This set me a-thinking, and during the week I was allowed to remain
in the old farmhouse I turned over in my mind a plan which, I own,
mightily pleased me. It was clear that I must do something for
myself. I had never had any great liking for farming work, and now
that the position of a yeoman on my own land was denied me I was
not inclined to accept service on the land of another. Mr. Lloyd,
the master of the school, when I went to take leave of him, was
kind enough to say that he would use his interest to obtain for me
a servitorship at Oxford or a sizarship at Cambridge, which would
put me in the way of making a livelihood as a tutor or perhaps as a
parson. But I was not in the mind to be any more subsistent on
charity, even of this modified sort, nor had I indeed any hope of
achieving excellence in the classical tongues, so I thanked him,
but declined his offer.
The idea that had entered my noddle was that I might join Mr.
Vetch, and do something in the practice of law to make amends for
the ill fortune which, unwittingly and indirectly, I had been the
means of bringing upon him. When I had made up my mind, I mooted
the project to Captain Galsworthy, who laughed at it as quixotic,
but confessed that he saw no better course open to me.
"I had liever you took up a more active trade--one in which you
could put to use the sciences you have learned of me," said the old
warrior. "But that would take you from Shrewsbury, to be sure, and
I should miss our little bouts, Humphrey boy.
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