Besides, I know not yet what your service is."

"My service," said he, "is to be free, and to put wrong right."

"'Tis a noble service," said I, "but it fills no stomachs."

"You 'prentices are all stomach," said he, sadly. "But 'tis always so.
No man that ever I met believed in me yet. I must fight my battles
alone."

This cut me to the quick.

"Not so," said I. "Last night I swore to be your friend. It was a mad
oath, I know; but you shall see if I do not observe it. But till two
years are past, I am bound by an oath to my master the printer, and him
I must serve. Then, I am with you."

This I thought softened him.

"Well," said he, "who knows where we may be two years hence?"

"God knows, and we are in his hands."

"So be it," said Sir Ludar, crossing himself, to my grief. "Meanwhile,
Humphrey, we are friends. I may claim your heart if not your hand?"

"You may--or," here I blushed, "a share of it."

"What mean you by that?" asked he, sharply. "What man holds the rest?"

"No man," said I.

He laughed pleasantly at that.

"A woman? I have heard of that distemper before. It comes and goes,
I'm told. Had it been a man, I should have been jealous."

There was little sympathy in that for my sore heart, so I said no more.

"Come," said he presently, "you shall come to my guardian's. He lives
at Richmond, and it is on our way to London. If he turn me off, you
shall take me to London, and make a printer of me, if you please."

I agreed to this, and we stepped out on our journey.

A strange journey it was. My comrade, for the most part, stalked
silently half a pace in front of me, sometimes, it seemed to me,
heedless of my presence, and sometimes as if troubled by it. Yet often
enough he brightened up, and began carolling some wild song; or else
darted off the road after a hare or other game which he rarely failed to
bring down with his arrow; or else rallied me for my silence, and bade
me talk to him.

At these times I asked him about his own country, and his father, and
then his face lit up. For though he had not seen either since he was a
child, it was clear he longed to be back.

"What prevents your returning now?" said I.

He looked at me in his strange wondering way.

"Know you not that McDonnell is an exile, and that the hated Sassenach
holds his castle?" demanded he.

I confessed I did not; for a London 'prentice hears little of the news
outside. Besides, though I durst n