Remote from all his train, in a little arbour overgrown with the honeysuckle and white rose, a small table before him bearing fruits, confectionery, and spiced wines (for the prelate was a celebrated epicure, though still in the glow of youth), they found George Nevile, reading lazily a Latin manuscript.
“Well, my dear lord and brother,” said Montagu, laying his arm on the prelate’s shoulder, “first let me present to thy favour a gallant youth, Marmaduke Nevile, worthy his name and thy love.”
“He is welcome, Montagu, to our poor house,” said the archbishop, rising, and complacently glancing at his palace, splendidly gleaming through the trellis-work. “‘Puer ingenui vultus.’ Thou art acquainted, doubtless, young sir, with the Humaner Letters?”
“Well-a-day, my lord, my nurturing was somewhat neglected in the province,” said Marmaduke, disconcerted, and deeply blushing, “and only of late have I deemed the languages fit study for those not reared for our Mother Church.”
“Fie, sir, fie! Correct that error, I pray thee. Latin teaches the courtier how to thrive, the soldier how to manoeuvre, the husbandman how to sow; and if we churchmen are more cunning, as the profane call us (and the prelate smiled) than ye of the laity, the Latin must answer for the sins of our learning.”
With this, the archbishop passed his arm affectionately through his brother’s, and said, “Beshrew me, Montagu, thou lookest worn and weary. Surely thou lackest food, and supper shall be hastened. Even I, who have but slender appetite, grow hungered in these cool gloaming hours.”
“Dismiss my comrade, George,—I would speak to thee,” whispered Montagu.
“Thou knowest not Latin?” said the archbishop, turning with a compassionate eye to Nevile, whose own eye was amorously fixed on the delicate confectioneries,—“never too late to learn. Hold, here is a grammar of the verbs, that, with mine own hand, I have drawn up for youth. Study thine amo and thy moneo, while I confer on Church matters with giddy Montagu. I shall expect, ere we sup, that thou wilt have mastered the first tenses.”
“But—”
“Oh, nay, nay; but me no buts. Thou art too tough, I fear me, for flagellation, a wondrous improver of tender youth,”—and the prelate forced his grammar into the reluctant hands of Marmaduke, and sauntered down one of the solitary alleys with his brother.