t alone. At last the enemy were almost
up to me, and I was expecting every moment to be taken and perhaps
hanged, when, as good luck would have it, just as I turned a corner,
there faced me a wall not so high but that a good leaper might get over
it. Over I scrambled just as the pack in full cry rushed round the
corner.

Then I laughed as I heard their yapping, and grumbling, and questioning
what had become of me. But I gave them no time to find out, for,
crossing the garden into which I had fallen, I quickly slipped out at
the gate into a fair cloistered square where, adjusting my battle-
stained gown, I marched boldly up to the house at the gate and knocked.

A porter came at my summons and demanded, surlily enough, what I wanted.

"I am a fresh man here," said I, "and have lost my way. I pray you
direct me to Saint Alban Hall."

"Saint Alban Hall?" said he. "Art thou a scholar of Saint Alban Hall?"

"No," said I, "but I bear a message to one there, Master Penry by name."

"How comes it," demanded the porter, who, by the tone of him, might have
been the chancellor himself, "that you wear that gown, sirrah?"

"That is my business," said I, seeing it was no profit to talk civilly
to him, "and if you want not to see your neck wrung, give over
questions, and tell me where is Saint Alban Hall."

He grew red in the face as I gripped his arm, which he could by no means
get free till I let him.

"This is Saint Alban Hall," said he, "and Master Penry lives over my
lodging."

Then I thought it better to be civil to the fellow, as he guessed I had
no business there in a college gown. So I gave him a groat, and bad him
take me up forthwith.

Master Penry was a lean, wrathful-visaged Welshman, with deep grey eyes,
and a large forehead, and a mass of straight black hair down his neck.
As I entered his room, which was disordered and dirty, he was pacing to
and fro, talking or praying aloud in his native tongue. He let me stand
there a minute or two, amazed at his jargon, and scarcely knowing
whether I had lit upon a sane man or not. Then he stopped suddenly in
front of me and scanned me.

"Well?" said he, in good English.

"Are you Master Penry?" I asked.

"I am. You have a message for me?"

"I have; from Master Walgrave. Here it is," said I, putting the letter
into his hand.

He tore it open and read it eagerly, and, as he did so, his face relaxed
into a grim smile.

"That is well, so far," said he.