high within him, for there they stood, company behind ordered company,
the men on whom he could count to the death. And truly the lad of
eighteen, who in Scotland was greater than the King, looked upon their
steadfast thousands with a swelling heart.

The Abbot had made particular inquiries where Laurence was stationed,
which was in the archer company of the Laird of Kelton. Most of the
monkish band had been made too happy by the deception practised on
their Abbot concerning "Mary Quean," and were too desirous to have
such a rogue to play his pranks in the dull abbey, to tell any tales
on Laurence MacKim. But one, Berguet, a Belgian priest who had begged
his way to Scotland, and whose nature was that of the spy and
sycophant, approached and volunteered the information to the Abbot
that this lad to whom he was desirous of showing favour, was a ribald
and hypocritical youth.

"Eh, what?" said the Abbot, "a bodle for thy ill-set tongue, false
loon, dost think I did not hear him sing his fair and seemly orisons?
I tell thee, rude out-land jabberer, that I am a Douglas, and have ears
better than those of any Frenchman that ever breathed. For this thou
shalt kneel six nights on the cold stone of the holy chapel house, and
say of paternosters ten thousand and of misereres thou shall sing
three hundred. And this shall chance to teach thee to be scanter with
thy foul breath when thou speakest to the Abbot of the Foundation of
Devorgill concerning better men than thyself."

The Belgian priest gasped and fell back, and none other was found to
say aught against Master Laurence, which, considering the ten thousand
paternosters and the three hundred misereres, was not unnatural.