id Master Stokton, the
thin mercer, who had reminded the goldsmith of the fate of the grocer.

"Why, he was meant for the cowl, but his mother, a widow, at his own
wish, let him make choice of the flat cap. He was the best 'prentice
ever I had. By the blood of Saint Thomas, he will push his way in good
time; he has a head, Master Stokton,--a head, and an ear; and a
great big pair of eyes always looking out for something to his proper
advantage."

In the mean while, the goldsmith's headman had walked leisurely up to
the archery-ground; and even in his gait and walk, as he thus repaired
to a pastime, there was something steady, staid, and business-like.

The youths of his class and calling were at that day very different from
their equals in this. Many of them the sons of provincial retainers,
some even of franklins and gentlemen, their childhood had made them
familiar with the splendour and the sports of knighthood; they had
learned to wrestle, to cudgel, to pitch the bar or the quoit, to draw
the bow, and to practise the sword and buckler, before transplanted from
the village green to the city stall. And even then, the constant
broils and wars of the time, the example of their betters, the holiday
spectacle of mimic strife, and, above all, the powerful and corporate
association they formed amongst themselves, tended to make them as wild,
as jovial, and as dissolute a set of young fellows as their posterity
are now sober, careful, and discreet. And as Nicholas Alwyn, with
a slight inclination of his head, passed by, two or three loud,
swaggering, bold-looking groups of apprentices--their shaggy hair
streaming over their shoulders, their caps on one side, their short
cloaks of blue torn or patched, though still passably new, their
bludgeons under their arms, and their whole appearance and manner not
very dissimilar from the German collegians in the last century--notably
contrasted Alwyn's prim dress, his precise walk, and the feline care
with which he stepped aside from any patches of mire that might sully
the soles of his square-toed shoes.

The idle apprentices winked and whispered, and lolled out their tongues
at him as he passed. "Oh, but that must be as good as a May-Fair
day,--sober Nick Alwyn's maiden flight of the shaft! Hollo, puissant
archer, take care of the goslings yonder! Look this way when thou
pull'st, and then woe to the other side!" Venting these and many similar
specimens of the humour of Cockaigne,