praying God to give us all the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of doves, for we should shortly have much need thereof.  When Master Sumner and Master Bets came, he caused me to declare again the whole matter to them two.  Then desiring them to tell our other brethren in that college, I went to Corpus Christi College, to comfort our brethren there, where I found in Diet’s chamber, looking for me, Fitzjames, Diet, and Udal.  They all knew the matter before by Master Eden, whom I had sent unto Fitzjames.  So I tarried there and supped with them, where they had provided meat and drink for us before my coming; and when we had ended, Fitzjames would needs have me to lie that night with him in my old lodging at Alban’s Hall.  But small rest and little sleep took we both there that night.”

The next day, which was Sunday, Dalaber rose at five o’clock, and as soon as he could leave the Hall, hastened off to his rooms at Gloucester.  The night had been wet and stormy, and his shoes and stockings were covered with mud.  The college gates, when he reached them, were still closed, an unusual thing at that hour; and he walked up and down under the walls in the bleak grey morning, till the clock struck seven, “much disquieted, his head full of forecasting cares,” but resolved, like a brave man, that come what would, he would accuse no one, and declare nothing but what he saw was already known.  The gates were at last opened; he went to his rooms, and for some time his key would not turn in the door, the lock having been meddled with.  At length he succeeded in entering, and found everything in confusion, his bed tossed and tumbled, his study door open, and his clothes strewed about the floor.  A monk who occupied the opposite rooms, hearing him return, came to him and said that the commissary and the two proctors had been there looking for Garret.  Bills and swords had been thrust through the bed-straw, and every corner of the room searched for him.  Finding nothing, they had left orders that Dalaber, as soon as he returned, should appear before the prior of the students.

“This so troubled me,” Dalaber says, “that I forgot to make clean my hose and shoes, and to shift me into another gown; and all bedirted as I was, I went to the said prior’s chamber.”  The prior asked him where he had slept that night.  At Alban’s Hall, he answered, with his old bedfellow, Fitzjames.  The prior said he did not believe him, and asked if Garret had been at his rooms the day before.  He replied that he had.  Whither had he gone, then? the prior inquired; and where was he at that time?  “I answered,” says Dalaber, “that I knew not, unless he was gone to Woodstock; he told me that he would go there, because one of the keepers had promised him a piece of venison to make merry with at Shrovetide.  This tale I thought meetest, though it were nothing so."[516]