told
you, we are growing vegetables, and for that we must have more men
than for corn. But, as you see, it pays. Do not fear about it,
John. If God should please to restore you to health and strength,
most gladly will I lay down the reins; but till then I will manage
as best I may and, with the help and advice of my brother and his
friends, shall hope, by the blessing of God, to keep all straight."

The farm throve, but its master made but little progress towards
recovery. He was able, however, occasionally to be carried round in
a hand litter, made for him upon a plan devised by Gaspard
Vaillant; in which he was supported in a half-sitting position,
while four men bore him as if in a Sedan chair.

But it was only occasionally that he could bear the fatigue of such
excursions. Ordinarily he lay on a couch in the farmhouse kitchen,
where he could see all that was going on there; while in warm
summer weather he was wheeled outside, and lay in the shade of the
great elm, in front of the house.

The boy, Philip--for so he had been christened, after John
Fletcher's father--grew apace and, as soon as he was old enough to
receive instruction, his father taught him his letters out of a
horn book, until he was big enough to go down every day to school
in Canterbury. John himself was built upon a large scale, and at
quarterstaff and wrestling could, before he married, hold his own
with any of the lads of Kent; and Philip bade fair to take after
him, in skill and courage. His mother would shake her head
reprovingly when he returned, with his face bruised and his clothes
torn, after encounters with his schoolfellows; but his father took
his part.

"Nay, nay, wife," he said one day, "the boy is eleven years old
now, and must not grow up a milksop. Teach him if you will to be
honest and true, to love God, and to hold to the faith; but in
these days it needs that men should be able to use their weapons,
also. There are your countrymen in France, who ere long will be
driven to take up arms, for the defence of their faith and lives
from their cruel persecutors; and, as you have told me, many of the
younger men, from here and elsewhere, will assuredly go back to aid
their brethren.

"We may even have trials here. Our Queen is a Protestant, and
happily at present we can worship God as we please, in peace; but
it was not so in the time of Mary, and it may be that troubles may
again fall upon the land, seeing that as yet the Queen i