The gowns or cloaks of the upper classes at that time were richly ornamented with deep borders of embroidery, but Fulke had carefully selected garments free from any such adornments. He had also removed his gilt spurs of knighthood, and any who met him riding along the road might well have taken him for a physician, notary, or some professional man of the laity. The grooms who followed him also wore the plainest attire; and the whole party were mounted upon mere hacks or palfreys, very unlike the ponderous war-horses usually bestridden by men in armour.
By the afternoon Fulke had reached St. Alban's, and saw before him rise the abbey towers.
"Once resplendent dome,
Religious shrine......
Of warriors, monks, and dames the cloistered tomb.
Years roll to years, to ages, ages yield,
Abbots to abbots in a line succeed;
Religion's charter their protecting shield,
Till royal sacrilege their doom decreed."
At the abbey gate he made known his name and rank to the astonished porter, who failed to recognize in the unobtrusive figure requesting an audience with the abbot the dreaded leader of the murderous attack upon the sanctuary but a few weeks before.
The abbot came hurrying out. He, too, was amazed that the sacrilegious robber who had lately extorted from him the sum of one hundred pounds, under threat of destroying the town, should again pay him a visit, and in such a guise.
Fulke was well acquainted with the etiquette necessary on such occasions. He dismounted, went down on one knee before the dignified ecclesiastic, and raised the hem of the latter's habit to his lips.
"Thou seest in me, reverend father," he exclaimed, "a humble penitent come to offer submission to his holy Mother, and to crave thy gracious absolution for misdeeds committed!"
The abbot was well aware how to deal with such cases. Penance he knew he could enjoin; restitution he hoped he might suggest.
"My son," he said, "Holy Church ever receives back into her fold those who have erred and strayed. But follow me," he added; "I, the humble servant of the Church, will call my brethren together to treat with me of so weighty a matter as concerneth this visit of thine."
Consigning Fulke to the care of the guest-master, the abbot went off to give directions for the immediate summoning of a chapter, and the Robber Baron was left swearing, in his usual brutal way, at his men for some carelessness as to his orders.