Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/103

Rh whistled lustily or sang snatches of French love songs in a voice which might have scared the most stout-hearted maiden that ever hearkened to serenade.

'I have a liking for that north countryman,' he remarked presently. 'He hath good power of hatred. Couldst see by his cheek and eye that he is as bitter as verjuice. I warm to a man who hath some gall in his liver.'

'Ah me!' sighed Alleyne. 'Would it not be better if he had some love in his heart?'

'I would not say nay to that. By my hilt! I shall never be said to be traitor to the little king. Let a man love the sex. Pasques Dieu! they are made to be loved, les petites, from wimple down to shoe-string! I am right glad, mon garçon, to see that the good monks have trained thee so wisely and so well.'

'Nay, I meant not worldly love, but rather that his heart should soften towards those who have wronged him.'

The archer shook his head. 'A man should love those of his own breed,' said he. 'But it is not in nature that an English-born man should love a Scot or a Frenchman. Ma foi! you have not seen a drove of Nithsdale raiders on their Galloway nags, or you would not speak of loving them. I would as soon take Beelzebub himself to my arms. I fear, mon gar, that they have taught thee but badly at Beaulieu, for surely a bishop knows more of what is right and what is ill than an abbot can do, and I myself with these very eyes saw the Bishop of Lincoln hew into a Scottish hobeler with a battle-axe, which was a passing strange way of showing him that he loved him.'

Alleyne scarce saw his way to argue in the face of so decided an opinion on the part of a high dignitary of the Church. 'You have borne arms against the Scots, then?' he asked.

'Yes, I have many times taken the field against them.