“Oh, no doubt, no doubt,” said Hal Saddler, mockingly “We shall have but bread and milk, and thou shalt have—­a most glorious threshing from thy father when thou comest home again!”

That was the last straw to Nick’s unhappy heart.

“’Tis a threshing either way,” said he, squaring his shoulders doggedly.  “Father will thresh me if I run away, and Master Brunswood will thresh me if I don’t.  I’ll not be birched four times a week for merely tripping on a word, and have nothing to show for it but stripes.  If I must take a threshing, I’ll have my good day’s game out first.”

“But wilt thou truly go to Coventry, Nick?” asked Robin Getley, earnestly, for he liked Nick more than all the rest.

“Ay, truly, Robin—­that I will”; and, turning, Nick walked swiftly away toward the market-place, never looking back.

CHAPTER IV

OFF FOR COVENTRY

At the Bridge street crossing Nick paused irresolute.  Around the public pump a chattering throng of housewives were washing out their towels and hanging them upon the market-cross to dry.  Along the stalls in Middle Row the grumbling shopmen were casting up their sales from tallies chalked upon their window-ledges, or cuffing their tardy apprentices with no light hand.

John Gibson’s cart was hauling gravel from the pits in Henley street to mend the causeway at the bridge, which had been badly washed by the late spring floods, and the fine sand dribbled from the cart-tail like the sand in an hour-glass.

Here and there loutish farm-hands waited for work; and at the corner two or three stout cudgel-men leaned upon their long staves, although the market was two days closed, and there was not a Coventry merchant in sight to be driven away from Stratford trade.

Goody Baker with her shovel and broom of twigs was sweeping up the market litter in the square.  Nick wondered if his own mother’s back would be so bent when she grew old.

“Whur be-est going, Nick?”

Roger Dawson sat astride a stick of timber in front of Master Geoffrey Thompson’s new house, watching Tom Carpenter the carver cut fleur-de-lis and curling traceries upon the front wall beams.  He was a tenant-farmer’s son, this Roger, and a likely good-for-naught.

“To Coventry,” said Nick, curtly.

“Wilt take a fellow wi’ thee?”

Poor company might be better than none.

“Come on.”

Roger lumbered to his feet and trotted after.

“No school to-day?” he asked.

“Not for me,” answered Nick, shortly, for he did not care to talk about it.

“Faither wull na have I go to school, since us ha’ comed to town, an’ plough-land sold for grazings,” drawled Roger; “Muster Pine o’ Welford saith that I ha’ learned as much as faither ever knowed, an’ ’tis enow for I. Faither saith it maketh saucy rogues o’ sons to know more than they’s own dads.”