sake of the vain shadow which is beyond your power to obtain, Thomas Wolsey," said his father with great bitterness.

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My dear father, you know little of the powers of the human mind, or of the mighty things which its energies, when once roused, and directed towards one object, may effect."

which thou canst not perform, son Thomas," replied his father. "Who

ever heard of a boy of fourteen taking up a bachelor's degree at Oxenford ?"

"Thou shalt hear of one anon, mine honoured father," said young Wolsey.

"I will engage that thy mother shall have the finest baron of beef in my

"Sir," replied young Wolsey, "I have blotted that word out of My dictionary."

"I like your spirit, young man," said his father, "albeit it savoureth a little of presumption."

"That remains to be proved," said his son, "and I am quite ready that my earnestness should be tried by any test you may be inclined to demand."

"I shall hold you to your word," replied his father, "and condition, that if you take up your bachelor's degree within four years of your entering Magdalen College, then shall you proceed in the course of life on which you are so determinately bent; but if you fail in doing this, then shall you return to my house, and submit your future destiny to my disposal."

"If I take it not up within two years of my entering the college, barring accidents of sickness or death, then strip me of the learned stole of a clerk of Oxenford, and chain me to your girdle as a butcher's slave for life," replied the youth with heightened colour.

"See that you keep my father to his promise, mother," said the youth, "for I shall travel night and day, in hopes of being the first to communicate the intelligence, or at any rate, to arrive in time to come in for a slice of the beef while it be hot."

The important object being now accomplished of obtaining the consent of the elder Wolsey to his son's entering the university of Oxford, the lad commenced his journey on the following day for that ancient seat of learning. He was on foot, for the sturdy butcher, his father, though well able to send him thither on a stout pack-horse, attended by one of his own men, was determined to afford no facilities for an enterprise to which he had so little relish.

The loving care of mistress Joan Wolsey had supplied the youthful candidate for scarlet stockings and cardinal's hat with a few silver groats for his expenses on the road, and a needful stock of linen and other necessaries, which he carried in a leathern wallet

tender age, the good-wife Joan Wolsey, in great haste, entered the shambles, where her husband was preparing to put an uncommonly fine baron of beef into the basket of a nobleman's servant, and laying hands upon it, exclaimed, "Why Thomas Wolsey, what are you about to do with that meat?"

"To send it to the house of my lord, according to order, to be sure, mistress," replied the butcher, with a look of surprise.

"An it had been ordered by King Henry himself, he should not have it to day," said Mistress Joan.

"Is your wife delirit, master Wolsey?" asked the servant.

"One would suppose so by her wild words," said the astonished butcher, who knew not what to think of the behaviour of his usually discreet spouse.

"If I be, master, it is with joy," replied Joan Wolsey; "but the truth is, I came hither to claim the finest baron of beef in the shambles, which you said I should roast for dinner on the day on which you heard the news of our son, Thomas Wolsey, taking up a bachelor's degree at Oxenford."

"And who brought you the intelligence, mistress?" demanded her hus. band.

"A joyful messenger, my good man, for it was the boy himself, blessings on him dressed in his bachelor's gown, and bearing the certificate of his admission as a fellow of Magdalen College,"

father, turning to his head-man, "take that baron of beef home to my house, and help thy mistress to spit it, and put it down to the fire, that my boy bachelor may dine off the best joint in my shambles; and do you, master Ralph,” added he, turning to his lordship's servant, "make my duty to my lord, and ask him, if he will be pleased to put up with rump or ribs to-day, since the baron of beef, for which his housekeeper hath sent was bespoken nearly two years before his order came, and my good dame hath come to claim my pledge in earnest."

"Which my lord is too strict an observer of his own word to wish you to forfeit on his account, I am sure, master Wolsey," said Ralph: "and when I explain the pleasant cause for which you have made bold to disappoint his lordship of his favourite dish to-day, he, who is himself a scholar and a patron of learning withal, will hold you excused."

This day being a holiday, the head master of the Ipswich grammar school, several of young Wolsey's chosen friends among the scholars, and the good-humoured curate of St. Nicholas, were invited to partake of the baron of beef which the young bachelor had so honourably earned, and which mistress Joan Wolsey cooked in her most approved style, to the great satisfaction of her husband and the guests.

