they could do
nothing with him. Some of his masters he had defied, others he had
scorned, one he had nearly slain. His guardian had flogged him times
without number, and threatened him still oftener. His guardian's lady
had tried to tame him with gentleness and coaxing. He had been
admonished by clergy, and arraigned before magistrates. But all to no
purpose. He snapped his fingers at them all, and went his own way,
consorting with desperate men, breaking laws and heads, flinging his
books to the four winds, making raids on her Majesty's deer, flouting
the clergy, denying the Queen, and daring all the Sir William Charletons
on this earth to make an English gentleman of him. At last his guardian
(who really, I think, meant well by the lad, rebel as he was), sent him
to Oxford, to the care of Master Penry, the Welshman, who, by all signs,
must have had a merry two months of it. At least, I could understand
now why he had been more anxious to get back my cloak than his truant
pupil. Nor could I blame him if he sighed with relief when Ludar,
having fallen foul of every one and everything at Oxford, and learned
nothing save a smattering of Spanish from a Jesuit priest, took up his
cap and gown and shook the dust of the University from his feet.

"And so," said my comrade, who, as I say, left me to guess the half of
what I have written down, "I am rid of them all; and, thank the saints,
I am no gentleman yet."

Whereupon he dropped asleep.

CHAPTER SIX.

HOW I WALKED WITH A REBEL.

"Where do we go next?" asked I in the morning as we shook ourselves free
of the hay which had been our bed, and sallied out into the air.

He looked at me with a smile, as though the question were a jest.

"To my guardian's," said he.

"Why!" said I, "he will flog you for running away from Oxford."

"What of that?" said Sir Ludar. "He is my governor."

It seemed odd to me for a man to put himself thus in the lion's maw, but
I durst not question my new chief.

"You shall come too, and see him," said he. "It passes me to guess what
he will do with me next, unless he make a lawyer or a priest of me."

"I must back to my master in London," said I.

"The printer!" said he, scornfully. "He is thy master no more; thou
hast entered my service."

This staggered me. For much as I loved him, it had never occurred to me
to bind myself to a penniless runaway.

"Pardon me, sir," said I. "I am bound to the printer by an oath.