"For," quoth he to
himself, "our good friend Eadom will tell me all the news."
At the Sign of the Blue Boar he found a band of the Sheriffs men
drinking right lustily; so, without speaking to anyone, he sat down upon
a distant bench, his staff in his hand, and his head bowed forward as
though he were meditating. Thus he sat waiting until he might see the
landlord apart, and Eadom did not know him, but thought him to be some
poor tired friar, so he let him sit without saying a word to him or
molesting him, though he liked not the cloth. "For," said he to
himself, "it is a hard heart that kicks the lame dog from off the sill."
As Stutely sat thus, there came a great house cat and rubbed against his
knee, raising his robe a palm's-breadth high. Stutely pushed his robe
quickly down again, but the constable who commanded the Sheriffs men saw
what had passed, and saw also fair Lincoln green beneath the friar's
robe. He said nothing at the time, but communed within himself in this
wise: "Yon is no friar of orders gray, and also, I wot, no honest yeoman
goeth about in priest's garb, nor doth a thief go so for nought.
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