This was one of the long vacations, but no season of idleness to young Wol

sey, whose unremitting application to study impaired his appetite, and rendered him languid and feverish, which his anxious mother perceiving, and feeling some alarm lest his incessant mental toil might injure his naturally feeble constitution, she communicated her uneasiness to her husband, and asked him if he could not contrive some little pleasant employment for him, which would have the effect of diverting him for a few days from his sedentary occupations.

"Ay, ay, dame," replied old Wolsey, "I have a choice bit of pastime for the boy; he shall go with Humphrey and Peter and Miles to buy beeves off the Southwold and Reydon commons and marshes."

"That would do well enough, master, if the lad were any judge of cattle, which I fear, with all his college learning, he is not," responded mistress Joan. "You may well say that, mistress," rejoined the butcher, "for, though he hath been born, bred, and nourished in the midst of such matters, and he is observant enough in other things, yet I would answer for it, he knoweth not the difference between a fat beast and a lean one, a Scot or a home-bred, yea scarce ly between a long horn or a short; and were I to send him on this business of mine without my shrewd foreman, Humphrey, to instruct his ignorance and detect the knavery of the sellers, he would bring me home pretty bargains of beasts against the Easter festivals. Why these fat monks of Reydon, who

27

are far better skilled in grazing for the Ipswich and Yarmouth markets than in their church Latin, would be sure to palm their old worn-out mortuary cows upon him for fine young heifers, and make him pay the price of three-yearold steers for their broken-down yoke oxen that had ploughed the convent lands for the last ten years. But, as I said before, Humphrey shall go with him, who is used to their tricks of old, and will bid them half their asking price at a word, which our Thomas would be ashamed of doing to men of their cloth were he left to himself, so he shall only have the pleasant part of the business, to wit, listening to the chaffering, and paying down the money when the price is agreed upon by those who are wiser in such matters than himself."

"And how do you propose for him to perform the journey, master, for the places whereof you speak are many miles distant?" said Joan.

"Under forty miles, wife, which will be no great stretch for Miles and Peter (who are to drive the cattle) to walk; as for Thomas, he shall ride my gray mare, and Humphrey can take the black nag, and give Miles and Peter a lift behind him by turns, which will ease their legs, and make it a pleasant journey for them all. Ah! that part of Suffolk is a fine grazing country to travel through. I am sure I shall Thomas the prospect of so many herds and flocks as he will see on those upland meads and salt marshes; but he will think more of

envy

old musty books and records, which could never give a hungry man his dinner, than of all the sensible sights he might see by the way."

"Every one to his vocation, master." replied Joan Wolsey; "yours is to feed the bodies, and my Thomas's will be to nourish the minds of men with a more enduring food than that which you have it in your power to provide."

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Gramercy, mistress!" said the butcher, with a grin; "one would think he had been feasting you on some of his improving diet, for you begin to discourse like a doctor."

The next day, by peep of dawn, the quartette set forth from St Nicholas's passage on their expedition, on which no one reckoned more than young Wolsey, who, wearing his college cap and gown, the latter of which was tucked up round his waist, lest its long full skirts should impede his horsemanship, was mounted on his father's easy-pacing grey mare. For the convenience of riding he was accommodated with a pair of the old man's boots, which drew up far above his knees, and were wide enough to admit three pair of legs like the stripling's slender limbs. He rode cautiously at the head of the cavalcade,

the black nag, whose mettle, if ever it had possessed any, was tamed by the wear and tear of fifteen years' of service in the butcher's cart.

Miles and Peter trudged steadily along with their quarter staffs in their hands, relying on their own excellent pedestrianism to reach the ultimate place of their destination almost as soon as the horsemen of the party, whose steeds they knew would be sorely jaded before they reached St. Peter's, Wangford, where their master had directed them to crave lodging for the night of the monks of Clugni, who there occupied a cell dependent on the monastery of Thetford, which also was the parent house of the cell at Reydon.

The two saucy knaves occasionally exchanged sly glances, and cracked dry jokes on the unsuitable array and cautious riding of the young Oxford student, their master's son, and the steady jogtrot of Humphrey, who rode quite at his ease on a soft sheepskin which supplied the place of a saddle, by being tightly buckled with a broad leathern strap under the belly of the black nag, whose quiet temper allowed her to be ridden safely without stirrups.

To be concluded in the next number.