All those books he made me read very thoroughly, and parts of them over and over again, till I knew them almost by heart.

And at the time I cannot say that this was much to my liking, but later, when I came to understand better what I read, no urging was needed, for they were our only books, except Foxe's _Martyrs_, in which I never found any very great enjoyment, though Krok revelled in it.

And I suppose that a man might pass through life, and bear himself well in it, and never feel lonely, with those books for his companions.
I should not, however, omit mention of M.Rousselot, the schoolmaster, who took a liking to me because of the diligence which was at first none of my own, but only the outward showing of my mother's and grandfather's strict oversight.

But, as liking begets liking, I came to diligence for M.
Rousselot's sake also, and finally for the sake of learning itself.

And also I learned no little from Mistress Jeanne Falla, who had the wisest head and the sharpest tongue and the kindest heart in all Sercq.
But I was never a bookworm, though the love of knowledge and the special love of those books I have named is with me yet.
"Whatever you come to be, Phil, though it be only a farmer-fisherman, you will be all the better man and the happier for knowing all you can," my grandfather would say to me, when we grew into closer fellowship with my growing years.