“Noble sir, I thank you, and I will embrace your kind offer; I will be your tenant for the present; my castle in Wales shall be put in repair, in the meantime; if I do not reside there, it will be an establishment for one of my younger sons.
“But what will you do with your old soldiers and dependants?”
“My lord, I will never cast them off. There is another house on my estate that has been shut up many years; I will have it repaired and furnished properly for the reception of my old men: I will endow it with a certain sum to be paid annually, and will appoint a steward to manage their revenue; I will continue it during the lives of the first inhabitants, and after that I shall leave it to my son here, to do as he pleases.”
“Your son,” said Edmund, “will make it the business of his life t
