say his '_sum, es, est_' without catching it. And as for getting through
the 'genitivo' and 'vocativo' without a downright threshing--" He
shrugged his shoulders ruefully as he remembered his unlearned lesson.
Everything had gone wrong with him that morning, and the thought of the
birching that he was sure to get was more than he could bear. "I will
na stand it any longer--I'll run away!"

Kit Sedgewick laughed ironically. "And when the skies fall we'll catch
sparrows, Nick Attwood," said he. "Whither wilt thou run?"

Stung by his tone of ridicule, Nick out with the first thing that came
into his head. "To Coventry, after the stage-players," said he,
defiantly.

The whole crowd gave an incredulous hoot.

Nick's face flushed. To be crossed at home, to be birched at school, to
work all May-day in the tannery vats, and to be laughed at--it was
too much.

"Ye think that I will na? Well, I'll show ye! 'Tis only eight miles to
Warwick, and hardly more than that beyond--no walk at all; and Diccon
Haggard, my mother's cousin, lives in Coventry. So out upon your musty
Latin--English is good enough for me this day! There's bluebells blowing
in the dingles, and cuckoo-buds no end. And while ye are all grinding at
your old Aesop I shall be roaming over the hills wherever I please."

As he spoke he thought of the dark, wainscoted walls of the school-room
with their narrow little windows overhead, of the foul-smelling floors
of the tannery in Southam's lane, and his heart gave a great, rebellious