"Say you so?" she answered, with the same indifferent demeanor. "Nay, I thought that Master Scoloker--was that his worship's name?--deemed them to be of the vulgar sort. But perchance he was one of the learned ones. The King, they say, is often minded to speak in the Latin. What means he by that, good sir, think you? Hath he not yet had time to learn our English speech?"
"Wench, what would you?" her grandmother interposed, sharply. "Nay, good sir, heed her not; her tongue be an unruly member, and maketh sport of her, as I think; but the wench meaneth no harm."
"The King is proud of his learning, no doubt," said he; and he would probably have gone on to deprecate any comparison between the court masques and her father's plays but that she saw here her opportunity, and interrupted him.
"I know it," she said, "for the letter that the King sent to my father is writ in the Latin."
She affected not to observe his surprise.
"'Twas all the same to my father," she continued, calmly, "whether the letter was in one tongue or the other. He hath one book now--how is it called?--'tis a marvellous heap of old stories--the Jests----"
"The same, as I think. Well, he hath one copy that is in English, and of our own time, as I am told; but he hath also another and a very ancient copy, that is in the Latin tongue; and this it is--the Latin one, good sir--that my father is fondest of; and many a piece of merriment he will get out of it, when Julius Shawe is in the house of an evening."
"But the _Gesta_ are not jests, good Mistress Judith," said he, looking somewhat puzzled.
"I know not; I but hear them laughing," said she, placidly. "And as for the book itself, all I know of it is the outside; but that is right strange and ancient, and beautiful withal: the back of it white leather stamped with curious devices; and the sides of parchment printed in letters of red and black; and the silver clasps of it with each a boar's head. I have heard say that that is the crest of the Scotch knight that gave the volume to my father when they were all at Aberdeen; 'twas when they made Laurence Fletcher a burgess; and the knight said to my father, 'Good sir, the honor to your comrade is a general one, but I would have you take this book in particular, in the way of thanks and remembrance for your wit and pleasant company'--that, or something like that, said he; and my father is right proud of the book, that is very ancient and precious; and often he will read out of it--though it be in the Latin tongue. Oh, I assure you, sir," she added, with a calm and proud air, "'tis quite the same thing to him. If the King choose to write to him in that tongue, well and good. Marry, now I think of it, I make no doubt that Julius Shawe would lend me the letter, did you care to see it."