Ambrose was glad to be left to go over his coming feast. There was
Latin, English, and, alas! baffling Dutch. High or Low it was all
the same to him. What excited his curiosity most was the
Enchiridion Militis Christiani of Erasmus--in Latin of course, and
that he could easily read--but almost equally exciting was a Greek
and Latin vocabulary; or again, a very thin book in which he
recognised the New Testament in the Vulgate. He had heard chapters
of it read from the graceful stone pulpit overhanging the refectory
at Beaulieu, and, of course, the Gospels and Epistles at mass, but
they had been read with little expression and no attention; and that
Sunday's discourse had filled him with eagerness to look farther;
but the mere reading the titles of the books was pleasure enough for
the day, and his master was at home before he had fixed his mind on
anything. Perhaps this was as well, for Lucas advised him what to
begin with, and how to divide his studies so as to gain a knowledge
of the Greek, his great ambition, and also to read the Scripture.

The master was almost as much delighted as the scholar, and it was
not till the curfew was beginning to sound that Ambrose could tear
himself away. It was still daylight, and the door of the next
dwelling was open. There, sitting on the ground cross-legged, in an
attitude such as Ambrose had never seen, was a magnificent old man,
with a huge long white beard, wearing, indeed, the usual dress of a
Londoner of the lower class, but the gown flowed round him in a
grand and patriarchal manner, corresponding with his noble, somewhat
aquiline features; and behind him Ambrose thought he caught a
glimpse of the shy fawn he had seen in the morning.