I had little preparation to make. Leave of absence from the Rector I judged it better to take rather than to ask. My good beast Spot was, I knew, at my service when I should need him, for it had been so arranged, and my accoutrements I kept, not in my chamber at College, but at the tavern where Spot was stabled. So, after I had seen that my horse and arms should be ready for me at the time appointed, I had little else to do than make my farewells to my friends. First I went to Master Webberley, who was, as I have said, well affected to the King, and told him my purpose. Of this he greatly approved, and gave me his blessing, and, as a token of his good will, a flask of sherry sack. We agreed that when inquiry of my absence should be made, he should answer that I had been called away by an urgent demand from my father that would not brook delay. It fell out by great good-luck that for the day there was none other Fellow within the College but Master Webberley, the others having gone to see an estate that the College possesses near to this city. Nor did I go back to the College after taking leave of him, fearing lest some one should stay me and ask questions, but passed the remainder of the day with my mother and sister. My dear mother was sorely divided between two desires; for while she would gladly have kept me with her, she did also greatly wish that I should be with my father, believing that we should be safer together. Yet, though she was convinced of this, and, indeed, reckoned the chance higher than it deserved, yet it troubled her much to think that we should both be running into the same danger at the same time. Her poor heart was sadly distracted this way and that. This is the unhappiness of women that they have ever a choice, though, indeed, it is a choice but in name only, between evils of which they cannot say which is the more to be dreaded or the worse to bear. My mother gave me many messages, and would have laden me and my horse beyond all possibility of moving with good things, an I had not refused them. She seemed to think that I had a waggon at the least to follow me, carrying what I might want. I remember her great concern when I told her that I should sleep on the ground in my cloak. She was urgent with me that I should take a mattress with me, and would have given me one off her own bed. I had no small difficulty to persuade her that the thing was impossible. After that I was content to tell her something less than the whole truth about our life in the camp; for she followed me beyond the door, bidding me never to put on clean linen that had not been first aired at the fire.