The White Company | Page 9

Arthur Conan Doyle
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 was much too long and loose for him in every direction,
trailing upon the ground and bagging about his ankles, so that even
with trussed-up skirts he could make little progress. He ran once, but
the long gown clogged him so that he slowed down into a shambling
walk, and finally plumped into the heather once more.
"Young friend," said he, when Alleyne was abreast of him, "I fear from
thy garb that thou canst know little of the Abbey of Beaulieu."
"Then you are in error, friend," the clerk answered, "for I have spent all
my days within its walls."
"Hast so indeed?" cried he. "Then perhaps canst tell me the name of a
great loathly lump of a brother wi' freckled face an' a hand like a spade.
His eyes were black an' his hair was red an' his voice like the parish
bull. I trow that there cannot be two alike in the same cloisters."
"That surely can be no other than brother John," said Alleyne. "I trust
he has done you no wrong, that you should be so hot against him."
"Wrong, quotha?" cried the other, jumping out of the heather. "Wrong!

why he hath stolen every plack of clothing off 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 back to my wife, lest she think that I have donned
her old kirtle. Harrow and alas that ever I should have met him!"
"But how came this?" asked the young clerk, who could scarce keep
from laughter at the sight of the hot little man so swathed in the great
white cloak.
"It came in this way," he said, sitting down once more: "I was passing
this way, hoping to reach Lymington ere nightfall when I came on this
red-headed knave seated even where we are sitting now. I uncovered
and louted as I passed thinking that he might be a holy man at his
orisons, but he called to me and asked me if I had heard speak of the
new indulgence in favor of the Cistercians. `Not I,' I answered. `Then
the worse for thy soul!' said he; and with that he broke into a long tale
how that on account of the virtues of the Abbot Berghersh 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 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.
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