"And He hath no lack of our work," added Eunice softly. "It is _given_ to us to do, like as it was given unto Peter and John to suffer. Methinks he were neither a good child nor a thankful, that should refuse to stretch forth hand for his Father's gift." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. I have not been able to ascertain the true date of Underhill's death, but he was living on the 6th of March 1568. (Rot. Pat., 10 Elizabeth, Part Two.) CHAPTER THIRTEEN. GENTLEMAN JACK. "He is transformed, And grown a gallant of the last edition." _Massinger_. Jack's letters from London were exuberant. He was delighted with his new phase of existence. He had made some most advantageous friendships, and was in hopes of obtaining a monopoly, which would bring him in about a hundred a year. In the meantime, he begged that his father would remember that life at Court was a very costly affair; and perhaps he would be so good as to send him a little more money. Half-a-dozen letters of this description passed, and Jack was liberally supplied with such an amount as his father anticipated that he might reasonably want. But at the end of about two years came a much more urgent epistle. Jack was sorry to say that he had been unavoidably compelled to go into debt. No blame was to be attached to him in the matter. He had not incurred the obligation of a penny for anything beyond the barest necessaries; he hoped his father would not imagine that he had been living extravagantly. But he wished Sir Thomas to understand that he really had not a suspicion of the inevitable expenses of Court life. The sums which he had been so good as to remit were a mere drop in the ocean of Jack's necessities. Sir Thomas replied, without any expression of displeasure, that if his son could get leave of absence sufficient to pay a visit to Lancashire, he would be glad to see him at home, and he desired that he would bring all his bills with him. The answer to this letter was Jack himself, who came home on an autumn evening, most elaborately attired, and brimful of news. A fresh punishment had been devised for felony--transportation to the colonies among the savages. The Spaniards were finally and completely expelled from the Dutch provinces. A Dutchman had made the extraordinary discovery that by an ingenious arrangement of pieces of glass, of certain shapes, at particular distances, objects far off could be made to seem nearer and larger. The Queen was about to send out a commercial expedition to India--the first--from which great things were expected. There was a new proclamation against Jesuits and "seminary priests." All these matters naturally enough, with Jack's personal adventures, occupied the first evening. The next morning, Sir Thomas asked to see the bills. Jack brought out a tolerably large package of documents, which he presented to his father with a graceful reverence.