a passionate fervour which might have
sooner broken out and in more perilous forms save for the guidance it
received in the truly Catholic and open-spirited public teachings of
Colet, in which he persisted in spite of the opposition of his brother
clergy.

Not that as yet the inquirers had in the slightest degree broken with
the system of the Church, or with her old traditions. They were only
beginning to see the light that had been veiled from them, and to
endeavour to clear the fountain from the mire that had fouled it; and
there was as yet no reason to believe that the aspersions continually
made against the mass-priests and the friars were more than the chronic
grumblings of Englishmen, who had found the same faults in them for the
last two hundred years.

"And what wouldst thou do, young sir?" presently inquired Tibble.

"That I came to ask thee, good Tibble. I would work to the best of my
power in any craft so I may hear those words and gain the key to all I
have hitherto learnt, unheeding as one in a dream. My purpose had been
to be a scholar and a clerk, but I must see mine own way, and know
whither I am being carried, ere I can go farther."

Tibble writhed and wriggled himself about in consideration. "I would I
wist how to take thee to the Dean himself," he said, "but I am but a
poor man, and his doctrine is `new wine in old bottles' to the master,
though he be a right good man after his lights. See now, Master
Ambrose, me seemeth that thou hadst best take thy letter first to this
same priest. It may be that he can prefer thee to some post about the
minster. Canst sing?"

"I could once, but my voice is nought at this present. If I could but
be a servitor at Saint Paul's School!"

"It might be that the will which hath led thee so far hath that post in
store for thee, so bear the letter to Master Alworthy. And if he fail
thee, wouldst thou think scorn of aiding a friend of mine who worketh a
printing-press in Warwick Inner Ward? Thou wilt find him at his place
in Paternoster Row, hard by Saint Paul's. He needeth one who is clerk
enough to read the Latin, and the craft being a new one 'tis fenced by
none of those prentice laws that would bar the way to thee elsewhere, at
thy years."

"I should dwell among books!"

"Yea, and holy books, that bear on the one matter dear to the true
heart. Thou might serve Lucas Hansen at the sign of the Winged Staff
till thou hast settled thine heart, and then