As soon as they had discovered such a sequestered holt, Laurence, who had frequent experience of such rough-and-tumble encounters, stripped off his doublet of purple velvet, and, turning the sleeve inside out, he showed his brother that it was lined with a rough-surfaced felt cloth almost of the nature of teasle.  This being rubbed briskly upon any dusty garment or fouled armour proved most excellent for restoring its pristine gloss and beauty.  The young men, being as it were born to the trade and knowing that their armament must meet their father’s inexorable eye, as he passed along their lines with the Earl, rubbed and polished their best, and when after half an hour’s sharp work each examined the other, not a speck or stain was left to tell of the various casual incidents of the morning.  Two bright, fresh-coloured youths emerged from their thicket, immaculately clad, and with countenances of such cherubic innocence, that my lord the Abbot William of the great Cistercian Abbey of Dulce Cor, looking upon them as with bare bowed heads they knelt reverently on one knee to ask his blessing, said to his train, “They look for all the world like young angels!  It is a shame and a sin that two such fair innocents should be compelled to join in aught ruder than the chanting of psalms in holy service.”

Whereat one of his company, who had been witness to their treatment of the Angus provost and also of Laurence’s encounter with the knight of the black armour, was seized incontinently with a fit of coughing which almost choked him.

“Bless you, my sons,” said the Abbot, “I will speak to my nephew, the Earl, concerning you.  Your faces plead for you.  Evil cannot dwell in such fair bodies.  What are your names?”

The younger knelt with his fingers joined and his eyes meekly on the grass, while Sholto, who had risen, stood quietly by with his steel cap in his hand.

“Laurence MacKim,” answered the younger, modestly, without venturing to raise his eyes from the ground, “and this is my brother Sholto.”

“Can you sing, pretty boy?” said the Abbot to Laurence.

“We have never been taught,” answered downright Sholto.  But his brother, feeling that he was losing chances, broke in: 

“I can sing, if it please your holiness.”

“And what can you sing, sweet lad?” asked the Abbot, smiling with expectation and setting his hand to his best ear to assist his increasing deafness.

“Shut your fool’s mouth!” said Sholto under his breath to his brother.

“Shut your own!  ’Tis ugly as a rat-trap at any rate!” responded Laurence in the same key.  Then aloud to the Abbot he said, “An it please you, sir, I can sing ‘O Mary Quean!’”

The Abbot smiled, well pleased.

“Ah, exceeding proper, a song to the honour of the Queen of Heaven (he devoutly crossed himself at the name),—­I knew that I could not be mistaken in you.”

“Your pardon, most reverend,” interjected Sholto, anxiously, “please you to excuse my brother; his voice hath just broken and he cannot sing at present.”  Then, under his breath, he added, “Laurie MacKim, you God-forgotten fool, if you sing that song you will get us both stripped in a thrice and whipped on the bare back for insolence to the Earl’s uncle!”