THE night had already fallen, and the moon was shining betweenthe rifts of ragged, drifting clouds, before Alleyne Edricson,footsore and weary from the unwonted exercise, found himself infront of the forest inn which stood upon the outskirts ofLyndhurst. The building was long and low, standing back a littlefrom the road, with two flambeaux blazing on either side of thedoor as a welcome to the traveller. From one window there thrustforth a long pole with a bunch of greenery tied to the end of it--a sign that liquor was to be sold within. As Alleyne walked upto it he perceived that it was rudely fashioned out of beams ofwood, with twinkling lights all over where the glow from withinshone through the chinks. The roof was poor and thatched; but instrange contrast to it there ran all along under the eaves a lineof wooden shields, most gorgeously painted with chevron, bend,and saltire. and every heraldic de-vice. By the door a horsestood tethered, the ruddy glow beating strongly upon his brownhead and patient eyes, while his body stood back in the shadow.

Alleyne stood still in the roadway for a few minutes reflectingupon what he should do. It was, he knew, only a few milesfurther to Minstead, where his brother dwelt. On the other hand,he had never seen this brother since childhood, and the reportswhich had come to his ears concerning him were seldom to hisadvantage. By all accounts he was a hard and a bitter man.

It might be an evil start to come to his door so late and claimthe shelter of his root: Better to sleep here at this inn, andthen travel on to Minstead in the morning. If his brother wouldtake him in, well and good.

He would bide with him for a time and do what he might to servehim. If, on the other hand, he should have hardened his heartagainst him, he could only go on his way and do the best he mightby his skill as a craftsman and a scrivener. At the end of ayear he would be free to return to the cloisters, for such hadbeen his father's bequest. A monkish upbringing, one year in theworld after the age of twenty, and then a free selection one wayor the other--it was a strange course which had been marked outfor him. Such as it was, however, he had no choice but to followit, and if he were to begin by making a friend of his brother hehad best wait until morning before he knocked at his dwelling.

The rude plank door was ajar, but as Alleyne approached it therecame from within such a gust of rough laughter and clatter oftongues that he stood irresolute upon the threshold. Summoningcourage, however, and reflecting that it was a public dwelling,in which he had as much right as any other man, he pushed it openand stepped into the common room.

Though it was an autumn evening and somewhat warm, a huge fire ofheaped billets of wood crackled and sparkled in a broad, opengrate, some of the smoke escaping up a rude chimney, but thegreater part rolling out into the room, so that the air was thickwith it, and a man coming from without could scarce catch hisbreath. On this fire a great cauldron bubbled and simmered,giving forth a rich and promising smell. Seated round it were adozen or so folk, of all ages and conditions, who set up such ashout as Alleyne entered that he stood peering at them throughthe smoke, uncertain what this riotous greeting might portend.

"A rouse! A rouse!" cried one rough looking fellow in a tatteredjerkin. "One more round of mead or ale and the score to the lastcomer."

" 'Tis the law of the 'Pied Merlin,' " shouted another. "Hothere, Dame Eliza! Here is fresh custom come to the house, andnot a drain for the company."

"I will take your orders, gentles; I will assuredly take yourorders," the landlady answered, bustling in with her hands fullof leathern drinking-cups. "What is it that you drink, then?Beer for the lads of the forest, mead for the gleeman, strongwaters for the tinker, and wine for the rest. It is an oldcustom of the house, young sir. It has been the use at the 'PiedMerlin' this many a year back that the company should drink tothe health of the last comer. Is it your pleasure to humor it?"

"Why, good dame," said Alleyne, "I would not offend the customsof your house, but it is only sooth when I say that my purse is athin one. As far as two pence will go, however, I shall be rightglad to do my part."

"Plainly said and bravely spoken, my sucking friar," roared adeep voice, and a heavy hand fell upon Alleyne's shoulder.Looking up, he saw beside him his former cloister companion therenegade monk, Hordle John.

"By the thorn of Glastonbury! ill days are coming upon Beaulieu,"said he. "Here they have got rid in one day of the only two menwithin their walls--for I have had mine eyes upon thee,youngster, and I know that for all thy baby-face there is themaking of a man in thee. Then there is the Abbot, too. I am nofriend of his, nor he of mine; but he has warm blood in hisveins. He is the only man left among them. The others, what arethey?"

"They are holy men," Alleyne answered gravely.

