'Well, we can talk of this as we go,' said I, in a mighty hurry now to be off. 'I will ride back with you now, if you will wait till Lashmer has saddled our horses.'
I tarried but to eat my manchet and drink my bowl of ale, since I hold a morsel in the morning with a good draught, sweetened and defecated by all night standing, to be very good and wholesome for the eyesight.
As I mounted my horse I saw Culverin watching me with a most judicial air. I must own I felt no little comfort and gratitude to my guardian for his good training to see him nod a distinct though qualified approval to himself when he saw me in the saddle.
'Know you what business your master has with Captain Drake?' I asked as we rode out of my gates, my mouth watering for news.
'Nay, not I,' answered Culverin; 'yet I hope it will be none, since I hold it unseemly for a gentleman and a soldier to have near communication with sailors.'
'Yet Captain Drake,' I said, 'has great love and respect for land-soldiers.'
'Has he indeed?' replied the Sergeant, looking very pleased; 'a most notable sign of his good sense, and had he said horse-soldiers, it would have been a notable sign of his better sense.'
'How make you that good, Master Culverin?' asked Lashmer, whose hunger for an argument was by this time getting the better of his awe of the stranger.
'It is good of itself, Master Lashmer,' said Sergeant Culverin. 'For when I was sergeant-groom under Signor John Peter Pugliano, esquire of the Emperor's stables, he was wont to say (and, mark you, he was a man of most fertile Italian wit) that soldiers were the noblest estate of mankind, and horsemen the noblest of soldiers. They were masters of war, he said, and ornaments of peace, speedy goers and strong abiders, triumphers both in courts and camps. In truth, your only salvation is to be a horse-soldier. Take that of me.'
Seeing Lashmer was on the point of a desperate charge upon this monstrous position, I changed our subject quickly by asking news of Harry.