It is not, however, in the nature of things that a lad of twenty, with young life glowing in his veins1 and all the wide world before him, should spend his first hours of freedom in mourning for what he had left. Long ere Alleyne was out of sound of the Beaulieu bells he was striding sturdily along, swinging his staff and whistling as merrily as the birds in the thicket2. It was an evening to raise a man's heart. The sun shining slantwise through the trees threw delicate traceries across the road, with bars of golden light between. Away in the distance before and behind, the green boughs3, now turning in places to a coppery redness, shot their broad arches across the track. The still summer air was heavy with the resinous4 smell of the great forest. Here and there a tawny5 brook6 prattled7 out from among the underwood and lost itself again in the ferns and brambles upon the further side. Save the dull piping of insects and the sough of the leaves, there was silence everywhere—the sweet restful silence of nature.
And yet there was no want of life—the whole wide wood was full of it. Now it was a lithe8, furtive9 stoat which shot across the path upon some fell errand of its own; then it was a wild cat which squatted10 upon the outlying branch of an oak and peeped at the traveller with a yellow and dubious11 eye. Once it was a wild sow which scuttled12 out of the bracken, with two young sounders at her heels, and once a lordly red staggard walked daintily out from among the tree trunks, and looked around him with the fearless gaze of one who lived under the King's own high protection. Alleyne gave his staff a merry flourish, however, and the red deer bethought him that the King was far off, so streaked13 away from whence he came.
The youth had now journeyed considerably14 beyond the furthest domains15 of the Abbey. He was the more surprised therefore when, on coming round a turn in the path, he perceived a man clad in the familiar garb16 of the order, and seated in a clump17 of heather by the roadside. Alleyne had known every brother well, but this was a face which was new to him—a face which was very red and puffed18, working this way and that, as though the man were sore perplexed19 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 clogged20 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 abreast21 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' freckled22 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 cloisters23.”
“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 alas24 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 knave25 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 virtues26 of the Abbot Berghersh it had been decreed by the Pope that whoever should wear the habit of a monk27 of Beaulieu for as long as he might say the seven psalms29 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 contentions30 he at last agreed to do, on my paying him three marks towards the regilding of the image of Laurence the martyr31. 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 labor32, 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 psalm28, 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 disconsolate33 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 plight34, for his wife hath a gibing35 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 bustling36 dame37, 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 brass38 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 helping39 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 monks40, 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 Virgin41! 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 tingling42 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 raving43 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 astonishment44.
“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 cardinals45 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 undo46 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 croaking47 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 much mock politeness and stalked onwards in his borrowed clothes. Alleyne watched him until he was small in the distance, and then, wiping the tears from his eyes, he set off briskly once more upon his journey.
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1
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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thicket
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| n.灌木丛，树林 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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resinous
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| adj.树脂的，树脂质的，树脂制的 | |
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tawny
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| adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色 | |
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6
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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7
prattled
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| v.（小孩般）天真无邪地说话( prattle的过去式和过去分词 )；发出连续而无意义的声音；闲扯；东拉西扯 | |
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8
lithe
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| adj.(指人、身体)柔软的，易弯的 | |
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furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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10
squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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11
dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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12
scuttled
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| v.使船沉没( scuttle的过去式和过去分词 )；快跑，急走 | |
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13
streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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14
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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15
domains
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| n.范围( domain的名词复数 )；领域；版图；地产 | |
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garb
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| n.服装，装束 | |
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clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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18
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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19
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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clogged
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| （使）阻碍( clog的过去式和过去分词 )； 淤滞 | |
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21
abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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22
freckled
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| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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23
cloisters
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| n.（学院、修道院、教堂等建筑的）走廊( cloister的名词复数 )；回廊；修道院的生活；隐居v.隐退，使与世隔绝( cloister的第三人称单数 ) | |
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24
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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knave
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| n.流氓；（纸牌中的）杰克 | |
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26
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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27
monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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psalm
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| n.赞美诗，圣诗 | |
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psalms
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| n.赞美诗( psalm的名词复数 )；圣诗；圣歌；(中的) | |
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30
contentions
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| n.竞争( contention的名词复数 )；争夺；争论；论点 | |
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31
martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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32
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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33
disconsolate
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| adj.忧郁的，不快的 | |
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34
plight
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| n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定 | |
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35
gibing
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| adj.讥刺的，嘲弄的v.嘲笑，嘲弄( gibe的现在分词 ) | |
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36
bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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37
dame
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| n.女士 | |
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38
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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39
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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40
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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41
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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42
tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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43
raving
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| adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地 | |
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44
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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45
cardinals
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| 红衣主教( cardinal的名词复数 )； 红衣凤头鸟（见于北美，雄鸟为鲜红色）； 基数 | |
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46
undo
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| vt.解开，松开；取消，撤销 | |
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47
croaking
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| v.呱呱地叫( croak的现在分词 )；用粗的声音说 | |
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