"Holy men? Holy cabbages! Holy bean-pods! What do they do butlive and suck in sustenance and grow fat? If that be holiness, Icould show you hogs in this forest who are fit to head thecalendar. Think you it was for such a life that this good armwas fixed upon my shoulder, or that head placed upon your neck?There is work in the world, man, and it is not by hiding behindstone walls that we shall do it."

"Why, then, did you join the brothers?" asked Alleyne.

"A fair enough question; but it is as fairly answered. I joinedthem because Margery Alspaye, of Bolder, married Crooked Thomasof Ringwood, and left a certain John of Hordle in the cold, forthat he was a ranting, roving blade who was not to be trusted inwedlock. That was why, being fond and hot-headed, I left theworld; and that is why, having had time to take thought, I amright glad to find myself back in it once more. Ill betide theday that ever I took off my yeoman's jerkin to put on the whitegown!"

Whilst he was speaking the landlady came in again, bearing abroad platter, upon which stood all the beakers and flagonscharged to the brim with the brown ale or the ruby wine. Behindher came a maid with a high pile of wooden plates, and a greatsheaf of spoons, one of which she handed round to each of thetravellers.

Two of the company, who were dressed in the weather-stained greendoublet of foresters, lifted the big pot off the fire, and athird, with a huge pewter ladle, served out a portion of steamingcollops to each guest. Alleyne bore his share and his ale-mugaway with him to a retired trestle in the corner, where he couldsup in peace and watch the strange scene, which was so differentto those silent and well-ordered meals to which he wasaccustomed.

The room was not unlike a stable. The low ceiling, smoke-blackened and dingy, was pierced by several square trap-doorswith rough-hewn ladders leading up to them. The walls of bareunpainted planks were studded here and there with great woodenpins, placed at irregular intervals and heights, from which hungover-tunics, wallets, whips, bridles, and saddles. Over thefireplace were suspended six or seven shields of wood, withcoats-of-arms rudely daubed upon them, which showed by theirvarying degrees of smokiness and dirt that they had been placedthere at different periods. There was no furniture, save asingle long dresser covered with coarse crockery, and a number ofwooden benches and trestles, the legs of which sank deeply intothe soft clay floor, while the only light, save that of the fire,was furnished by three torches stuck in sockets on the wall,which flickered and crackled, giving forth a strong resinousodor. All this was novel and strange to the cloister-bred youth;but most interesting of all was the motley circle of guests whosat eating their collops round the blaze. They were a humblegroup of wayfarers, such as might have been found that night inany inn through the length and breadth of England; but to himthey represented that vague world against which he had been sofrequently and so earnestly warned. It did not seem to him fromwhat he could see of it to be such a very wicked place after all.

Three or four of the men round the fire were evidentlyunderkeepers and verderers from the forest, sunburned andbearded, with the quick restless eye and lithe movements of thedeer among which they lived. Close to the corner of the chimneysat a middle-aged gleeman, clad in a faded garb of Norwich cloth,the tunic of which was so outgrown that it did not fasten at theneck and at the waist. His face was swollen and coarse, and hiswatery protruding eyes spoke of a life which never wandered veryfar from the wine-pot. A gilt harp, blotched with many stainsand with two of its strings missing, was tucked under one of hisarms, while with the other he scooped greedily at his platter.Next to him sat two other men of about the same age, one with atrimming of fur to his coat, which gave him a dignity which wasevidently dearer to him than his comfort, for he still drew itround him in spite of the hot glare of the faggots. The other,clad in a dirty russet suit with a long sweeping doublet, had acunning, foxy face with keen, twinkling eyes and a peaky beard.Next to him sat Hordle John, and beside him three other roughunkempt fellows with tangled beards and matted hair-free laborersfrom the adjoining farms, where small patches of freeholdproperty had been suffered to remain scattered about in theheart of the royal demesne. The company was completed by apeasant in a rude dress of undyed sheepskin, with the old-fashioned galligaskins about his legs, and a gayly dressed youngman with striped cloak jagged at the edges and parti-coloredhosen, who looked about him with high disdain upon his face, andheld a blue smelling-flask to his nose with one hand, while hebrandished a busy spoon with the other. In the corner a very fatman was lying all a-sprawl upon a truss, snoring stertorously,and evidently in the last stage of drunkenness.

"That is Wat the limner," quoth the landlady, sitting down besideAlleyne, and pointing with the ladle to the sleeping man. "Thatis he who paints the signs and the tokens. Alack and alas thatever I should have been fool enough to trust him! Now, young man,what manner of a bird would you suppose a pied merlin to be--thatbeing the proper sign of my hostel?"

