“As you will,” said Master Metham, after some thought. “Here is the money, and now go where you please.”
With that he handed our hero ten shillings.
“What is this?” cried Jack in amazement. “Ten shillings! Surely you jest Master Metham.”
“Not so,” replied his guardian, assuming a stern air. “Take the money and begone, or return it to me and go back to Master Sendall within the hour.”
Jack thrust the coins into his pocket and turned on his heel without another word. The next minute he was striding resolutely along the highroad to London.
As Master Metham watched the receding figure of his ward from the window, he could not help feeling admiration for the boy’s pluck, but a grim smile played about the merchant’s lips as he said to himself, “And I mistake not, yon humorist will be coming back in a fortnight or less, with pinched face and tightened waistbelt.”
But Master Metham proved to be a poor prophet. Several years passed before he set eyes on Jack again.
The journey to the capital was not unpleasant. The time was early summer, when the fields are clad in the greenest grass, with a thick sprinkling of wild flowers and the hedgerows give off the sweet smell of honeysuckle and violets. Shade trees lined the road, so that Jack was able to push along, even in the noonday heat, without serious discomfort. He was a strong, healthy lad, to whom a tramp of twenty miles in a day was no great matter. Often a passing wagoner gave him a lift and sometimes shared with him a meal of bread and bacon washed down with a draught of home-brewed ale. Milkmaids, going home with their pails brimful, would offer him a drink, and occasionally a farmer would ask him to the house to join in the family meal. He never failed to find a lodging for the night if it was only in a barn or a stable. Thus Jack, with a thriftiness which would have chagrined Master Metham, had he known of it, contrived to husband his little store of money and, indeed, he had not broken into it when a happy incident relieved him of all further anxiety on the score of ways and means.
He was plodding along one day when two horsemen overtook him. They looked back in passing and one of them suddenly reined in his horse and turned it round.
“Not Jack Smith!” he cried in evident delight. “Whither away comrade?”