“My lord, I will be frank; will your lordship permit me?”
“Yes, and even if need be shall command you to be so.”
“Well, my lord, I was going to M. Lambert’s camp because those gentlemen from the city pay well—whilst your Scotchmen, Puritans, Presbyterians, Covenanters, or whatever you chose to call them, eat but little, and pay for nothing.”
Monk shrugged his shoulders, without, however, being able to refrain from smiling at the same time. “How is it that, being from the south, you come to fish on our coasts?”
“Because I have been fool enough to marry in Picardy.”
“Yes; but even Picardy is not England.”
“My lord, man shoves his boat into the sea, but God and the wind do the rest, and drive the boat where they please.”
“You had, then, no intention of landing on our coasts?”
“Never.”
“And what route were you steering?”