"Ay, to-morrow I shall look over all thy books and see how thee
stand'st, and what further work thou art fit for. Therefore, take a
day's holiday, if thee likes."

We thanked him warmly. "There, John," whispered I, "you may have
your wish, and run wild to-morrow."

He said, "the wish had gone out of him." So we planned a sweet lazy
day under the Midsummer sky, in some fields about a mile off, called
the Vineyards.

The morning came, and we took our way thither, under the Abbey walls,
and along a lane, shaded on one side by the "willows in the
water-courses." We came out in those quiet hay-fields, which,
tradition says, had once grown wine for the rosy monks close by, and
history avers, were afterwards watered by a darker stream than the
blood of grapes. The Vineyards had been a battle-field; and under
the long wavy grass, and the roots of the wild apple trees, slept
many a Yorkist and Lancastrian. Sometimes an unusually deep furrow
turned out a white bone--but more often the relics were undisturbed,
and the meadows used as pastures or hay-fields.

John and I lay down on some wind-rows, and sunned ourselves in the
warm and delicious air. How beautiful everything was! so very still!
with the Abbey-tower--always the most picturesque point in our Norton
Bury views--showing so near, that it almost seemed to rise up out of
the fields and hedge-rows.

"Well, David," and I turned to the long, lazy figure beside me, which
had considerably flattened the hay, "are you satisfied?"