[The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle]@TWC D-Link book
The White Company

CHAPTER III
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When I heard this I prayed him on my knees that he would give me the use of his gown, which after many contentions he at last agreed to do, on my paying him three marks towards the regilding of the image of Laurence the martyr.

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 labor, 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 psalm, 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 disconsolate 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 plight, for his wife hath a gibing tongue, and will spread the tale until I could not show my face in any market from Fordingbridge to Southampton.


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