CHAPTER III

Here, then, at the very outset of his ventures, was Nepotus, a prisoner and object of contumely a thing to be jeered at by every mischievous lad who could find a clod of earth to fling at him. Yet the good blood in him asserted itself. He sat up in the stocks, held his bare head high and flashed upon his tormentors a proud look that made some of them wonder at his insolence. In their opinion Nepotus should have slunk and whimpered; instead he stared at them as if they were so much mud beneath his feet. It was at th…