The White Company

a man of too firm a grain to allow one bold outbreak to imperil the settled order of his great household. In a few hot and bitter words, he compared their false brother's exit to the exp

e dismissed them once more to their labors and withdrew himself to his own private ch

hen a gentle tapping at the door of

word to enter; but his look of impatience softened down into a

ature which had unfolded far from the boisterous joys and sorrows of the world. Yet there was a set of the mouth and a prominence of the chin which relieved him of any trace of effeminacy. Impulsive he might be, enthusiastic,

ts. A broad leather strap hanging from his shoulder supported a scrip or satchel such as travellers were wont to carry. In one hand he grasped a thick staff pointe

goings. It is strange that in one twelve hours the Abbey should have cast off its fou

ver go forth, but should end my days here in Beaulieu. It hath been my home as fa

re is no help. I had given my foreword and sacred promise to your father, Edric the Franklin, that at the age of twenty you should be sent

ffidence. The Abbot stood by the narrow window, and his lon

hat we should rear him until he came to man's estate. This he did partly because your mother was dead, and partly because your elder brother, now Socman of Minstead, had already given sign of that fie

n, "it is surely true that I am already

u from the garb you now wear or the life wh

, fa

orc

, fa

ade

, fa

oly

, fa

no vow of consta

fat

ifts you take away with you from Beaulieu? Some I already know. There is the playin

. From brother Francis I have learned to paint on vellum, on glass, and on metal, with a knowledge of those pigments and essences which can preserve the color against damp or a biting air. Brother Luke hath given me so

"What clerk of Cambrig or of Oxenford could say as much?

am not wholly unlettered. I have read Ockham, Bradwardine, and other of the sch

glimpse over the wooden point and the smoke of Bucklershard of the mouth of the Exe, and the shining sea. Now, I p

come upon those parts of France which are held by the King's Majesty. But if he trended to the south he might reach

g the King's possessions, he sti

n dispute, and he might hope to reach the famous city of Avig

d t

nd so to the country of the Huns and of the Lithuanian pagans, beyond which lies

nd that,

ly Land, and the great river which h

d t

ell. Methinks the end of the

r but evil women who slay with beholding, like the basilisk. Beyond that again is the kingdom of Prester John and of the great Cham. These things I know for very sooth, for I had them from that pious Christian and valiant knight, Sir John de Mandeville, who s

ked the young man, "what there

which it was never intended that we should inquire. But yo

nd violent man, there is the more need that I should seek

th not turn you from the narrow path upon which you have learned to tread. But you are in God's keeping, and Godward should you ever look in danger and in

with physical and still more with spiritual danger. Heaven, too, was very near to them in those days. God's direct agency was to be seen in the thunder and the rainbow, the whirlwind and the lightning. To the believer, clouds of angels and confessors, and martyrs, armies of the sainted and the saved, were ever stooping

er Luke with a white-backed psalter adorned with golden bees, and brother Francis with the "Slaying of the Innocents" most daintily set forth upon vellum. All these were duly packed away deep in the traveller's scrip, and above them old pi

s, all bathed and mellowed in the evening sun. There too was the broad sweep of the river Exe, the old stone well, the canopied niche of the Virgin, and in the centre of all the clust