running about his mouth like wild-fire over a swamp.
"Why, when a youth of parts once takes service with my master, he
never leaves it for any other, not even the King's!"

Which in its way was a true enough statement.

"Well," quoth Master Laurence, when he had tied his string and
finished cocking his viol and twingle-twangling it to his
satisfaction, "you speak well. And I am not sure but what I may think
of it. I am tired both of working for my father without pay, and of
singing psalms in a monastery to please my lord Abbot. Moreover, in
this city of Paris I have to tell every jack with a halbert that I am
not the son of the King of England, and then after all as like as not
he marches me to the bilboes!"

"Of what nativity are you?" asked de Sille.

"Och, I'm all of a rank Irelander, and my name is Laurence O'Halloran,
at your service," quoth the rogue, without a blush. For among other
accomplishments which he had learned at the Abbey of Dulce Cor, was
that of lying with the serene countenance of an angel. Indeed, as we
have seen, he had the rudiments of the art in him before setting out
from the tourneying field at Glenlochar on his way to holy orders.

"Then you will come with me to-morrow?" said Gilles, smiling.

Laurence listened to make sure that neither his father nor Sholto was
approaching the garret.

"I will go with you on two conditions," he said: "you shall not
mention my purpose to the others, and when we escape, I must put a
bandage over your eyes till we are half a dozen streets away."

"Why, done with you--after all you are a right gamesome cock, my
Irelander," cried Gilles, whom the conditions pleased even better than
Laurence's promise to accompany him.

Then, lending the prisoner his viol wherewith to amuse himself and
locking the door, Laurence made an excuse to go to the kitchen, where
he laughed low to himself, chuckling in his joy as he deftly handled
the saucepans.

"Aha, Master Sholto, you are the captain of the guard and a knight,
forsooth, and I am but poor clerk Laurence--as you have ofttimes
reminded me. But I will show you a shift worth two of watching outside
the door of the marshal's hotel for tidings of the maids. I will go
where the marshal goes, and see all he sees. And then, when the time
comes, why, I will rescue them single-handed and thereafter make up my
mind which of them I shall marry, whether Sholto's sweetheart or the
Fair Maid of Galloway herself."

Thus head