Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/89

Rh too much about what this may be. Some might say one thing and some another, just as one bowman loves the yew, and a second will not shoot save with the ash. To me, by the length and the look of it, I should judge this to be a verse from one of the Psalms.'

The bowman shook his head. 'It is scarce likely,' he said, 'that Sir Claude Latour should send me all the way across seas with naught more weighty than a psalm-verse. You have clean overshot the butts this time, mon camarade. Give it to the little one. I will wager my feather-bed that he makes more sense of it.'

'Why, it is written in the French tongue,' said Alleyne, 'and in a right clerkly hand. This is how it runs: "À le moult puissant et moult honorable chevalier, Sir Nigel Loring de Christchurch, de sont très fidèle amis Sir Claude Latour, capitaine de la Compagnie blanche, châtelain de Biscar, grand seigneur de Montchâteau, vavaseur de le renommé Gaston, Comte de Foix, tenant les droits de la haute justice, de la milieu, et de la basse." Which signifies in our speech: "To the very powerful and very honourable knight, Sir Nigel Loring of Christchurch, from his very faithful friend Sir Claude Latour, captain of the White Company, chatelain of Biscar, grand lord of Montchâteau, and vassal to the renowned Gaston, Count of Foix, who holds the rights of the high justice the middle and the low."'

'Look at that now!' cried the bowman in triumph. 'That is just what he would have said.'

'I can see now that it is even so,' said John, examining the parchment again. 'Though I scarce understand this high, middle, and low.'

'By my hilt! you would understand it if you were Jacques Bonhomme. The low justice means that you may fleece him, and the middle that you may torture him, and the high that you may slay him. That is about the truth of it. But this is the letter which I am to take; and since the platter is clean it is time that we trussed up and were afoot.