That night, as we lay in a wayside barn (for my purse was run too low to afford us an inn), Sir Ludar told me something of his history: and what he omitted to tell, I was able to guess. He was the youngest son, he said, of an Irish rebel chieftain, Sorley Boy McDonnell by name; who, desiring at one time to cement a truce with the English, had given his child in charge of a Sir William Carleton, an English soldier to whom he owed a service, to be brought up by him in his household, and educated as an English scholar and gentleman. The boy had never seen his father since; for though his guardian began by treating him well, yet when McDonnell turned against the English, as he had done, Sir William's manner changed. He kept hold of the boy, not so much as a ward but as a hostage, and ruled him with an iron rod. The lad had been handed over from governor to governor, from school to school, but they could do nothing with him. Some of his masters he had defied, others he had scorned, one he had nearly slain. His guardian had flogged him times without number, and threatened him still oftener. His guardian's lady had tried to tame him with gentleness and coaxing. He had been admonished by clergy, and arraigned before magistrates. But all to no purpose. He snapped his fingers at them all, and went his own way, consorting with desperate men, breaking laws and heads, flinging his books to the four winds, making raids on her Majesty's deer, flouting the clergy, denying the Queen, and daring all the Sir William Charletons on this earth to make an English gentleman of him. At last his guardian (who really, I think, meant well by the lad, rebel as he was), sent him to Oxford, to the care of Master Penry, the Welshman, who, by all signs, must have had a merry two months of it. At least, I could understand now why he had been more anxious to get back my cloak than his truant pupil. Nor could I blame him if he sighed with relief when Ludar, having fallen foul of every one and everything at Oxford, and learned nothing save a smattering of Spanish from a Jesuit priest, took up his cap and gown and shook the dust of the University from his feet. "And so," said my comrade, who, as I say, left me to guess the half of what I have written down, "I am rid of them all; and, thank the saints, I am no gentleman yet." Whereupon he dropped asleep. CHAPTER SIX. HOW I WALKED WITH A REBEL. "Where do we go next?" asked I in the morning as we shook ourselves free of the hay which had been our bed, and sallied out into the air. He looked at me with a smile, as though the question were a jest. "To my guardian's," said he. "Why!" said I, "he will flog you for running away from Oxford." "What of that?" said Sir Ludar. "He is my governor." It seemed odd to me for a man to put himself thus in the lion's maw, but I durst not question my new chief.