"And where, then, hast thou been, William?" said his father, somewhat gravely. "This idle wandering life of thine will, I fear me, lead to nothing. Master Pouncet Grasp has fairly given me warning that he will have no more to do with thee. He complains that you keep no regular hours; you heed no orders or directions he gives; that you set him at naught, in sooth, and make his other lads more idle than yourself. Nay, he says you spoil his parchments, spill his ink in waste, and that, in truth, he must either be ruined or be rid of thee."
"Out upon the miserable scrivener," returned William, laughing. "I did but pen a stanza in place of drawing a lease, and lo! he has never forgotten it. But, in good sooth, dear father," continued the youth, "I fear me I shall never thrive in the office of Pouncet Grasp. I find the dry work of a copying-clerk but an idle waste of the life Heaven hath blessed me with. I was not formed to draw leases, wills, and other tenures and tricks of lawcraft.
"Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch,
Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth,
Between two girls, which hath the merrier eye—
I have, perchance, some shallow spirit of judgment;
But in the nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a jackdaw."
"Thou canst rhapsodize at a good rate, my son," said the father, "that I well know. But in good truth thou must turn over a new leaf with Lawyer Grasp, or he will turn thee off, William!"
"Nay," urged the youth, "since we have entered upon this matter, I must tell thee, father, that never since the pupil age of Adam was there poor wight more unfitted for a lawyer than myself; my pen runs riot when I put it upon parchment; I cannot indite the undoing of the widow and the orphan, even when the foul copy lies before my nose. I turn a writ into a love-song, and when I should copy out an ejectment, lo! I find I have penned the words of a madrigal."
"The more the pity, William," said the father, "for to speak sooth to thee, I find myself by no means in so thriving a condition as I could wish. There be a many of us now in family, great and small. Business slackens with me, and in good sooth, lad, an I do not better in the next three months than I have done the last, I may e'en close my books, shut the house, and stick up bills to let the premises. Ruin, William, stares me in the face, if matters mend not anon. A bad time such for you to be thinking of changing from the vocation I have placed you in."
"Neither would I think of changing, father," returned the son, "did I think that, by remaining in the law, I could help you or advance myself. But believe me, so opposite is the dull routine of the desk, so abhorrent to my soul is the craft of a lawyer, that rather than follow such a calling I would take the sword my grandsire won at Bosworth, and seek a livelihood in any place where men cut throats in the way of profession. Those were sad times, father, but they were stirring times, those days of York and Lancaster, when—
"Trenching war channell'd our fields,
And bruised our flowrets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces."
As the youth uttered this with something of a theatrical air, and giving the words great force by his utterance, his father looked at him with considerable curiosity. "Now, by my halidame," he said, "I cannot half fathom thee, William. Truly thou art a riddle to make out. Seeming fit for nothing, and yet good at all things. I would I knew, in good sooth, what to put thee to."
The lad smiled. "Nay," he said, "I must not be undutiful towards one so good. I will then continue to try and please this godless lawyer till something better turns up. And now I must tell thee I have made a friend of one well known to thee, and who is willing to serve us in requital for some little service he hath received at my hands."