At this moment another step was heard outside, and two other boys came in; one a good deal older, and the other a year younger than Ralph.
"Well, Ralph, what hast got there?" said the elder, coming up and looking at the bird. "Marry she's a fine hawk, but I'd rather have had a falcon gentil."
"Ay, ay, and pay twenty shillings for it, let alone the toll of forty shillings in bringing of her into the kingdom."
"Nay, thou mightest have gotten one cheap from old Simon Bridle. He knows where all the best birds are to be got--all through the country side--"
"Nay, Jasper, why dost try to put the lad out of countenance with his pretty bird? Thou knowest she is a good bird, and thou wouldst be glad enough to have her thyself," said his mother.
"Now leave we this talk of the gerfalcon, and sithen you are all here, and 'tis yet half an hour to supper, let me hear what you, my sons, would wish to do after I am dead and gone. Jasper, you are the eldest, to you will fall my Bailiwick of Chute Forest, my manors of Chute, Holt, and Thruxton, and many other fair lands. Now wouldst thou go to the court, and seek to increase thy estate, as did thy great-grandfather Sir John Lisle of blessed memory, or wouldst thou stay at home, and take place and rank in thine own county?"
The eldest son took little time to answer, but replied respectfully,--
"I would fain stay at home and care for you and my lady mother, and mind the fair lands God and my ancestors have left me."
"Then, my son, as God wills it, and you have chosen, so be it, and may God's blessing and thy parents' be upon thee. Now, Ralph, my son, what willest thou?"
The young boy hesitated. He looked at his mother, and then down, and finally, raising his eyes with a keen light of joyous but rather shy determination said,--