had best not as yet study there for the priesthood. But he said he
would commend me to a friend whose life would better show me how the new
gives life to the old than any man he wots of."

"One of thy old doctors in barnacles, I trow," said Stephen.

"Nay, verily. We saw him t'other night perilling his life to stop the
poor crazy prentices, and save the foreigners. Dennet and our uncle saw
him pleading for them with the King."

"What! Sir Thomas More?"

"Ay, no other. He needs a clerk for his law matters, and the Dean said
he would speak of me to him. He is to sup at the Deanery to-morrow, and
I am to be in waiting to see him. I shall go with a lighter heart now
that thou art beyond the clutches of the captain of Newgate."

"Speak no more of that!" said Stephen, with a shudder. "Would that I
could forget it!"

In truth Stephen's health had suffered enough to change the bold, high-
spirited, active lad, so that he hardly knew himself. He was quite
incapable of work all the next day, and Mistress Headley began to dread
that he had brought home jail-fever, and insisted on his being inspected
by the barber-surgeon, Todd, who proceeded to bleed the patient, in
order, as he said, to carry off the humours contracted in the prison.
He had done the same by Jasper Hope, and by Giles, but he followed the
treatment up with better counsel, namely, that the lads should all be
sent out of the City to some farm where they might eat curds and whey,
until their strength should be restored. Thus they would be out of
reach of the sweating sickness which was already in some of the purlieus
of Saint Katharine's Docks, and must be specially dangerous in their
lowered condition.

Master Hope came in just after this counsel had been given. He had a
sister married to the host of a large prosperous inn near Windsor, and
he proposed to send not only Jasper but Stephen thither, feeling how
great a debt of gratitude he owed to the lad. Remembering well the good
young Mistress Streatfield, and knowing that the Antelope was a large
old house of excellent repute, where she often lodged persons of quality
attending on the court or needing country air, Master Headley added
Giles to the party at his own expense, and wished also to send Dennet
for greater security, only neither her grandmother nor Mrs Hope could
leave home.

It ended, however, in Perronel Randall being asked to take charge of the
whole party, including Aldonza. That