Thou tree of covert and of rest
For this young bird that was distrest.--WORDSWORTH.


A baron--bound to be a good knight, and to avenge my father's death!
What does it all mean?' murmured Hal to himself as he lay on his back
in the morning sunshine, on the hill-side, the wood behind him, and
before him a distance of undulating ground, ending in the straight
mysterious blue-grey line that Hob Hogward had told him was the sea.

'Baron! Lord Clifford, like my father! He was a man in steel
armour; I remember how it rang, and how his gorget--yes, that was the
thing round his throat--how it hurt me when he lifted me up to kiss
me, and how they blamed me for crying out. Ay, and he lived in a
castle with dark, dull, narrow chambers, all save the hall, where
there was ever a tramping and a clamouring, and smells of hot burning
meat, and horses, and all sorts of things, and they sat and sat over
their meat and wine, and drank health to King Harry and the Red Rose.
I mind now how they shouted and roared, and how I wanted to go and
hide on the stairs, and my father would have me shout with them, and
drink confusion to York out of his cup, and shook me and cuffed me
when I cried. Oh! must one be like that to be a knight? I had
rather live on these free green hills with the clear blue sky above
me, and my good old ewe for my comrade'--and he fell to caressing the
face of an old sheep which had come up to him, a white, mountain-
bleached sheep with fine and delicate limbs. 'Yes, I love thee,
good, gentle, little ewe, and thee, faithful Watch,' as a young