tongue," said one of the woodmen. "What is amiss with the song
then? How has it offended your babyship?"

"A milder and better mannered song hath never been heard within
these walls," cried another. "What sort of talk is this for a
public inn?"

"Shall it be a litany, my good clerk?" shouted a third; "or would
a hymn be good enough to serve?"

The jongleur had put down his harp in high dudgeon. "Am I to be
preached to by a child?" he cried, staring across at Alleyne with
an inflamed and angry countenance. "Is a hairless infant to
raise his tongue against me, when I have sung in every fair from
Tweed to Trent, and have twice been named aloud by the High Court
of the Minstrels at Beverley? I shall sing no more to-night."

"Nay, but you will so," said one of the laborers. "Hi, Dame
Eliza, bring a stoup of your best to Will to clear his throat.
Go forward with thy song, and if our girl-faced clerk does not
love it he can take to the road and go whence he came."

"Nay, but not too last," broke in Hordle John. "There are two
words in this matter. It may be that my little comrade has been
over quick in reproof, he having gone early into the cloisters
and seen little of the rough ways and words of the world. Yet
there is truth in what he says, for, as you know well, the song
was not of the cleanest. I shall stand by him, therefore, and he
shall neither be put out on the road, nor shall his ears be
offended indoors."