nd, turning the sleeve inside out,
he showed his brother that it was lined with a rough-surfaced felt
cloth almost of the nature of teasle. This being rubbed briskly upon
any dusty garment or fouled armour proved most excellent for restoring
its pristine gloss and beauty. The young men, being as it were born to
the trade and knowing that their armament must meet their father's
inexorable eye, as he passed along their lines with the Earl, rubbed
and polished their best, and when after half an hour's sharp work each
examined the other, not a speck or stain was left to tell of the
various casual incidents of the morning. Two bright, fresh-coloured
youths emerged from their thicket, immaculately clad, and with
countenances of such cherubic innocence, that my lord the Abbot
William of the great Cistercian Abbey of Dulce Cor, looking upon them
as with bare bowed heads they knelt reverently on one knee to ask his
blessing, said to his train, "They look for all the world like young
angels! It is a shame and a sin that two such fair innocents should be
compelled to join in aught ruder than the chanting of psalms in holy
service."

Whereat one of his company, who had been witness to their treatment of
the Angus provost and also of Laurence's encounter with the knight of
the black armour, was seized incontinently with a fit of coughing
which almost choked him.

"Bless you, my sons," said the Abbot, "I will speak to my nephew, the
Earl, concerning you. Your faces plead for you. Evil cannot dwell in
such fair bodies. What are your names?"

The younger knelt with his fingers joined and his eyes meekly on the
grass, while Sholto, who had risen, stood quietly by with his steel
cap in his hand.

"Laurence MacKim," answered the younger, modestly, without venturing
to raise his eyes from the ground, "and this is my brother Sholto."

"Can you sing, pretty boy?" said the Abbot to Laurence.

"We have never been taught," answered downright Sholto. But his
brother, feeling that he was losing chances, broke in:

"I can sing, if it please your holiness."

"And what can you sing, sweet lad?" asked the Abbot, smiling with
expectation and setting his hand to his best ear to assist his
increasing deafness.

"Shut your fool's mouth!" said Sholto under his breath to his brother.

"Shut your own! 'Tis ugly as a rat-trap at any rate!" responded
Laurence in the same key. Then aloud to the Abbot he said, "An it
please you, sir, I can sing 'O