w my
way through the subtleties of lying tongues. Hope not to lie to me.
How many were they that came to France with you?"

"I will not tell you," said the son of Malise.

The marshal smiled again and nodded his head repeatedly with a certain
gustful appreciation.

"You would make a good soldier. It is a pity that I have gone out of
the business. Yet I have only (as it were) descended from wholesale to
particular, from the gross to the detail."

Laurence, who felt that the true policy was to be sparing of his
words, made no answer.

"You say that you are a clerk. Can you read Latin?"

"Yes," said Laurence, "and write it too."

"Read this, then," said the marshal, and handed him a book.

Laurence had been well instructed in the humanities by Father Colin of
Saint Michael's Kirk by the side of Dee water, and he read the words,
which record the cruelties of the Emperor Caligula with exactness and
decorum.

"You read not ill," said his auditor; "you have been well taught,
though you have a vile foreign accent and know not the shades of
meaning that lie in the allusions.

"You say that you came to Machecoul with desire to serve me," the
marshal continued after a pause for thought. "In what manner did you
think you could serve, and why went you not into the house of some
other lord?"

"As to service," said Laurence, "I came because I was invited by your
henchman de Sille. And as to what I can do, I profess that I can sing,
having been well taught by a master, the best in my country. I can
play upon the viol and eke upon the organ. I am fairly good at fence,
and excellent as any at singlestick. I can faithfully carry a message
and loyally serve those who trust me. I would have some money to
spend, which I have never had. I wish to live a life worth living,
wherein is pleasure and pain, the lack of sameness, and the joy of
things new. And if that may not be--why, I am ready to die, that I may
make proof whether there be anything better beyond."

"A most philosophic creed," cried the marshal. "Well, there is one
thing in which I can prove, if indeed you lie not. Sing!"

Then Laurence stood up and sang, even as the choir had done, the
lamentation of Rachel according to the setting of the Roman precentor.

"_A voice was heard in Ramah!_"

And as he sang, the Lord of Retz took up the strain, and, with true
accord and feeling, accompanied him to the end.

[Illustration: THE PRISONERS OF THE WHITE TOWER.]