Dickon looked into the fire for answer, and then at the black, starless sky overhead. He rose, and busied himself for a time in gathering fresh fuel, and then in roughly wattling some side shelter at the back of the bed of leaves. Some vagrant flakes of snow sifted through the branches above, and he reflected upon the chances of making a roof on the morrow. Or doubtless it would be better to go farther back, and build more securely there.
He put the question to Andreas by way of talk, restoring the fire meanwhile. The German boy smiled in wonder.
"Why, on the morrow, if strength comes back to me, hie we to the good white friars. They bade you come, and me, too!"
Dickon's face clouded over.
"Nay, I'm for the greenwood," he said stubbornly. "I will wear no man's collar more, nor sleep under roof. To be free, here in the open, it maketh a new man of me. And so, an you leave me, here I abide alone, or in these parts."
"How should I leave thee, Dickon?" said the other, softly. "That could not be. But freedom lies not alone out under the skies, in wind and cold. Was any other more free than I, with my old master? Come, thou shalt be ruled by me—and we will make our way out from these ruffian parts together, and somewhere we shall light upon a gentle patron, and there I will carve new types and build a press, and thy stout arms shall turn the screw, and I will teach thee learning, and——"
He broke off all at once, and gazed wistfully upward at the mounting volume of smoke and snapping sparks for a long time in silence. Dickon looked on him, speechless but with great things dawning confusedly in his head.
CHAPTER IV.
UP IN THE WORLD.
Save the crackling of flame, and the small sound of branches overhead that were swayed a little by the draught from the fire on the forest floor, Dickon heard nothing while he waited for Andreas to finish the matter of which he had been speaking.
For the rude smithy-bred boy there was little meaning in the other's promise to teach him learning. No more meaning was there for Dickon in the young scholar's craving for types and a press to begin printing anew.