_rendezvous_. Come, lad; and if I know the Falmouth mob, you shall
have a pretty little turn-up well worth the journey."

But Nat, still staring out of window, shook his head. He was in one
of his perverse moods--and they had been growing frequent of late--
in which nothing I could say or do seemed to content him; and for
this I chiefly accused the cordwainer's daughter, who in fact was a
decent merry girl, fond of strawberries, with no more notion of
falling in love with Nat than of running off with her father's
apprentice. Whatever the cause of it, a cloud had been creeping over
our friendship of late. He sought companions--some of them serious
men--with whom I could not be easy. We kept up the pretence, but
talked no longer with entirely open hearts. Yet I loved him; and now
in a sudden urgent desire to carry him off to Cornwall with me and
clear up all misunderstandings, I caught his arm and haled him down
to our college garden, which lies close within the city wall; and
there, pacing the broken military terrace, plied him with a dozen
reasons why he should come. Still he shook his head to all of them;
and presently, hearing four o'clock strike, pulled up in his walk and
announced that he must be going--he had an engagement.

"And where?" I asked.

He confessed that it was to visit the poor prisoners shut up for debt
in Bocardo.

I pulled a wry mouth, remembering the dismal crew in the Fleet
Prison. But though, the confession being forced from him, he ended
wistfully and as if upon a question, I did not offer to come.
It seemed a mighty dull way to finish a summer's afternoon.