On your knees, and with an oath, lest I find you lie," said I, in none too sweet a mood.
He had naught else he could do; so, falling on his knees, took Heaven to witness that his master's name was David Merriman, a captain in her Majesty's service; lodging now at the Court, but presently about to join the Queen's forces in Ireland.
That was enough for me.
"Tell Master David Merriman I shall remember his name, and bid him remember mine against we meet next--and so farewell." I left him puffing for breath against the wall, and departed.

But hearing the watch raise a new hue and cry at my heels, I quickened my steps, and so after many a tedious circuit, ran into my master's shop just as he was about to bolt the door for the night.
He received me sourly, as indeed I expected.
"So," said he, "this is your faithful service which you swore to render me; and you a parson's son, that should know what an oath is." He was for ever taunting me with my dear father's holy calling, and it vexed me to hear it.
"I am also under oath to serve my Queen," said I, "and I put that before all." "And you serve her by drunkenness, and rioting, and breaking the heads of her loyal subjects! I have heard of you this day.

How comes it that your fellow 'prentice Peter Stoupe--" "A plague on Peter Stoupe!" said I, for I disliked him.

"And as for drunkenness, I was never drunk in my life; nor, by my own leave, a rioter." "By whose leave, then ?" asked Master Walgrave.
"By the leave of them who behave themselves as knaves," said I, getting hot as I thought of Captain Merriman; "and had they twenty skulls, and a crown on each, I'd crack 'em." "Had they no crowns, they would not be worth the cracking," said a cheerful voice behind us; and there stood Mistress Walgrave herself.
"Come, husband," said she, soothingly, "be not too hard on Humphrey, he is but a lad.

He serves us well most days, when the Queen is not to the front.