he, thumping the dirt
from his broom across the coping-stone, "and the other were
Dawson's Hodge."

The angry tanner turned again into the market-place. His brows were
knit, and his eyes were hot, yet his step was heavy and slow. Above all
things, he hated disobedience, yet in his surly way he loved his only
son; and far worse than disobedience, he hated that _his_ son
should disobey.

Astride a beam in front of Master Thompson's house sat Roger Dawson.
Simon Attwood took him by the collar none too gently.

"Here, leave be!" choked Roger, wriggling hard; but the tanner's grip
was like iron. "Wert thou in Coventry May-day?" he asked sternly.

"Nay, that I was na," sputtered Hodge. "A plague on Coventry!"

"Do na lie to me--thou wert there wi' my son Nicholas."

"I was na," snarled Hodge. "Nick Attwood threshed me in the Warrick
road; an' I be no dawg to follow at the heels o' folks as threshes me."

"Where be he, then?" demanded Attwood, with a sudden sinking at heart in
spite of his wrath.

"How should I know? A went away wi' a play-actoring fellow in a
plum-colored cloak; and play-actoring fellow said a loved him like a's
own, and patted a's back, and flung me hard names, like stones at a lost
dawg. Now le' me go, Muster Attwood--cross my heart, 'tis all I know!"

"Is't Nicholas ye seek, Master Attwood?" asked Tom Carpenter, turning
from his fleurs-de-lis. "Why, sir, he's gone got famous, sir. I was in
Coventry mysel' May-day; and--why, sir, Nick was all the talk! He sang
there at the Blue Boar inn-yard with the Lord High Admiral's players,
and took a part in the play; and, sir, ye'd scarce believe me, but the
people went just daft to hear him sing, sir."

Simon Attwood heard no more. He walked down High street in a daze. With
hard men bitter blows strike doubly deep. He stopped before the
guildhall school. The clock struck five; each iron clang seemed beating
upon his heart. He raised his hand as if to shut the clangor out, and
then his face grew stern and hard. "He hath gone his own wilful way,"
said he, bitterly. "Let him follow it to the end."

Mistress Attwood came to meet him, running in the garden-path.
"Nicholas?" was all that she could say.

"Never speak to me of him, again," he said, and passed her by into the
house. "He hath gone away with a pack of stage-playing rascals and
vagabonds, whither no man knoweth."

Taking the heavy Bible down from the shelf, he lit a rushlight at the
fire, altho