"
"That has always been mine own opinion," Roger said, with a heartiness
that raised a smile on the hard faces of the men standing round.
"You look as if you had carried arms."
"I did so, in my wild youth," Roger said, "and had no thought of ever
donning monk's hood; but I was grievously wounded, in a foray in
Northumberland, and when I reached my home at Lauder, I well nigh died
of the fever of the wound; and I swore that, if my life was saved, I
would become a monk. I got well, and I kept my vow; but methinks, had I
but known how dull the life was, I would rather have died of the
fever."
As this story was perfectly true, save the name of his birthplace,
Roger spoke so heartily that no one doubted his story.
"And your monastery is at Dunbar?
"You have been at Dunbar, Rotherglen. Ask him where the convent stood."
As Roger had stayed there, when with Oswald he was at Dunbar, he was
able to answer this, and other questions, satisfactorily. The party
then took their places at table, the priest and Roger sitting at the
bottom of it. The conversation at the upper end naturally turned on the
foray, and a general disbelief was expressed, as to the chance of the
Armstrongs retaliating.
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