The White Company

in mourning for what he had left. Long ere Alleyne was out of sound of the Beaulieu bells he was striding sturdily along, swinging his staff and whistling as merrily as the birds

air was heavy with the resinous smell of the great forest. Here and there a tawny brook prattled out from among the underwood and lost itself again in the ferns

nd peeped at the traveller with a yellow and dubious eye. Once it was a wild sow which scuttled out of the bracken, with two young sounders at her heels, and once a lordly red staggard walked daintily out from among the tree trunks, and lo

his was a face which was new to him-a face which was very red and puffed, working this way and that, as though the man were sore perplexed in his mind. Once he shook both hands furiously in the air, and twice he sprang from his seat and hurried down the road. When he rose, however, Alleyne observed that his robe

reast of him, "I fear from thy garb that tho

the clerk answered, "for I have s

brother wi' freckled face an' a hand like a spade. His eyes were black an' his hair was red an

n," said Alleyne. "I trust he has done you no

my back, if that be a wrong, and hath left me here in this sorry frock of white falding, so that I have shame to go

uld scarce keep from laughter at the sight of the

ersh it had been decreed by the Pope that whoever should wear the habit of a monk of Beaulieu for as long as he might say the seven psalms of David should be assured of the kingdom of Heaven. When I heard this I prayed him on my knees that he would give me the use of his gown, which after many contentions he at last agreed to do, on my paying him three marks towards the regilding of the image of Laurence the martyr. Having stripped his robe, I had no choice but to let him have the wearing of my good leathern jerkin and hose, for, as he s

nsolate one upon the shoulder. "Canst change thy robe for a jerkin on

pread the tale until I could not show my face in any market from Fordingbridge to Southampton. But if you, fair sir, out of your ki

eart," said Al

great beech-tree the hut of a charcoal-burner. Give him my name, good sir, the name of Peter the fuller, of Lymington, and as

eedful garments and tied them into a bundle. While she busied herself in finding and folding them, Alleyne Edricson stood by the open door looking in at her with much interest and some di

thes to the first knave who asks for them. But he was always a poor, fond, silly creature, was Peter, though we are beholden to him for

my road from Beau

. Hast learned from the monks, I trow, to fear a woman as thou wouldst a lazar-house. Out upon them! that they

ch a thing should come

ways. It is easy to see from thy cheek that thou hast not spent thy days in

seen little of

ter can leave them when next he comes this way. Holy Virgin! see the dust upon thy doublet! It

y other country. Yet it sent the blood to his temples again, and he wondered, as he turned away, what the Abbot Berghersh would have answered to so frank an

ead of the great white cloak, he had no clothes on at all, save a short woollen shirt and a pair of leather shoes. Far down the road

e my witness. He shall see Winchester jail for thi

n?" crie

left me clothes enough to make a gallybagger. T

end, it was his gown

all. Gramercy to him that he left me the shirt and the

asked Alleyne, open-e

proach him, he asked me whether it was indeed likely that a man of prayer would leave his own godly raiment in order to take a layman's jerkin. He had, he said, but gone for a while that I might be the freer for my devotions. On this I plucked off the gown, and he with much show of

ter came so thick upon him that he had to lean up against a tree-trunk. The fuller looked sadly and gravely at him; but finding that he still laughed, he bowed with much mock politeness a