As yet, Laurence had been able to learn nothing of the maids, not even whether they were alive or dead, whether at Machecoul or elsewhere.  At the first mention of maidens being brought from Scotland to the castle, or seen about its courts, a dead silence fell upon the company of priests and singers in the marshal’s chapel.  It was the same when Laurence spoke of the business privately to any of his new acquaintances.

No matter how briskly the conversation had been prospering hitherto, if, at Holy Mass or jovial supper board, Laurence so much as breathed a question concerning the subject next his heart, an instant blight passed over the gaiety of his companions.  Fear momently wiped every other expression from their faces, and they answered with lame evasion, or more often not at all.

The shadow of the Lord of Machecoul lay heavy upon them.

Clerk Henriet stood awhile watching the lads and listening to their talk behind the carved lattice of Caen stone, with its lace-like tracery of buds and flowers, through which the natural roses pushed their way, and over which the clematis tangled its twining stems.

“Stand up and prove on my body that I am a rank Irelander,” Laurence was saying defiantly to the world at large, with his fists up and his head thrown back.  “Saint Christopher, but I will take the lot of you with one hand tied behind me.  Stand up and I will teach you how to sing ‘Miserable sinners are we all!’ to a new and unkenned tune.”

“’Tis easy for you to boast, Irelander,” retorted Blaise Renouf, the son of the lay choir-master, who had been brought specially from Rome to teach the choir-boys of the marshal’s chapel the latest fashions in holy song.  “We will either fight you with swords or not at all.  We do not fight with our bare knuckles, being civilised.  And that indeed proves that you are no true lover of the French, but an English dog of unknightly birth.”

This retort still further irritated the hot-headed son of Malise.

“I will fight you or any galley slave of a French frog with the sword, or spit you upon the rapier.  I will cleave you with the axe, transfix you with the arrow, or blow you to the pit with the devil’s sulphur.  I will fight any of you or all of you with any weapons from a battering-ram to a toothpick—­and God assist the better man.  And there you have Laurence O’Halloran, at your service!”

“You are a loud-crowing young cock for a newcomer,” said Henriet, the confidential clerk of the marshal, suddenly appearing in the doorway; “you are desired to follow me to my lord’s chamber immediately.  There we will see if you will flap your wings so boldly.”

Laurence could not help noticing the blank alarm which this announcement caused among the youth with whom he had been playing the ancient game of brag.

It was Blaise Renouf who first recovered.  He looked across the little rose-grown space of the cloister to see that Henriet had turned his back, and then came quickly up to Laurence MacKim.