Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/70

46 'There is no great harm in that,' remarked the tooth-drawer, 'for the sheep give many folk their living. There is not only the herd, but the shearer and brander, and then the dresser, the curer, the dyer, the fuller, the Webster, the merchant, and a score of others.'

'If it come to that,' said one of the foresters, 'the tough meat of them will wear folks' teeth out, and there is a trade for the man who can draw them.'

A general laugh followed this sally at the dentist's expense, in the midst of which the gleeman placed his battered harp upon his knee, and began to pick out a melody upon the frayed strings.

'Elbow room for Floyting Will!' cried the woodmen. 'Twang us a merry lilt.'

'Aye, aye, the "Lasses of Lancaster,"' one suggested.

'Or "St. Simeon and the Devil."'

'Or the "Jest of Hendy Tobias."'

To all these suggestions the jongleur made no response, but sat with his eye fixed abstractedly upon the ceiling, as one who calls words to his mind. Then, with a sudden sweep across the strings, he broke out into a song so gross and so foul that ere he had finished a verse the pure-minded lad sprang to his feet with the blood tingling in his face.

'How can you sing such things?' he cried. 'You, too, an old man who should be an example to others.'

The wayfarers all gazed in the utmost astonishment at the interruption.

'By the holy Dicon of Hampole! our silent clerk has found his 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