rom Towcester to St. Albans town in Herts, though
the road runs through a pleasant, billowy land of oak-walled lanes, wide
pastures, and quiet parks; and the steady jog, jog of the little roan
began to rack Nick's tired bones before the day was done.

Yet when they marched into the quaint old town to the blare of trumpets
and the crash of the kettledrums, all the long line gaudy with the
coat-armour of the Lord High Admiral beneath their flaunting banners,
and the horses pricked up their ears and arched their necks and pranced
along the crowded streets, Nick, stared at by all the good townsfolk,
could not help feeling a thrill of pride that he was one of the great
company of players, and sat up very straight and held his head up
haughtily as Master Carew did, and bore himself with as lordly an air as
he knew how.

* * * * *

But when morning came, and he danced blithely back from washing himself
at the horse-trough, all ready to start for home, he found the little
roan cross-bridled as before between the master-player's gray and the
bandy-legged fellow's sorrel mare.

"What, there! cast him loose," said he to the horse-boy who held the
three. "I am not going on with the players--I'm to go back to
Stratford."

"Then ye go afoot," coolly rejoined the other, grinning, "for the hoss
goeth on wi' the rest."

"What is this, Master Carew?" cried Nick, indignantly, bursting into the
tap-room, where the players were at ale. "They will na let me have the
horse, sir. Am I to walk the whole way back to Stratford town?"

"To Stratford?" asked Master Carew, staring with an expression of most
innocent surprise, as he set his ale-can down and turned around. "Why,
thou art not going to Stratford."

"Not going to Stratford!" gasped Nick, catching at the table with a
sinking heart. "Why, sir, ye promised that I should to-day."

"Nay, now, that I did not, Nicholas. I promised thee that thou shouldst
go back to-morrow--were not those my very words!"

"Ay, that they were," cried Nick; "and why will ye na leave me go?"

"Why, this is not to-morrow, Nick. Why, see, I cannot leave thee go
to-day. Thou knowest that I said to-morrow; and this is not
to-morrow--on thine honour, is it now?"

"How can I tell?" cried Nick, despairingly. "Yesterday ye said it would
be, and now ye say that it is na. Ye've twisted it all up so that a body
can na tell at all. But there is a falsehood--a wicked, black
falsehoo