All around were
the fruitful farms of the priory, tilled by well-to-do tenant holders,
and rich with fields of waving grain, and meadow-lands where sheep and
cattle grazed in flocks and herds; for in those days the church lands
were under church rule, and were governed by church laws, and there,
when war and famine and waste and sloth blighted the outside world,
harvests flourished and were gathered, and sheep were sheared and cows
were milked in peace and quietness.
The Prior of St. Mary's owed much if not all of the church's prosperity
to the blind Lord Falworth, and now he was paying it back with a haven
of refuge from the ruin that his former patron had brought upon himself
by giving shelter to Sir John Dale.
I fancy that most boys do not love the grinding of school life--the
lessons to be conned, the close application during study hours. It is
not often pleasant to brisk, lively lads to be so cooped up. I wonder
what the boys of to-day would have thought of Myles's training. With him
that training was not only of the mind, but of the body as well, and for
seven years it was almost unremitting. "Thou hast thine own way to
make in the world, sirrah," his father said more than once when the boy
complained of the grinding hardness of his life, and to make one's way
in those days meant a thousand times more than it does now; it meant not
only a heart to feel and a brain to think, but a hand quick and strong
to strike in battle, and a body tough to endure the wounds and blows in
return.
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