The White Company Page 3

  CHAPTER III. HOW HORDLE JOHN COZENED THE FULLER OF LYMINGTON.

  It is not, however, in the nature of things that a lad of twenty, withyoung life glowing in his veins and all the wide world before him,should spend his first hours of freedom in mourning for what he hadleft. Long ere Alleyne was out of sound of the Beaulieu bells he wasstriding sturdily along, swinging his staff and whistling as merrily asthe birds in the thicket. It was an evening to raise a man's heart. Thesun shining slantwise through the trees threw delicate traceries acrossthe road, with bars of golden light between. Away in the distancebefore and behind, the green boughs, now turning in places to a copperyredness, shot their broad arches across the track. The still summer airwas heavy with the resinous smell of the great forest. Here and there atawny brook prattled out from among the underwood and lost itself againin the ferns and brambles upon the further side. Save the dull piping ofinsects and the sough of the leaves, there was silence everywhere--thesweet restful silence of nature.

  And yet there was no want of life--the whole wide wood was full of it.Now it was a lithe, furtive stoat which shot across the path upon somefell errand of its own; then it was a wild cat which squatted upon theoutlying branch of an oak and peeped at the traveller with a yellow anddubious 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 staggardwalked daintily out from among the tree trunks, and looked aroundhim with the fearless gaze of one who lived under the King's own highprotection. Alleyne gave his staff a merry flourish, however, and thered deer bethought him that the King was far off, so streaked away fromwhence he came.

  The youth had now journeyed considerably beyond the furthest domains ofthe Abbey. He was the more surprised therefore when, on coming round aturn in the path, he perceived a man clad in the familiar garb of theorder, and seated in a clump of heather by the roadside. Alleyne hadknown every brother well, but this was a face which was new to him--aface which was very red and puffed, working this way and that, asthough the man were sore perplexed in his mind. Once he shook both handsfuriously in the air, and twice he sprang from his seat and hurried downthe road. When he rose, however, Alleyne observed that his robe was muchtoo long and loose for him in every direction, trailing upon the groundand bagging about his ankles, so that even with trussed-up skirts hecould make little progress. He ran once, but the long gown clogged himso that he slowed down into a shambling walk, and finally plumped intothe heather once more.

  "Young friend," said he, when Alleyne was abreast of him, "I fear fromthy garb that thou canst know little of the Abbey of Beaulieu."

  "Then you are in error, friend," the clerk answered, "for I have spentall my days within its walls."

  "Hast so indeed?" cried he. "Then perhaps canst tell me the name ofa great loathly lump of a brother wi' freckled face an' a hand like aspade. His eyes were black an' his hair was red an' his voice likethe parish bull. I trow that there cannot be two alike in the samecloisters."

  "That surely can be no other than brother John," said Alleyne. "I trusthe 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 awrong, and hath left me here in this sorry frock of white falding, sothat I have shame to go back to my wife, lest she think that I havedonned 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 fromlaughter at the sight of the hot little man so swathed in the greatwhite cloak.

  "It came in this way," he said, sitting down once more: "I was passingthis way, hoping to reach Lymington ere nightfall when I came on thisred-headed knave seated even where we are sitting now. I uncovered andlouted 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 newindulgence in favor of the Cistercians. 'Not I,' I answered. 'Then theworse for thy soul!' said he; and with that he broke into a long talehow that on account of the virtues of the Abbot Berghersh it had beendecreed by the Pope that whoever should wear the habit of a monk ofBeaulieu for as long as he might say the seven psalms of David should beassured of the kingdom of Heaven. When I heard this I prayed him onmy knees that he would give me the use of his gown, which after manycontentions he at last agreed to do, on my paying him three markstowards the regilding of the image of Laurence the martyr. Havingstripped his robe, I had no choice but to let him have the wearing of mygood leathern jerkin and hose, for, as he said, it was chilling tothe blood and unseemly to the eye to stand frockless whilst I made myorisons. He had scarce got them on, and it was a sore labor, seeing thatmy 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 honorto my new dress, and with that set off down the road as fast as feetwould carry him. For myself, I could no more run than if I had been sownin a sack; so here I sit, and here I am like to sit, before I set eyesupon my clothes again."

