he 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 said, it was chilling to the blood and unseemly
to the eye to stand frockless whilst i made my orisons. he had
scarce got them on, and it was a sore labor, seeing that my
inches will scarce match my girth--he had scarce got them on, i
say, and i not yet at the end of the second psalm, when he bade
me do honor to my new dress, and with that set off down the road
as fast as feet would carry him. for myself, i could no more run
than if i had been sown in a sack; so here i sit, and here i am
like to sit, before i set eyes upon my clothes again."
"nay, friend, take it not so sadly," said alleyne, clapping the
disconsolate one upon the shoulder. "canst change thy robe for a
jerkin once more at the abbey, unless perchance you have a friend
near at hand."
"that have i," he answered, "and close; but i care not to go nigh
him in this plight, for his wife hath a gibing tongue, and will
spread the tale until i could not show my face in any market from
fordingbridge to southampton. but if you, fair sir, out of your
kind charity would be pleased to go a matter of two bow-shots out
of your way, you would do me such a service as i could scarce
repay."
"with all my heart," said alleyne readily.
"then take this pathway on the left, i pray thee, and then the
deer-track which passes on the right. you will then see under a
great beech-tree the hut of a charcoal-burner. give him my name,
good sir, the name of peter the fuller, of lymington, and ask him
for a change of raiment, that i may pursue my journey without
delay. there are reasons why he would be loth to refuse me."
alleyne started off along the path indicated, and soon found the
log-hut where the burner dwelt. he was away faggot-cutting in
the forest, but his wife, a ruddy bustling dame, found the
needful 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
distrust, for he had never been so nigh to a woman before. she
had round red arms, a dress of some sober woollen stuff, and a
brass brooch the size of a cheese-cake stuck in the front of it.
"peter the fuller!" she kept repeating. "marry come up! if i
were peter the fuller's wife i would teach him better than to
give his clothes 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 helping to bury our second son wat, who was a
'prentice to him at lymington in the year of the black death.
but who are you, young sir?"
"i am a clerk on my road from beaulieu to minstead."
"aye, indeed! hast been brought up at the abbey then. i could
read it from thy reddened cheek and downcast eye, hast learned
from the monks, i trow, to fear a woman as thou wouldst a lazar-
house. out upon them! that they should dishonor their own
mothers by such teaching. a pretty world it would be with all
the women out of it."
"heaven forfend that such a thing should come to pass!" said
alleyne.
"amen and amen! but thou art a pretty lad, and the prettier for
thy modest ways. it is easy to see from thy cheek that thou hast
not spent thy days in the rain and the heat and the wind, as my
poor wat hath been forced to do."
"i have indeed seen little of life, good dame."
"wilt find nothing in it to pay for the loss of thy own
freshness. here are the clothes, and peter can leave them when
next he comes this way. holy virgin! see the dust upon thy
doublet! it were easy to see that there is no woman to tend to
thee. so!--that is better. now buss me, boy."
alleyne stooped and kissed her, for the kiss was the common
salutation of the age, and, as erasmus long afterwards remarked,
more used in england than in any 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
invitation. he was still tingling from this new experience when
he came out upon the high-road and saw a sight which drove all
other thoughts from his mind.
some way down from where he had left him the unfortunate peter
was stamping and raving tenfold worse than before. now, however,
instead 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 a long-legged figure was running, with a bundle under
one arm and the other hand to his side, like a man who laughs
until he is sore.
"see him!" yelled peter. "look to him! you shall be my witness.
he shall see winchester jail for this. see where he goes with my
cloak under his arm!"
"who then?" cried alleyne.
"who b
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