A true knight would never have asked, but would have vowed upon the instant.
'Tis but to bear me out in what I say to my father."
"In what?"
"In saying, if he ask, that it was south of the Christchurch road that I met you.
I shall be shut up with the tire-women else, and have a week of spindle and bodkin, when I would fain be galloping Troubadour up Wilverly Walk, or loosing little Roland at the Vinney Ridge herons."
"I shall not answer him if he ask."
"Not answer!
But he will have an answer.
Nay, but you must not fail me, or it will go ill with me."
"But, lady," cried poor Alleyne in great distress, "how can I say that it was to the south of the road when I know well that it was four miles to the north."
"You will not say it?"
"Surely you will not, too, when you know that it is not so?"
"Oh, I weary of your preaching!" she cried, and swept away with a toss of her beautiful head, leaving Alleyne as cast down and ashamed as though he had himself proposed some infamous thing.
She was back again in an instant, however, in another of her varying moods.
"Look at that, my friend!" said she.
"If you had been shut up in abbey or in cell this day you could not have taught a wayward maiden to abide by the truth.
Is it not so?
What avail is the shepherd if he leaves his sheep."
"A sorry shepherd!" said Alleyne humbly.
"But here is your noble father."
"And you shall see how worthy a pupil I am.
Father, I am much beholden to this young clerk, who was of service to me and helped me this very morning in Minstead Woods, four miles to the north of the Christchurch road, where I had no call to be, you having ordered it otherwise."
All this she reeled off in a loud voice, and then glanced with sidelong, questioning eyes at Alleyne for his approval.
Sir Nigel, who had entered the room with a silvery-haired old lady upon his arm, stared aghast at this sudden outburst of candor.
"Maude, Maude!" said he, shaking his head, "it is more hard for me to gain obedience from you than from the ten score drunken archers who followed me to Guienne.
Yet, hush! little one, for your fair lady-mother will be here anon, and there is no need that she should know it.
We will keep you from the provost- marshal this journey.
Away to your chamber, sweeting, and keep a blithe face, for she who confesses is shriven.
And now, fair mother," he continued, when his daughter had gone, "sit you here by the fire, for your blood runs colder than it did.
Alleyne Edricson, I would have a word with you, for I would fain that you should take service under me.
And here in good time comes my lady, without whose counsel it is not my wont to decide aught of import; but, indeed, it was her own thought that you should come."
"For I have formed a good opinion of you, and can see that you are one who may be trusted," said the Lady Loring.
"And in good sooth my dear lord hath need of such a one by his side, for he recks so little of himself that there should be one there to look to his needs and meet his wants.
You have seen the cloisters; it were well that you should see the world too, ere you make choice for life between them."
"It was for that very reason that my father willed that I should come forth into the world at my twentieth year," said Alleyne.
"Then your father was a man of good counsel," said she, "and you cannot carry out his will better than by going on this path, where all that is noble and gallant in England will be your companions."
"You can ride?" asked Sir Nigel, looking at the youth with puckered eyes.
"Yes, I have ridden much at the abbey."
"Yet there is a difference betwixt a friar's hack and a warrior's destrier.
You can sing and play?"
"On citole, flute and rebeck."
"Good!
You can read blazonry?"
"Indifferent well."
"Then read this," quoth Sir Nigel, pointing upwards to one of the many quarterings which adorned the wall over the fireplace.
"Argent," Alleyne answered, "a fess azure charged with three lozenges dividing three mullets sable.
Over all, on an escutcheon of the first, a jambe gules."
"A jambe gules erased," said Sir Nigel, shaking his head solemnly.
"Yet it is not amiss for a monk-bred man.
I trust that you are lowly and serviceable?"