"Why," said Alleyne, "a merlin is a bird of the same form as aneagle or a falcon. I can well remember that learned brotherBartholomew, who is deep in all the secrets of nature, pointedone out to me as we walked together near Vinney Ridge."

"A falcon or an eagle, quotha? And pied, that is of two severalcolors. So any man would say except this barrel of lies. Hecame to me, look you, saying that if I would furnish him with agallon of ale, wherewith to strengthen himself as he worked, andalso the pigments and a board, he would paint for me a noble piedmerlin which I might hang along with the blazonry over my door.I, poor simple fool, gave him the ale and all that he craved,leaving him alone too, because he said that a man's mind must beleft untroubled when he had great work to do. When I came backthe gallon jar was empty, and he lay as you see him, with theboard in front of him with this sorry device." She raised up apanel which was leaning against the wall, and showed a rudepainting of a scraggy and angular fowl, with very long legs and aspotted body.

"Was that," she asked, like the bird which thou hast seen?"

Alleyne shook his head, smiling.

"No, nor any other bird that ever wagged a feather. It is mostlike a plucked pullet which has died of the spotted fever. Andscarlet too! What would the gentles Sir Nicholas Boarhunte, orSir Bernard Brocas, of Roche Court, say if they saw such a thing--or, perhaps, even the King's own Majesty himself, who often hasridden past this way, and who loves his falcons as he loves hissons? It would be the downfall of my house."

"The matter is not past mending," said Alleyne. "I pray you,good dame, to give me those three pigment-pots and the brush, andI shall try whether I cannot better this painting."

Dame Eliza looked doubtfully at him, as though fearing some otherstratagem, but, as he made no demand for ale, she finally broughtthe paints, and watched him as he smeared on his background,talking the while about the folk round the fire.

"The four forest lads must be jogging soon," she said. "Theybide at Emery Down, a mile or more from here. Yeomen prickersthey are, who tend to the King's hunt. The gleeman is calledFloyting Will. He comes from the north country, but for manyyears he hath gone the round of the forest from Southampton toChristchurch. He drinks much and pays little but it would makeyour ribs crackle to hear him sing the 'Jest of Hendy Tobias.'Mayhap he will sing it when the ale has warmed him."

"Who are those next to him?" asked Alleyne, much interested. "Heof the fur mantle has a wise and reverent face."

"He is a seller of pills and salves, very learned in humors, andrheums, and fluxes, and all manner of ailments. He wears, as youperceive, the vernicle of Sainted Luke, the first physician, uponhis sleeve. May good St. Thomas of Kent grant that it may belong before either I or mine need his help! He is here to-nightfor herbergage, as are the others except the foresters. Hisneighbor is a tooth-drawer. That bag at his girdle is full ofthe teeth that he drew at Winchester fair. I warrant that thereare more sound ones than sorry, for he is quick at his work and atrifle dim in the eye. The lusty man next him with the red headI have not seen before. The four on this side are all workers,three of them in the service of the bailiff of Sir BaldwinRedvers, and the other, he with the sheepskin, is, as I hear, avillein from the midlands who hath run from his master. His yearand day are well-nigh up, when he will be a free man."

"And the other?" asked Alleyne in a whisper. "He is surely somevery great man, for he looks as though he scorned those who wereabout him."

The landlady looked at him in a motherly way and shook her head."You have had no great truck with the world," she said, "or youwould have learned that it is the small men and not the great whohold their noses in the air. Look at those shields upon my walland under my eaves. Each of them is the device of some noblelord or gallant knight who hath slept under my roof at one timeor another. Yet milder men or easier to please I have neverseen: eating my bacon and drinking my wine with a merry face, andpaying my score with some courteous word or jest which was dearerto me than my profit. Those are the true gentles. But yourchapman or your bearward will swear that there is a lime in thewine, and water in the ale, and fling off at the last with acurse instead of a blessing. This youth is a scholar fromCambrig, where men are wont to be blown out by a littleknowledge, and lose the use of their hands in learning the lawsof the Romans. But I must away to lay down the beds. So may thesaints keep you and prosper you in your undertaking!"

