," said Simon Attwood. "This be no
way to do. I've a mind to put him to a trade."

"Nay, Simon," protested his wife; "he may be careless,--he is young
yet,--but Nicholas is a good lad. Let him have his schooling out--he'll
be the better for it."

"Then let him show it as he goes along," said Attwood, grimly, as he
blew the candle out.

But May-day dawned; mid-morning came, mid-afternoon, then supper-time
again; and supper-time crept into dusk--and still no Nicholas Attwood.

His mother grew uneasy; but his father only growled: "We'll reckon up
when he cometh home. Master Brunswood tells me he was na at the school
the whole day yesterday--and he be feared to show his face. I'll _fear_
him with a bit of birch!"

"Do na be too hard with the lad, Simon," pleaded Mistress Attwood. "Who
knows what hath happened to him? He must be hurt, or he'd 'a' come home
to his mother"--and she began to wring her hands. "He may ha' fallen
from a tree, and lieth all alone out on the hill--or, Simon, the Avon!
Thou dost na think our lad be drowned?"

"Fudge!" said Simon Attwood. "Born to hang'll never drown!"

When, however, the next day crept around and still his son did not come
home, a doubt stole into the tanner's own heart. Yet when his wife was
for starting out to seek some tidings of the boy, he stopped her
wrathfully.

"Nay, Margaret," said he; "thou shalt na go traipsing around the town
like a hen wi' but one chick. I wull na ha' thee made a laughing-stock
by all the fools in Stratford."

But as the third day rolled around, about the middle of the afternoon
the tanner himself sneaked out at the back door of his tannery in
Southam's lane, and went up into the town.

"Robin Getley," he asked at the guildschool door, "was my son wi' thee
overnight?"

"Nay, Master Attwood. Has he not come back?"

"Come back? From where?"

Robin hung his head.

"From, where?" demanded the tanner. "Come, boy!"

"From Coventry," said Robin, knowing that the truth would out at last,
anyway.

"He went to see the players, sir," spoke up Hal Saddler, briskly, not
heeding Robin's stealthy kick. "He said he'd bide wi' Diccon Haggard
overnight; an' he said he wished he were a master-player himself,
sir, too."

Simon Attwood, frowning blackly, hurried on. It _was_ Nick, then, whom
he had seen crossing the market-square.

Wat Raven, who swept Clopton bridge, had seen two boys go up the Warwick
road. "One were thy Nick, Muster Attwood," said