"Where do we go next?" asked I in the morning as we shook ourselves free
of the hay which had been our bed, and sallied out into the air.
He looked at me with a smile, as though the question were a jest.
"To my guardian's," said he.
"Why!" said I, "he will flog you for running away from Oxford."
"What of that?" said Sir Ludar. "He is my governor."
It seemed odd to me for a man to put himself thus in the lion's maw, but
I durst not question my new chief.
"You shall come too, and see him," said he. "It passes me to guess what
he will do with me next, unless he make a lawyer or a priest of me."
"I must back to my master in London," said I.
"The printer!" said he, scornfully. "He is thy master no more; thou
hast entered my service."
This staggered me. For much as I loved him, it had never occurred to me
to bind myself to a penniless runaway.
"Pardon me, sir," said I. "I am bound to the printer by an oath.
Besides, I know not yet what your service is."
"My service," said he, "is to be free, and to put wrong right."
"'Tis a noble service," said I, "but it fills no stomachs."
"You 'prentices are all stomach," said he, sadly. "But 'tis always so.
No man that ever I met believed in me yet. I must fight my battles
alone."
This cut me to the quick.
"Not so," said I. "Last night I swore to be your friend. It was a mad
oath, I know; but you shall see if I do not observe it. But till two
years are past, I am bound by an oath to my master the printer, and him
I must serve. Then, I am with you."
This I thought softened him.
"Well," said he, "who knows where we may be two years hence?"
"God knows, and we are in his hands."
"So be it," said Sir Ludar, crossing himself, to my grief. "Meanwhile,
Humphrey, we are friends. I may claim your heart if not your hand?"
"You may--or," here I blushed, "a share of it."
"What mean you by that?" asked he, sharply. "What man holds the rest?"
"No man," said I.
He laughed pleasantly at that.
"A woman? I have heard of that distemper before. It comes and goes,
I'm told. Had it been a man, I should have been jealous."
There was little sympathy in that for my sore heart, so I said no more.
"Come," said he presently, "you shall come to my guardian's. He lives
at Richmond, and it is on our way to London. If he turn me off, you
shall take me to London, and make a printer of me, if you please."