By nights it was my custom to request a lodging for Idonia of the clergyman of the town we rested at, while I myself would lie at the inn; and by this means I was enabled to renew my pleasant acquaintance with the Curate of Newbury; who (it will be remembered) had preached that Philippic sermon against the Papists, and had moreover so earnestly desired me that I should tell the Archbishop of his adding a rood of ground to his churchyard. He seemed, methought, a little dejected when I said I had had none occasion to His Grace, who therefore remained yet in ignorance of the progress the Church made in Newbury; but he soon so far forgot his disappointment as to tell me of an improvement of his tithes-rents, by which he was left with seventeen shillings to the good at Michaelmas; and with a part of this surplus he had, he confessed, been tempted to purchase of a pedlar a certain book in the French tongue called _Pantagruel_, from which he had derived no inconsiderable entertainment, albeit joined to some scruples upon the matters therein treated of, whether they were altogether such as he should be known to read them. "However, since none here hath any French but I," said he, "I bethought me that no public scandal was to be feared, and so read on." We rode into the little town of Glastonbury, where it lieth under its strange and conical steep hill, about four o'clock in the afternoon; it being then, I think, toward the end of January, and clear still weather. And because it was already dusk I would not proceed further that day; but in the morning, before daybreak, we proceeded again forward, going by the ridgeway that, as a viaduct, standeth high above the levels, then all veiled in chill grey mists. We got into Taunton a little ere noon, and there baited our horses, being determined to end our journey before nightfall, which we could not have done except by this respite. The name of Simon Powell had been so oft upon my lips, and I had with so many and lively strokes depainted him in conversation with Idonia, that she had come to know him almost as well as I, and thus I was hardly astonished when she turned about in her saddle to gaze after a young man that walked in a meadow a little apart from the highway as we were entering the hamlet of Tolland, and asked me whether he were not, as in truth he was, my old companion. Marvellous glad to meet with Simon after this long interval, I drew rein and beckoned to him, who, running forward almost at the same instant, took my hand, gloved as it was, and covered it with kisses. "How doth my father?" I demanded eagerly, and ere he had concluded his salutation. "His worship may mend when he sees you come home," said he gravely, and by that I saw I was not to indulge too large a hope of his mending. "I would we were indeed arrived home, Simon," I replied; "but at all events, this lodging shall soon be exchanged for a better; that is, if he may yet bear to be moved."