my letters--and few enough
there will be.'

'And you, Malcolm!' said Eleanor, 'would you be content to hide
within four walls, and know nothing by your own eyes?'

'No indeed, cousin,' replied the lad; 'I long for the fair
churches and cloisters and the learned men and books that my
father tells of. My mother says that her brother, that I am
named for, yearned to make this a land of peace and godliness,
and to turn these high spirits to God's glory instead of man's
strife and feud, and how it might have been done save for the
slaying of your noble father--Saints rest him!--which broke mine
uncle's heart, so that he died on his way home from pilgrimage.