tailor, or a perfumer. An you be minded to stay here with a black
gown and a shaven crown, I shall on with Spring and come to
preferment. Maybe thou'lt next hear of me when I have got some fat
canonry for thee."

"Nay, I quit thee not," said Ambrose. "If thou fare forward, so do
I. But I would thou couldst have brought thy mind to rest there."

"What! wouldst thou be content with this worn-out place, with more
churches than houses, and more empty houses than full ones? No! let
us on where there is something doing! Thou wilt see that my Lord of
York will have room for the scholar as well as the man-at-arms."

So the kind offer was declined, but Ambrose was grieved to see that
the Warden thought him foolish, and perhaps ungrateful.

Nevertheless the good man gave them a letter to the Reverend Master
Alworthy, singing clerk at St. Paul's Cathedral, telling Ambrose it
might serve them in case they failed to find their uncle, or if my
Lord of York's household should not be in town. He likewise gave
them a recommendation which would procure them a night's lodging at
the Grange, and after the morning's mass and meat, sped them on
their way with his blessing, muttering to himself, "That elder one
might have been the staff of mine age! Pity on him to be lost in
the great and evil City! Yet 'tis a good lad to follow that fiery
spark his brother. Tanquam agnus inter lupos. Alack!"



CHAPTER IV. A HERO'S FALL