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 streaked away from
whence he came.

The youth had now journeyed considerably beyond the furthest domains 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 garb of the
order, and seated in a clump 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 puffed, working this way and that, as
though the man were sore perplexed 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 clogged 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 abreast 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' freckled 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
cloisters."

"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 alas 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 clo