comfort our brethren
there, where I found in Diet's chamber, looking for me, Fitzjames, Diet,
and Udal. They all knew the matter before by Master Eden, whom I had sent
unto Fitzjames. So I tarried there and supped with them, where they had
provided meat and drink for us before my coming; and when we had ended,
Fitzjames would needs have me to lie that night with him in my old lodging
at Alban's Hall. But small rest and little sleep took we both there that
night."

The next day, which was Sunday, Dalaber rose at five o'clock, and as soon
as he could leave the Hall, hastened off to his rooms at Gloucester. The
night had been wet and stormy, and his shoes and stockings were covered
with mud. The college gates, when he reached them, were still closed, an
unusual thing at that hour; and he walked up and down under the walls in
the bleak grey morning, till the clock struck seven, "much disquieted, his
head full of forecasting cares," but resolved, like a brave man, that come
what would, he would accuse no one, and declare nothing but what he saw was
already known. The gates were at last opened; he went to his rooms, and for
some time his key would not turn in the door, the lock having been meddled
with. At length he succeeded in entering, and found everything in
confusion, his bed tossed and tumbled, his study door open, and his clothes
strewed about the floor. A monk who occupied the opposite rooms, hearing
him return, came to him and said that the commissary and the two proctors
had been there looking for Garret. Bills and swords had been thrust through
the bed-straw, and every corner of the room searched for him. Finding
nothing, they had left orders that Dalaber, as soon as he returned, should
appear before the prior of the students.

"This so troubled me," Dalaber says, "that I forgot to make clean my hose
and shoes, and to shift me into another gown; and all bedirted as I was, I
went to the said prior's chamber." The prior asked him where he had slept
that night. At Alban's Hall, he answered, with his old bedfellow,
Fitzjames. The prior said he did not believe him, and asked if Garret had
been at his rooms the day before. He replied that he had. Whither had he
gone, then? the prior inquired; and where was he at that time? "I
answered," says Dalaber, "that I knew not, unless he was gone to Woodstock;
he told me that he would go there, because one of the keepers had promised
him a piece of venison to make merry with at S