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 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.
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