Hogan grunted audibly. Crispin drew himself up, erect, lithe and supple--a figure to inspire confidence in the most despairing. He placed a hand, nervous, and strong as steel, upon the boy's shoulder, and the clutch of his fingers made Jocelyn wince. “Low though your father be fallen,” said he sternly, “he has never yet broken his word. I have pledged you mine, and to-morrow I shall set out to perform what I have promised. I shall see you ere I start. You will sleep here, will you not?” Jocelyn shrugged his shoulders. “It signifies little where I lie.” Crispin smiled sadly, and sighed. “You have no faith in me yet. But I shall earn it, or”--and his voice fell suddenly--“or rid you of a loathsome parent. Hogan, can you find him quarters?” Hogan replied that there was the room he had already been confined in, and that he could lie in it. And deeming that there was nothing to be gained by waiting, he thereupon led the youth from the room and down the passage. At the foot of the stairs the Irishman paused in the act of descending, and raised the taper aloft so that its light might fall full upon the face of his companion. “Were I your father,” said he grimly, “I would kick you from one end of Waltham to the other by way of teaching you filial piety! And were you not his son, I would this night read you a lesson you'd never live to practise. I would set you to sleep a last long sleep in the kennels of Waltham streets. But since you are--marvellous though it seem--his offspring, and since I love him and may not therefore hurt you, I must rest content with telling you that you are the vilest thing that breathes. You despise him for a roysterer, for a man of loose ways. Let me, who have seen something of men, and who read you to-night to the very dregs of your contemptible soul, tell you that compared with you he is a very god. Come, you white-livered cur!” he ended abruptly. “I will light you to your chamber.” When presently Hogan returned to Crispin he found the Tavern Knight--that man of iron in whom none had ever seen a trace of fear or weakness seated with his arms before him on the table, and his face buried in them, sobbing like a poor, weak woman. CHAPTER XXII. SIR CRISPIN'S UNDERTAKING Through the long October night Crispin and Hogan sat on, and neither sought his bed. Crispin's quick wits his burst of grief once over--had been swift to fasten on a plan to accomplish that which he had undertaken.