brose's mind was made up on one point. Whatever he did, and wherever
he went, he felt the doctrine he had just heard as needful to him as
vital air, and he must be within reach of it. This, and not the
hermit's cell, was what his instinct craved. He had always been a
studious, scholarly boy, supposed to be marked out for a clerical life,
because a book was more to him than a bow, and he had been easily
trained in good habits and practices of devotion; but all in a childish
manner, without going beyond simple receptiveness, until the experiences
of the last week had made a man of him, or more truly, the Pardon chapel
and Dean Colet's sermon had made him a new being, with the realities of
the inner life opened before him.

His present feeling was relief from the hideous load he had felt while
dwelling on the Dance of Death, and therewith general goodwill to all
men, which found its first issue in compassion for Giles Headley, whom
he found on his return seated on the steps--moody and miserable.

"Would that you had been with us," said Ambrose, sitting down beside him
on the step. "Never have I heard such words as to-day."

"I would not be seen in the street with that scarecrow," murmured Giles.
"If my mother could have guessed that he was to be set over me, I had
never come here."

"Surely you knew that he was foreman."

"Yea, but not that I should be under him--I whom old Giles vowed should
be as his own son--I that am to wed yon little brown moppet, and be
master here! So, forsooth," he said, "now he treats me like any common
low-bred prentice."

"Nay," said Ambrose, "an if you were his son, he would still make you
serve. It's the way with all craftsmen--yea and with gentlemen's sons
also. They must be pages and squires ere they can be knights."

"It never was the way at home. I was only bound prentice to my father
for the name of the thing, that I might have the freedom of the city,
and become head of our house."

"But how could you be a wise master without learning the craft?"

"What are journeymen for?" demanded the lad. "Had I known how Giles
Headley meant to serve me, he might have gone whistle for a husband for
his wench. I would have ridden in my Lady of Salisbury's train."

"You might have had rougher usage there than here," said Ambrose.
"Master Headley lays nothing on you but what he has himself proved. I
would I could see you make the best of so happy a home."

"Ay, that's all very well