old Latin gestes, fables, and sermons picked up during his school life,
in those intervals of his more serious studies when Prior Edward had
permitted him to browse in the greener pastures of the Gesta Romanorum
and the Disciplina Clericalis of the monastery library, and Gascoyne was
never weary of hearing him tell those marvellous stories culled from the
crabbed Latin of the old manuscript volumes.

Upon his part Gascoyne was full of the lore of the waiting-room and
the antechamber, and Myles, who in all his life had never known a lady,
young or old, excepting his mother, was never tired of lying silently
listening to Gascoyne's chatter of the gay doings of the castle
gentle-life, in which he had taken part so often in the merry days of
his pagehood.

"I do wonder," said Myles, quaintly, "that thou couldst ever find the
courage to bespeak a young maid, Francis. Never did I do so, nor ever
could. Rather would I face three strong men than one young damsel."

Whereupon Gascoyne burst out laughing. "Marry!" quoth he, "they be
no such terrible things, but gentle and pleasant spoken, and soft and
smooth as any cat."

"No matter for that," said Myles; "I would not face one such for
worlds."

It was during the short time when, so to speak, the two owned the
solitude of the Brutus Tower, that Myles told his friend of his father's
outlawry and of the peril in which the family stood. And thus it was.

"I do marvel," said Gascoyne one day, as the two lay stretched in the