face was like the face of a young
eagle. He was quivering from head to foot.

Clarke looked at him again with his fatherly smile, but there was
trouble also in his eyes.

"Be not over confident, my son; and seek not to take upon you more
than you are able to bear."

Dalaber understood instantly to what Clarke was alluding.

"I trust I have not done so. But men will be wanted. I am a
Christian Brother. I must not shrink. My word is passed. Not to
you, my master, alone, but to Master Garret also."

"To whom I did make you known," spoke Clarke, with a very slight
sigh. "My son, I would not speak one word to discourage your godly
zeal; but bethink you what this may mean. You shall (it may be) be
judged and called a heretic; you shall be abhorred of the world;
your own friends and kinsfolk shall forsake you; you shall be cast
into prison, and none shall dare to help you; you shall be accused
before bishops, to your reproach and shame, to the great sorrow of
all your friends and kindred. Then will ye wish ye had never known
this doctrine; then (it may be) ye will curse Clarke, and wish you
had never known him, because he hath brought you into all these
troubles."

But Dalaber could bear that word no longer; he flung himself at the
feet of his master, and the tears broke from his eyes.

"Nay, nay, speak not so, I beseech you; you cut me to the heart! I
boast not of myself as being wiser or braver or more steadfast than
other men; I only pray of you to try me. Send me not away. Let me
be pupil, and scholar, and son. I cannot turn back, even if I
would. My heart is in the good work. Let me follow in the path I
have chosen. I have put my hand to the plough; how can I turn
back?"

Clarke looked down upon the youth with a world of tender love in
his eyes, and raising him up in his arms he kissed him, the tears
standing on his own cheeks.

"The Lord God Almighty give you grace and steadfastness now and
ever," he said in a deep voice, full of feeling, "and from
henceforth and ever take me for your father in Christ, and I will
take you for my son!"

So the compact was sealed between the two; and when on the morrow
they took their way towards Oxford, the heart of Anthony Dalaber
was joyful within him, for he felt as though he had set his foot
upon the narrow path which leads to life everlasting, and he reeked
little of the thorns and briers which might beset the way,
confident that he would be given grace to overcome.