better," she said. "Come now, lads, be advised and go no farther
than Winchester, where Master Ambrose may get all the book-learning
he is ever craving for, and you, Master Steevie, may prentice
yourself to some good trade."

"Prentice!" cried Stephen, scornfully.

"Ay, ay. As good blood as thine has been prenticed," returned Joan.
"Better so than be a cut-throat sword-and-buckler fellow, ever
slaying some one else or getting thyself slain--a terror to all
peaceful folk. But thine uncle will see to that--a steady-minded
lad always was he--was Master Dick."

Consoling herself with this hope, the old woman rolled up their new
suits with some linen into two neat knapsacks; sighing over the
thought that unaccustomed fingers would deal with the shirts she had
spun, bleached, and sewn. But she had confidence in "Master Dick,"
and concluded that to send his nephews to him at Winchester gave a
far better chance of their being cared for, than letting them be
flouted into ill-doing by their grudging brother and his wife.



CHAPTER II. THE GRANGE OF SILKSTEDE



"All Itchen's valley lay,
St. Catherine's breezy side and the woodlands far away,
The huge Cathedral sleeping in venerable gloom,