e
had gone to bed, and had our cart come to take him off to Tyburn, he
could scarcely have shown himself more alarmed. However, he was a good
man, and owed much to Master Walgrave. So, after praying for strength,
he took us all in and bade us lie as we could till morning, when he
would make better provision. His own chamber he gave to my mistress and
her little ones, while Prosper and he and I lay on the hard floor of the
kitchen. Many were the religious exercises in which he led us before he
let us sleep; and even when they were done, he fell on me, and drew from
me a full and penitent account of my journey to Oxford and my follies
there, for the which he called me many hard names, and bade me take
shame to myself, and pray God I might not one day become a knave as well
as a fool. Which prayer I humbly uttered then and there, and many a
time since.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

HOW I WAS CAST ADRIFT.

Master Udal, the minister, was not a man to bandy compliments. He told
me, as we rose next morning, that he had neither the means nor the
desire to keep me at Kingston. There was nothing to make my stay of any
service to him; nor did the thickness of my skull encourage him to keep
me there for my soul's sake.

"In short," said he, "what is to prevent you from going at once? You
can find breakfast for yourself on the road as soon as I could find it
for you here, and it beseems a body of your size,"--heavens! what a name
to call me--"better to be serving your calling in London than dangling
here at the skirts of a parcel of women. So away with you, Humphrey
Dexter, and if you should visit us a week hence, come at an hour when
you can return by the road you came the self-same evening."

I should have been angry, but that I knew I had lost him his nag at
Oxford, and that the good man (how, I could not guess), was going to
board and lodge my poor mistress and her little ones while their
distress lasted. I had nothing for it but to obey him meekly. Only I
was glad he hinted that I might presently come back to see them.

And now, what was to become of me? My master was in the White Lion, my
mistress was at Kingston, the house without Temple Bar was in the
custody of Timothy Ryder; there was warrant against me for assaulting a
Queen's officer; if I went to Richmond there was a dungeon for me there;
if I went home my mother could ill afford to keep me; if I went to the
Stationers' Company I was too old now to apprentice