Where they were at other times, Stephen did not know, and hardly cared, except that he had a general dislike to, and jealousy of, anything that took his brother’s sympathy away from him. Moreover Ambrose’s face was thinner and paler, he had a strange absorbed look, and often even when they were together seemed hardly to attend to what his brother was saying.
“I will make him come,” said Stephen to himself, as he went with swinging gait towards Warwick Inner Yard, where, sure enough, he found Ambrose sitting at the door, frowning over some black letter which looked most uninviting in the eyes of the apprentice, and he fell upon his brother with half angry, half merry reproofs for wasting the fine spring afternoon over such studies.
Ambrose looked up with a dreamy smile and greeted his brother; but all the time Stephen was narrating the history of the match (and he did tell the fate of each individual arrow of his own or Barlow’s) his eyes were wandering back to the crabbed page in his hand, and when Stephen impatiently wound up his history with the invitation to supper on Easter Sunday, the reply was, “Nay, brother, thanks, but that I cannot do.”
“Cannot!” exclaimed Stephen.
“Nay, there are other matters in hand that go deeper.”
“Yea, I know whatever concerns musty books goes deeper with thee than thy brother,” replied Stephen, turning away much mortified.
Ambrose’s warm nature was awakened. He held his brother by the arm and declared himself anything but indifferent to him, but he owned that he did not love noise and revelry, above all on Sunday.
“Thou art addling thy brains with preachings!” said Stephen. “Pray Heaven they make not a heretic of thee. But thou mightest for once have come to mine own feast.”
Ambrose, much perplexed and grieved at thus vexing his brother, declared that he would have done so with all his heart, but that this very Easter Sunday there was coming a friend of Master Hansen’s from Holland; who was to tell them much of the teaching in Germany, which was so enlightening men’s eyes.
“Yea, truly, making heretics of them, Mistress Headley saith,” returned Stephen. “O Ambrose, if thou wilt run after these books and parchments, canst not do it in right fashion, among holy monks, as of old?”