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.
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