The Book of Air and Shadows

now my father seeyng this taxed us sayyng what shal you not only be idle thyselfe but also tayke my clerke into idlenesse with thee? But Mr Wenke stod his grownde lyke a man quoth he sir this lad you have is as apt at the Mathematicks as any I have seen: in some few moneths he has learned near all I have to teach hym & will shortly exceede me. He, that is my father, saith how will this Mathematicks sell me more iron? Mr Wenke then says what I have taught the boye will grately spede the workynges of accountes, and to me saith, do you shew your father your Arithmeticke.
    So I took pensille & a bit of paper from the fire-box & wishing to mayke a vainglorious shew I Multiplied two numbers of seven figures together. My fathere looked & he saith pah that is mere scribbling. Nay sir, Mr Wenke sayde he has it right. My fathere sayde how can you say so? For it would take an houre or more to mayke certayne that figure working with my borde. So we were at a stand; also my fathere had it in his heade besides that there were some thing papistical about such workynges as cominge mayhap from Italie or other landes under sway of the harlot Rome.
    Nexte day he ruled I should studie no more with Mr Wenke & be made a foundry-man insteade, saying we shall see if you founder in this as well & laughed heartie at his witte. Soe amid many teares of my deare mother & I too wept most bitter, I wase sent off to my Bracegirdle cozens at Titchfield. The night I left Mr Wenke sought me privily & pressed on me the first ten bookes of his Euclid, saying I have them by heart in the maine & can buy more at Pauls if needbe & make thou good use of them. Soe I departed my home.
    My cozzens workes at Titchfield were as unlyke the countynge-house in Fish Streete as one could well imagine for makeing iron is as different from sellyng it as slaughteryng oxen be from the sarving of a mete pye: by that I intend dirty hard callous brute work. My cozzen Matthew the maistre of the place was harde as the stoffe he mayde. Looking down at me for he was a tall grete beare of a man he sayde what a paltrie thinge thou art but we will toughen you or kill you before a yeare be out we shall see which it shalbe & laughed. But though I worked lyke a slave & slept hard on straw with the other prentyces this was not the hardest of my newe lot for I had been blessed by nice breding never a curse in my house & all orderly nor had I ever been much among sinners in the way of the flesh. But now I thought I was amongst vere devils. My maistre though he professed the true faith was a vile hypocrite verey sober in church of Sundays but otherwise a roisterynge knave he kept a punke in the towne & dranke & beat his wyfe & servantes when in cups & fed we prentices short commons in oure kennel. The prentices themselves I swear were become little more than beastes of the field fighting & stealing & drunk when they could filtch ale. They were upon me from the start like crowes at a carcasse on account of my manneres & that I was a relatioun of the maistre & mayde my lyfe a miserie, which I bore as I must, weepeing onlie in secrete & prayynge for release whether by deathe or some othere mercie I cared not. But now one of them Jack Carey by name a lowde booreish fellow spied me at my Euclide & ripped it from my hande & mocked me for a mere clerke & made to throw it in the fyre, then I lept up lyke a fiende, & tooke up a stave & stroke him upon his heade so that he dropped the booke & fell senselesse down & three of them muste holt me then or I would have done grete evil upon hym even murther I think for being overcome with my rage, for which may God forgyve me. But afterwards my waye was more easie amongst them.

4
    T he crying lasted for approximately five minutes and ended in a series of deep shuddering breaths. Crosetti asked Carolyn what was wrong several times, but received no answer; as soon as the spasms had died down she pulled away from him and vanished behind the bathroom partition. He heard water running, footsteps, the delightful swishing sounds of a girl changing clothes. She’s slipping into something more comfortable, thought Crosetti with unaccustomed anticipation.
    But when she emerged, he found that she was dressed in a gray mechanic’s coverall with her hair tightly bound up in an indigo scarf, below which her face had been scrubbed clean of even the light makeup she normally wore. Upon it no trace of the recent outburst. She looked like a prisoner or a nun.
    "Feeling