By Englands Aid | Page 5

sights
and sounds like these, should entertain a thought of settling down to the
tranquil life of the church. As long as they could remember, their minds
had been fixed upon being soldiers, and fighting some day under the
banner of the Veres. They had been a good deal in the castle; for Mr.
Vickars had assisted Arthur Golding, the learned instructor to young
Edward Vere, the 17th earl, who was born in 1550, and had succeeded
to the title at the age of twelve, and he had afterwards been tutor to the
earl's cousins, John, Francis, Robert, and Horace, the sons of Geoffrey,
fourth son of the 15th earl. These boys were born in 1558, 1560, 1562,
and 1565, and lived with their mother at Kirby Hall, a mile from the
Castle of Hedingham.
The earl was much attached to his old instructor, and when he was at
the castle there was scarce a day but an invitation came down for Mr.
Vickars and his wife to be present either at banquet or entertainment.
The boys were free to come and go as they chose, and the earl's men-at-
arms had orders to afford them all necessary teaching in the use of
weapons.
Mr. Vickars considered it his duty to accept the invitations of his friend
and patron, but he sorely grudged the time so abstracted from his
favourite books. It was, indeed, a relief to him when the earl, whose
love of profusion and luxury made serious inroads even into the
splendid possessions of the Veres, went up to court, and peace and
quietness reigned in the castle. The rector was fonder of going to Kirby,

where John, Geoffrey's eldest son, lived quietly and soberly, his three
younger brothers having, when mere boys, embraced the profession of
arms, placing themselves under the care of the good soldier Sir William
Browne, who had served for many years in the Low Countries. They
occasionally returned home for a time, and were pleased to take notice
of the sons of their old tutor, although Geoffrey was six years junior to
Horace, the youngest of the brothers.
The young Vickars had much time to themselves, much more indeed
than their mother considered to be good for them. After their breakfast,
which was finished by eight o'clock, their father took them for an hour
and heard the lessons they had prepared the day before, and gave them
instruction in the Latin tongue. Then they were supposed to study till
the bell rang for dinner at twelve; but there was no one to see that they
did so, for their father seldom came outside his library door, and their
mother was busy with her domestic duties and in dispensing simples to
the poor people, who, now that the monasteries were closed, had no
medical aid save that which they got from the wives of the gentry or
ministers, or from the wise women, of whom there was generally one in
every village.
Therefore, after half an hour, or at most an hour, spent in getting up
their tasks, the books would be thrown aside, and the boys be off, either
to the river or up to the castle to practise sword-play with the
men-at-arms, or to the butts with their bows, or to the rabbit-warren,
where they had leave from the earl to go with their dogs whenever they
pleased. Their long excursions were, however, generally deferred until
after dinner, as they were then free until supper-time, and even if they
did not return after that hour Mrs. Vickars did not chide them unduly,
being an easy-going woman, and always ready to make excuses for
them.
There were plenty of fish in the river; and the boys knew the pools they
loved best, and often returned with their baskets well filled. There were
otters on its banks, too; but, though they sometimes chased these pretty
creatures, Tan and Turk, their two dogs, knew as well as their masters
that they had but small chance of catching them. Sometimes they would

take a boat at the bridge and drop down the stream for miles, and once
or twice had even gone down to Bricklesey [Footnote: Now
Brightlingsea.] at the mouth of the river. This, however, was an
expedition that they never performed alone, making it each time in
charge of Master Lirriper, who owned a flat barge, and took produce
down to Bricklesey, there to be transhipped into coasters bound for
London. He had a married daughter there, and it was at her house the
boys had slept when they went there; for the journey down and up
again was too long to be performed in a single day.
But this was not the only distant expedition they had made, for they had
once gone down the