spring floods, and the fine sand dribbled from the cart-tail like the
sand in an hour-glass.

Here and there loutish farm-hands waited for work; and at the corner two
or three stout cudgel-men leaned upon their long staves, although the
market was two days closed, and there was not a Coventry merchant in
sight to be driven away from Stratford trade.

Goody Baker with her shovel and broom of twigs was sweeping up the
market litter in the square. Nick wondered if his own mother's back
would be so bent when she grew old.

"Whur be-est going, Nick?"

Roger Dawson sat astride a stick of timber in front of Master Geoffrey
Thompson's new house, watching Tom Carpenter the carver cut fleur-de-lis
and curling traceries upon the front wall beams. He was a
tenant-farmer's son, this Roger, and a likely good-for-naught.

"To Coventry," said Nick, curtly.

"Wilt take a fellow wi' thee?"

Poor company might be better than none.

"Come on."

Roger lumbered to his feet and trotted after.

"No school to-day?" he asked.

"Not for me," answered Nick, shortly, for he did not care to talk about
it.

"Faither wull na have I go to school, since us ha' comed to town, an'
plough-land sold for grazings," drawled Roger; "Muster Pine o' Welford
saith that I ha' learned as much as faither ever knowed, an' 'tis enow
for I. Faither saith it maketh saucy rogues o' sons to know more than
they's own dads."

Nick wondered if it did. His own father could neither read nor write,
while he could do both and had some Latin, too. At the thought of the
Latin he made a wry face.

"Joe Carter be-eth in the stocks," said Roger, peering through the
jeering crowd about the pillory and post; "a broke Tom Samson's pate wi'
's ale-can yestreen."

[Illustration: "'WHUR BE-EST GOING, NICK?' ASKED ROGER DAWSON."]

But Nick pushed on. A few ruddy-faced farmers and drovers from the
Bed Horse Vale still lingered at the Boar Inn door and by the tap-room
of the Crown; and in the middle of the street a crowd of salters,
butchers, and dealers in hides, with tallow-smeared doublets and
doubtful hose, were squabbling loudly about the prices set upon
their wares.

In the midst of them Nick saw his father, and scurried away into Back
Bridge street as fast as he could, feeling very near a sneak, but far
from altering his purpose.

"Job Hortop," said Simon Attwood to his apprentice at his side, looking
out suddenly over the crowd, "was that my Nick yonder?"