Thus left to himself, Alleyne drew his panel of wood where thelight of one of the torches would strike full upon it, and workedaway with all the pleasure of the trained craftsman, listeningthe while to the talk which went on round the fire. The peasantin the sheepskins, who had sat glum and silent all evening, hadbeen so heated by his flagon of ale that he was talking loudlyand angrily with clenched hands and flashing eyes.

"Sir Humphrey Tennant of Ashby may till his own fields for me,"he cried. "The castle has thrown its shadow upon the cottageover long. For three hundred years my folk have swinked andsweated, day in and day out, to keep the wine on the lord's tableand the harness on the lord's back. Let him take off his platesand delve himself, if delving must be done."

"A proper spirit, my fair son!" said one of the free laborers."I would that all men were of thy way of thinking."

"He would have sold me with his acres," the other cried, in avoice which was hoarse with passion. " 'The man, the woman andtheir litter'--so ran the words of the dotard bailiff. Never abullock on the farm was sold more lightly. Ha! he may wake someblack night to find the flames licking about his ears--for fireis a good friend to the poor man, and I have seen a smoking heapof ashes where over night there stood just such anothercastlewick as Ashby."

"This is a lad of mettle!" shouted another of the laborers. Hedares to give tongue to what all men think. Are we not all fromAdam's loins, all with flesh and blood, and with the same mouththat must needs have food and drink? Where all this differencethen between the ermine cloak and the leathern tunic, if whatthey cover is the same?"

"Aye, Jenkin," said another, "our foeman is under the stole andthe vestment as much as under the helmet and plate of proof. Wehave as much to fear from the tonsure as from the hauberk.Strike at the noble and the priest shrieks, strike at priest andthe noble lays his hand upon glaive. They are twin thieves wholive upon our labor."

"It would take a clever man to live upon thy labor, Hugh,"remarked one of the foresters, "seeing that the half of thy timeis spent in swilling mead at the 'Pied Merlin.' "

"Better that than stealing the deer that thou art placed toguard, like some folk I know."

"If you dare open that swine's mouth against me," shouted thewoodman, "I'll crop your ears for you before the hangman has thedoing of it, thou long-jawed lackbrain."

"Nay, gentles, gentles!" cried Dame Eliza, in a singsong heedlessvoice, which showed that such bickerings were nightly thingsamong her guests. "No brawling or brabbling, gentles! Take heedto the good name of the house."

"Besides, if it comes to the cropping of ears, there are otherfolk who may say their say," quoth the third laborer. "We areall freemen, and I trow that a yeoman's cudgel is as good as aforester's knife. By St. Anselm! it would be an evil day if wehad to bend to our master's servants as well as to our masters."

"No man is my master save the King," the woodman answered. "Whois there, save a false traitor, who would refuse to serve theEnglish king?"

"I know not about the English king," said the man Jenkin. "Whatsort of English king is it who cannot lay his tongue to a word ofEnglish? You mind last year when he came down to Malwood, withhis inner marshal and his outer marshal, his justiciar, hisseneschal, and his four and twenty guardsmen. One noontide I wasby Franklin Swinton's gate, when up he rides with a yeomanpricker at his heels. 'Ouvre,' he cried, 'ouvre,' or some suchword, making signs for me to open the gate; and then 'Merci,' asthough he were adrad of me. And you talk of an English king?"

"I do not marvel at it," cried the Cambrig scholar, speaking inthe high drawling voice which was common among his class. "It isnot a tongue for men of sweet birth and delicate upbringing. Itis a foul, snorting, snarling manner of speech. For myself, Iswear by the learned Polycarp that I have most ease with Hebrew,and after that perchance with Arabian."

"I will not hear a word said against old King Ned," cried HordleJohn in a voice like a bull. "What if he is fond of a bright eyeand a saucy face. I know one of his subjects who could match himat that. If he cannot speak like an Englishman I trow that hecan fight like an Englishman, and he was hammering at the gatesof Paris while alehouse topers were grutching and grumbling athome."

This loud speech, coming from a man of so formidable anappearance, somewhat daunted the disloyal party, and they fellinto a sullen silence, which enabled Alleyne to hear something ofthe talk which was going on in the further corner between thephysician, the tooth-drawer and the gleeman.

"A raw rat," the man of drugs was saying, "that is what it isever my use to order for the plague--a raw rat with its paunchcut open."

"Might it not be broiled, most learned sir?" asked the tooth-drawer. "A raw rat sounds a most sorry and cheerless dish."

"Not to be eaten," cried the physician, in high disdain. "Whyshould any man eat such a thing?"

