"
"I owe him my life, indeed, Father. He is a man after your own heart,
strong and brave and hearty, even jovial when occasion offers. He can
troll out a border lay with the best, and can yet read and write as
well as an abbot. His name is Roger."
"Come up, Roger," John Forster shouted, "and give me a grip of your
hand. You have saved my son's life, as he tells me; and, so long as you
live, there will be a nook by the fire, here, and a hearty welcome,
when you are tired of soldiering."
"In truth, you are a mighty man," he went on, after he and Roger had
exchanged a grip that would have well nigh broken the bones of an
ordinary man. "I have been looked upon as one able to strike as hard a
blow as any on the border; but assuredly, you would strike a heavier
one. Why, man, you must be five or six inches bigger, round the chest,
than I am."
"You have been an active man from your youth," Roger replied, "ever on
horseback and about, while I spent years with nought to do but eat and
drink, and build up my frame, in a monastery."
"Oswald told us, in his letters, that you had been a monk; but had,
with the consent of the abbot, unfrocked yourself."
"It was so," Roger replied, with a laugh.
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