l the blood spurted again. Even as
the three wayfarers stared, however, there was a sudden change, for the
smaller man, having finished his song, loosened his own gown and handed
the scourge to the other, who took up the stave once more and lashed
his companion with all the strength of his bare and sinewy arm. So,
alternately beating and beaten, they made their dolorous way through the
beautiful woods and under the amber arches of the fading beech-trees,
where the calm strength and majesty of Nature might serve to rebuke the
foolish energies and misspent strivings of mankind.

Such a spectacle was new to Hordle John or to Alleyne Edricson; but the
archer treated it lightly, as a common matter enough.

"These are the Beating Friars, otherwise called the Flagellants," quoth
he. "I marvel that ye should have come upon none of them before, for
across the water they are as common as gallybaggers. I have heard that
there are no English among them, but that they are from France, Italy
and Bohemia. En avant, camarades! that we may have speech with them."

As they came up to them, Alleyne could hear the doleful dirge which the
beater was chanting, bringing down his heavy whip at the end of each
line, while the groans of the sufferer formed a sort of dismal chorus.
It was in old French, and ran somewhat in this way:

Or avant, entre nous tous freres
Battons nos charognes bien fort
En remembrant la grant misere
De Dieu et sa piteuse mort
Qui fut pris en la gent amere
Et vendus et trais a tort
Et bastu sa chair, vierge et dere
Au nom de ce battons plus fort.

Then at the end of the verse the scourge changed hands and the chanting
began anew.

"Truly, holy fathers," said the archer in French as they came abreast of
them, "you have beaten enough for to-day. The road is all spotted like a
shambles at Martinmas. Why should ye mishandle yourselves thus?"

"C'est pour vos peches--pour vos peches," they droned, looking at the
travellers with sad lack-lustre eyes, and then bent to their bloody
work once more without heed to the prayers and persuasions which were
addressed to them. Finding all remonstrance useless, the three comrades
hastened on their way, leaving these strange travellers to their dreary
task.

"Mort Dieu!" cried the bowman, "there is a bucketful or more of my blood
over in France, but it was all spilled in hot fight, and I should think
twice before