I should be more ashamed
to repeat them."

"I have heard enough of such," said Frank. "They come mostly through
lewd rascals about the French ambassador, who have been bred (God help
them) among the filthy vices of that Medicean Court in which the Queen
of Scots had her schooling; and can only perceive in a virtuous freedom
a cloak for licentiousness like their own. Let the curs bark; Honi soit
qui mal y pense is our motto, and shall be forever."

"But I didn't let the cur bark; for I took him by the ears, to show him
out into the street. Whereon he got to his sword, and I to mine; and a
very near chance I had of never bathing on the pebble ridge more; for
the fellow did not fight with edge and buckler, like a Christian, but
had some newfangled French devil's device of scryming and foining with
his point, ha'ing and stamping, and tracing at me, that I expected to be
full of eyelet holes ere I could close with him."

"Thank God that you are safe, then!" said Frank. "I know that play well
enough, and dangerous enough it is."

"Of course you know it; but I didn't, more's the pity."

"Well, I'll teach it thee, lad, as well as Rowland Yorke himself,

'Thy fincture, carricade, and sly passata,
Thy stramazon, and resolute stoccata,
Wiping maudritta, closing embrocata,
And all the cant of the honorable fencing mystery.'"

"Rowland Yorke? Who's he, then?"

"A very roystering rascal, who is making good profit in London just now
by teaching this very art of fence; and is as likely to have his mortal
thread clipt in a tavern brawl, as thy Frenchman. But how did you escape
his pinking iron?"

"How? Had it through my left arm before I could look round; and at that
I got mad, and leapt upon him, and caught him by the wrist, and then had
a fair side-blow; and, as fortune would have it, off tumbled his head on
to the table, and there was an end of his slanders."

"So perish all her enemies!" said Frank; and Eustace, who had been
trying not to listen, rose and said--

"I trust that you do not number me among them?"

"As you speak, I do, coz," said Frank. "But for your own sake, let
me advise you to put faith in the true report of those who have daily
experience of their mistress's excellent virtue, as they have of the
sun's shining, and of the earth's bringing forth fruit, and not in the
tattle of a few cowardly back-stair rogues, who wish to curry favor with
the Guises. Come, we will say no more. Walk