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."
"It is a large place, no doubt, and we have as yet seen but a small portion thereof," replied the merchant. "There are the far-off parts of India and China, and those lands over the sea which have been discovered of late by the Spaniards, and which are described as a kind of earthly paradise by those who have seen them. But here we are, as I think, at our destination. Are not those the roofs of Bridgewater?"
"They are so, and that tall steeple is that of the Church of St. Mary. I will guide you to the house of Sir William Leavett, which is by the waterside. I could wish our journey were to be longer."