THE COMING OF THE SPANIARD And now I must go back and speak of my own matters.

As I have told, it was my father's wish that I should be a physician, and since I came back from my schooling at Norwich, that was when I had entered on my sixteenth year, I had studied medicine under the doctor who practised his art in the neighbourhood of Bungay.

He was a very learned man and an honest, Grimstone by name, and as I had some liking for the business I made good progress under him.

Indeed I had learned almost all that he could teach me, and my father purposed to send me to London, there to push on my studies, so soon as I should attain my twentieth year, that is within some five months of the date of the coming of the Spaniard.
But it was not fated that I should go to London.
Medicine was not the only thing that I studied in those days, however.
Squire Bozard of Ditchingham, the same who told my father of the coming of the Spanish ship, had two living children, a son and a daughter, though his wife had borne him many more who died in infancy.

The daughter was named Lily and of my own age, having been born three weeks after me in the same year.