"No, sir!" said Jack, with so much emphasis and decision that both gentlemen smiled. "I do not think I have any vocation for such a life. I had thought I should like to be a physician." "'Tis a noble calling, and you do well to choose it, though it is not by any means so easy a life as the other; or so I should guess," said the knight. "Well, my lad, I doubt not you will do well. I have some interest at Oxford, and shall be glad to give you any help in my power. Now go, and be here betimes in the morning." The next morning Jack was at the Hall even before the hour specified. He found his friend waiting for him, and a well-appointed pony prepared for his riding, while a man-servant attended to lead the sumpter mule, whose burden was considerably diminished. The knight gave Jack a fair rose-noble as a parting gift, and the lady bestowed upon him a plum bun and a handful of sweetmeats; and, fortified by a good breakfast of ale and cold beef, he set out on his journey in high spirits. "Well, good luck go with 'em wherever they go, and the blessing of our Lady and all the saints attend them," said old Margery, sighing. Their road passing by the cottage door, the travellers had stopped for a parting word, and Margery had done her best to insure their good fortune by throwing an old shoe after them. "A better boy than Master Jack never breathed the breath of life; and as for Master Fleming, he is a godly, quiet gentleman as ever I saw, none of your swearing, ruffling gallants, and knows what belongs to good manners," added Margery, contemplating with much satisfaction the kerchiefs and hood the merchant had bestowed upon her. "Do you not think, Thomas Sprat, that we shall be lonesome without Jack?" Thomas Sprat nodded a reply; and, having looked after the travellers as long as he could see them, he put his Testament into his pouch, and hastened away to the thicket in the little valley which was wont to serve him as a place of retirement. CHAPTER X. HOME GOSSIP TO our young friend, the journey to Bridgewater in company with Master Fleming was one long pleasure. It was a great comfort to pour out his heart to one who understood him fully, to bring forward all the questions which the reading of Scripture had raised in his mind, and to listen to Master Fleming's explanations and remarks. To his extreme delight, he found that Master Fleming had been in Rome and even in Jerusalem, as well as in Germany, and the Low Countries, as Holland was usually called. Jack could have wished the road to Bridgewater a hundred miles long, he had so much to say and so much to hear. "Oh, how I wish I could travel abroad and see foreign lands!" he exclaimed. "It seems to me as if I were just beginning to find out how large the world is."