"Why indeed?" asked the gleeman, taking a long drain at histankard.

"It is to be placed on the sore or swelling. For the rat, markyou, being a foul-living creature, hath a natural drawing oraffinity for all foul things, so that the noxious humors passfrom the man into the unclean beast."

"Would that cure the black death, master?" asked Jenkin.

"Aye, truly would it, my fair son."

"Then I am right glad that there were none who knew of it. Theblack death is the best friend that ever the common folk had inEngland."

"How that then?" asked Hordle John.

"Why, friend, it is easy to see that you have not worked withyour hands or you would not need to ask. When half the folk inthe country were dead it was then that the other half could pickand choose who they would work for, and for what wage. That iswhy I say that the murrain was the best friend that the borelfolk ever had."

"True, Jenkin," said another workman; "but it is not all goodthat is brought by it either. We well know that through it corn-land has been turned into pasture, so that flocks of sheep withperchance a single shepherd wander now where once a hundred menhad work and wage."

"There is no great harm in that," remarked the tooth-drawer, "forthe sheep give many folk their living. There is not only theherd, but the shearer and brander, and then the dresser, thecurer, the dyer, the fuller, the webster, the merchant, and ascore of others."

"If it come to that." said one of the foresters, "the tough meatof them will wear folks teeth out, and there is a trade for theman who can draw them."

A general laugh followed this sally at the dentist's expense, inthe midst of which the gleeman placed his battered harp upon hisknee, and began to pick out a melody upon the frayed strings,

"Elbow room for Floyting Will!" cried the woodmen. "Twang us amerry lilt."

"Aye, aye, the 'Lasses of Lancaster,' " one suggested.

"Or 'St. Simeon and the Devil.' "

"Or the 'Jest of Hendy Tobias.' "

To all these suggestions the jongleur made no response, but satwith his eye fixed abstractedly upon the ceiling, as one whocalls words to his mind. Then, with a sudden sweep across thestrings, he broke out into a song so gross and so foul that erehe had finished a verse the pure-minded lad sprang to his feetwith the blood tingling in his face.

"How can you sing such things?" he cried. "You, too, an old manwho should be an example to others."

The wayfarers all gazed in the utmost astonishment at theinterruption.

"By the holy Dicon of Hampole! our silent clerk has found histongue," said one of the woodmen. "What is amiss with the songthen? How has it offended your babyship?"

"A milder and better mannered song hath never been heard withinthese walls," cried another. "What sort of talk is this for apublic inn?"

"Shall it be a litany, my good clerk?" shouted a third; "or woulda hymn be good enough to serve?"

The jongleur had put down his harp in high dudgeon. "Am I to bepreached to by a child?" he cried, staring across at Alleyne withan inflamed and angry countenance. "Is a hairless infant toraise his tongue against me, when I have sung in every fair fromTweed to Trent, and have twice been named aloud by the High Courtof the Minstrels at Beverley? I shall sing no more to-night."

"Nay, but you will so," said one of the laborers. "Hi, DameEliza, bring a stoup of your best to Will to clear his throat.Go forward with thy song, and if our girl-faced clerk does notlove it he can take to the road and go whence he came."

"Nay, but not too last," broke in Hordle John. "There are twowords in this matter. It may be that my little comrade has beenover quick in reproof, he having gone early into the cloistersand seen little of the rough ways and words of the world. Yetthere is truth in what he says, for, as you know well, the songwas not of the cleanest. I shall stand by him, therefore, and heshall neither be put out on the road, nor shall his ears beoffended indoors."

"Indeed, your high and mighty grace," sneered one of the yeomen,"have you in sooth so ordained?"

"By the Virgin!" said a second, "I think that you may both chanceto find yourselves upon the road before long."

"And so belabored as to be scarce able to crawl along it," crieda third.

"Nay, I shall go! I shall go!" said Alleyne hurriedly, as HordleJohn began to slowly roll up his sleeve, and bare an arm like aleg of mutton. "I would not have you brawl about me."

"Hush! lad," he whispered, "I count them not a fly. They mayfind they have more tow on their distaff than they know how tospin. Stand thou clear and give me space."

Both the foresters and the laborers had risen from their bench,and Dame Eliza and the travelling doctor had flung themselvesbetween the two parties with soft words and soothing gestures,when the door of the "Pied Merlin" was flung violently open, andthe attention of the company was drawn from their own quarrel tothe new-comer who had burst so unceremoniously upon them.