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