All the long day I laboured, only stopping for a
bite at noon, till my head swam and my fingers ached. Yet as I did so
I felt proud, for I guessed that my uncle had set me this task for two
reasons: first, to show his trust in me, and, secondly, to acquaint
me with the state of his possessions, but as it were in the way of
business. By nightfall I had finished and checked the copy which with
the original I hid in my robe when the green-robed waiting maid summoned
me to eat.
At our meal my uncle asked me what I had seen that day and I
replied--naught but figures and crabbed writing--and handed him the
parchments which he compared item by item.
"I am pleased with you," he said at last, "for heresofar I find but a
single error and that is my fault, not yours; also you have done two
days' work in one. Still, it is not fit that you who are accustomed
to the open air should bend continually over deeds and inventories.
Therefore, to-morrow I shall have another task for you, for like
yourself your horse needs exercise."
And so he had, for with two stout servants riding with me and guiding
me, he sent me out of London to view a fair estate of his upon the
borders of the Thames and to visit his tenants there and make report of
their husbandry, also of certain woods where he proposed to fell oak for
shipbuilding.
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