urned 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 but that cursed brother John. He hath not left me clothes enough to
make 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. Gramercy
to him that he left me the shirt and the shoon. I doubt not that he will
be 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 the
Pope himself shall have these from me, though he sent the whole college
of cardinals to ask it. How came it? Why, you had scarce gone ere this
loathly John came running back again, and, when I oped mouth to reproach
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
haste did begin to undo his points; but when I threw his frock down
he clipped it up and ran off all untrussed, leaving me in this sorry
plight. He laughed so the while, like a great croaking frog, that I
might have caught him had my breath not been as short as his legs were
long."

The young man listened to this tale of wrong with all the seriousness
that he could maintain; but at the sight of the pursy red-faced man and
the dignity with which he bore him, the laughter 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 m