  "Nay, friend, take it not so sadly," said Alleyne, clapping thedisconsolate one upon the shoulder. "Canst change thy robe for a jerkinonce more at the Abbey, unless perchance you have a friend near athand."

  "That have I," he answered, "and close; but I care not to go nigh him inthis plight, for his wife hath a gibing tongue, and will spread thetale until I could not show my face in any market from Fordingbridgeto Southampton. But if you, fair sir, out of your kind charity would bepleased to go a matter of two bow-shots out of your way, you would do mesuch 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 thedeer-track which passes on the right. You will then see under a greatbeech-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 ofraiment, that I may pursue my journey without delay. There are reasonswhy he would be loth to refuse me."

  Alleyne started off along the path indicated, and soon found the log-hutwhere the burner dwelt. He was away faggot-cutting in the forest, buthis wife, a ruddy bustling dame, found the needful garments and tiedthem into a bundle. While she busied herself in finding and foldingthem, Alleyne Edricson stood by the open door looking in at her withmuch interest and some distrust, for he had never been so nigh to awoman before. She had round red arms, a dress of some sober woollenstuff, and a brass brooch the size of a cheese-cake stuck in the frontof it.

  "Peter the fuller!" she kept repeating. "Marry come up! if I were Peterthe fuller's wife I would teach him better than to give his clothes tothe first knave who asks for them. But he was always a poor, fond, sillycreature, was Peter, though we are beholden to him for helping to buryour second son Wat, who was a 'prentice to him at Lymington in the yearof 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 itfrom thy reddened cheek and downcast eye. Hast learned from the monks, Itrow, to fear a woman as thou wouldst a lazar-house. Out upon them! thatthey should dishonor their own mothers by such teaching. A pretty worldit 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 thymodest ways. It is easy to see from thy cheek that thou hast not spentthy days in the rain and the heat and the wind, as my poor Wat hath beenforced 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. Hereare 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 thatthere 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 salutationof the age, and, as Erasmu
s long afterwards remarked, more used inEngland than in any other country. Yet it sent the blood to his templesagain, and he wondered, as he turned away, what the Abbot Berghershwould have answered to so frank an invitation. He was still tinglingfrom this new experience when he came out upon the high-road and saw asight which drove all other thoughts from his mind.

  Some way down from where he had left him the unfortunate Peter wasstamping and raving tenfold worse than before. Now, however, instead ofthe great white cloak, he had no clothes on at all, save a short woollenshirt and a pair of leather shoes. Far down the road a long-leggedfigure was running, with a bundle under one arm and the other hand tohis side, like a man who laughs until he is sore.

  "See him!" yelled Peter. "Look to him! You shall be my witness. He shallsee Winchester jail for this. See where he goes with my cloak under hisarm!"

  "Who then?" cried Alleyne.

  "Who but that cursed brother John. He hath not left me clothes enough tomake a gallybagger. The double thief hath cozened me out of my gown."

  "Stay though, my friend, it was his gown," objected Alleyne.

  "It boots not. He hath them all--gown, jerkin, hosen and all. Gramercyto him that he left me the shirt and the shoon. I doubt not that he willbe back for them anon."

  "But how came this?" asked Alleyne, open-eyed with astonishment.

  "Are those the clothes? For dear charity's sake give them to me. Not thePope himself shall have these from me, though he sent the whole collegeof cardinals to ask it. How came it? Why, you had scarce gone ere thisloathly John came running back again, and, when I oped mouth to reproachhim, he asked me whether it was indeed likely that a man of prayer wouldleave his own godly raiment in order to take a layman's jerkin. Hehad, he said, but gone for a while that I might be the freer for mydevotions. On this I plucked off the gown, and he with much show ofhaste did begin to undo his points; but when I threw his frock downhe clipped it up and ran off all untrussed, leaving me in this sorryplight. He laughed so the while, like a great croaking frog, that Imight have caught him had my breath not been as short as his legs werelong."

  The young man listened to this tale of wrong with all the seriousnessthat he could maintain; but at the sight of the pursy red-faced man andthe dignity with which he bore him, the laughter came so thick upon himthat he had to lean up against a tree-trunk. The fuller looked sadly andgravely at him; but finding that he still laughed, he bowed with muchmock politeness and stalked onwards in his borrowed clothes. Alleynewatched him until he was small in the distance, and then, wiping thetears from his eyes, he set off briskly once more upon his journey.