Jack started to his feet and gazed around him in every direction. "I see nobody," he said at last, "nobody but the falconer from the Hall, exercising his hawks in the waste half a mile away, and old Margery bringing water from the Lady-well. Nobody can come upon us here without being seen." "Sit down here by me, then, and I will tell you the tale. I cannot think it will harm you. I had thought to carry the secret to my grave, since I have no son to whom I may leave it. But I have learned to love you as my own son, and all I have will be yours when I am gone. It will not be much; only the old cottage, and what little gold I have saved; but, if you have the cottage, you must have the secret of the cottage as well. So sit you down, and you will, and hear the old man's tale." Jack obeyed, and prepared to listen with breathless attention. The old man once more glanced warily round him, and then began his narration. "You asked me, dear boy, if I had ever seen a Bible. Yes, I have both seen and handled the Word of God in the vulgar tongue. It was not a printed book such as we have now; it was written by hand on parchment, and bound in leather with heavy iron clasps, like the enchanter's book in your legend of Merlin. But it was no enchanter's book. It was the real, true, living Word of God, done into English by good Master Wickliffe of Lutterworth." "It happened first in this wise. I was a young boy of nine or ten years old, and sharp for my age as any lad in these parts. I had learned to read from my father, who was a substantial yeoman, and could both read and write. But there was little to read in those days, only a ballad now and then or some such folly, which my father did not greatly favor." "About this time, I began to notice that though I was always sent to bed with the chickens, yet my father and mother and my elder brother, a boy of sixteen or thereabouts, sat up much later. I used to lie awake and listen after a while, and I could hear a low murmur of voices, as though some one were reading aloud. I dared not ask any questions, for I stood much in awe of my father and mother, more than is the fashion in these days," added the old man with a sigh. "Well!" said Jack, fearful lest the shepherd should fall to moralizing on the degeneracy of the times, an exercise of mind as common then as now and quite as reasonable. "Well," said the shepherd, "as I told you, I listened thus for several nights, now and then catching a word which roused my curiosity still more, till at last I could bear it no longer. One night (it was Easter-even of all the nights in the year), I rose softly from my bed, and putting on my clothes, I slipped carefully down the stairs, till I could peep through the door at the bottom. There sat my father and mother, surrounded by three or four neighbors. You have seen the little footstool which always stands by my great chair in the chimney corner?"