“Canst ride, Nicholas?”

“Fairly, sir.”

“Fairly?  Fie, modesty!  I warrant thou canst ride like a very centaur.  What sayest—­I’ll ride a ten-mile race with thee to-morrow as we go?”

“Why,” cried Nick, “are ye going back to Stratford to play, after all?”

“To Stratford?  Nay; not for a bushel of good gold Harry shovel-boards!  Bah!  That town is ratsbane and nightshade in my mouth!  Nay, we’ll not go back to Stratford town; but we shall ride a piece with thee, Nicholas,—­we shall ride a piece with thee.”

Chuckling again to himself, he fell to upon the pasty and said no more.

Nick held his peace, as he was taught to do unless first spoken to; but he could not help thinking that stage-players, and master-players in particular, were very queer folk.

CHAPTER XI

DISOWNED

Night came down on Stratford town that last sweet April day, and the pastured kine came lowing home.  Supper-time passed, and the cool stars came twinkling out; but still Nick Attwood did not come.

“He hath stayed to sleep with Robin, Master Burgess Getley’s son,” said Mistress Attwood, standing in the door, and staring out into the dusk; “he is often lonely here.”

“He should ha’ telled thee on it, then,” said Simon Attwood.  “This be no way to do.  I’ve a mind to put him to a trade.”

“Nay, Simon,” protested his wife; “he may be careless,—­he is young yet,—­but Nicholas is a good lad.  Let him have his schooling out—­he’ll be the better for it.”

“Then let him show it as he goes along,” said Attwood, grimly, as he blew the candle out.

But May-day dawned; mid-morning came, mid-afternoon, then supper-time again; and supper-time crept into dusk—­and still no Nicholas Attwood.

His mother grew uneasy; but his father only growled:  “We’ll reckon up when he cometh home.  Master Brunswood tells me he was na at the school the whole day yesterday—­and he be feared to show his face.  I’ll fear him with a bit of birch!”

“Do na be too hard with the lad, Simon,” pleaded Mistress Attwood.  “Who knows what hath happened to him?  He must be hurt, or he’d ‘a’ come home to his mother”—­and she began to wring her hands.  “He may ha’ fallen from a tree, and lieth all alone out on the hill—­or, Simon, the Avon!  Thou dost na think our lad be drowned?”

“Fudge!” said Simon Attwood.  “Born to hang’ll never drown!”

When, however, the next day crept around and still his son did not come home, a doubt stole into the tanner’s own heart.  Yet when his wife was for starting out to seek some tidings of the boy, he stopped her wrathfully.

“Nay, Margaret,” said he; “thou shalt na go traipsing around the town like a hen wi’ but one chick.  I wull na ha’ thee made a laughing-stock by all the fools in Stratford.”

But as the third day rolled around, about the middle of the afternoon the tanner himself sneaked out at the back door of his tannery in Southam’s lane, and went up into the town.