Flowerdew have a hard name for you? I know not what it means, but it
sounds of the gallows,' said Richard, looking rather doubtful as to
how his father might take it.

'Possibly, my son, I care more for the contention than the bone, for
while thieves quarrel honest men go their own ways. But what
ignorance I have kept thee in, and yet left thee to bear the
reproach of a puritan!' said the father, smiling grimly. 'Thou
meanest master Flowerdew would call me a Gallio, and thou takest the
Roman proconsul for a gallows-bird! Verily thou art not destined to
prolong the renown of thy race for letters. I marvel what thy cousin
Thomas would say to the darkness of thy ignorance.'

'See what comes of not sending me to Oxford, sir: I know not who is
my cousin Thomas.'

'A man both of learning and wisdom, my son, though I fear me his
diet is too strong for the stomach of this degenerate age, while the
dressing of his dishes is, on the other hand, too cunningly devised
for their liking. But it is no marvel thou shouldest be ignorant of
him, being as yet no reader of books. Neither is he a close kinsman,
being of the Lincolnshire branch of the Heywoods.'

'Now I know whom you mean, sir; but I thought he was a writer of
stage plays, and such things as on all sides I hear called foolish,
and mummery.'

'There be among those who call themselves the godly, who will endure
no mummery but of their own inventing. Cousin Thomas hath written a
multitude of plays, but that he studied at Cambridge, and to good