第8章 HOW THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN,AND HOW NORMAN LESLIE FL

We were still gaping,and crossing ourselves with blessings on this happy day and our unworthy eyes that beheld a miracle,when he did a thing yet more marvellous,if that might be,which I scarce expect any man will believe.Going to the table,and catching up a glass vessel on which the goodwife set great store,he threw it against the wall,and we all plainly heard it shiver into tinkling pieces.

Then,crossing the room into the corner,that was dusky enough,he faced us,again holding the blessed relic,whereon we stared,in holy fear.Then he rose,and in his hand was the goodwife's glass vessel,without crack or flaw!{6}

"Such,"he said,"are the properties of this miraculous relic;there is nothing broken but it will mend,ay,a broken limb,as I can prove on my own sinful body,"--thrusting out his great brown leg,whereon,assuredly,were signs of a fracture;"ay,a broken leg,or,my dear daughters,a broken heart."At this,of course,they were all eager to touch the blessed relic with their poor rings of base metal,such as they wear who are not rich.Nay,but first,he said,they must give their mites for a convent of the Clarisses,that was building at Castres,by the care of the holy Colette,whom he might call his patroness,unworthy as he was.

Then he showed us a safe-conduct,signed with that blessed woman's own hand,such as she was wont to give to the religious of the Order of St.Francis.By virtue of this,he said (and,by miracle,for once he said truly,as I had but too good cause to learn),he could go freely in and out among the camps of French,English,and Burgundians.

You may conceive how joyous they were in that poor cottage,on a night so blessed,and how Brother Thomas told us of the holy Colette,that famous nun and Mother in Christ,as he that had often been in her company.He had seen her body lifted in the air while she remained in a pious ecstasy,her mind soaring aloft and her fleshly body following it some way.

He had often watched that snow-white beast which followed her,such a creature as is known in no country of the sinful world,but is a thing of Paradise.And he had tried to caress this wondrous creature of God,but vainly,for none but the holy sister Colette may handle it.Concerning her miracles of healing,too,he told us,all of which we already knew for very truth,and still know on better warranty than his.

Ye may believe that,late and at last,Brother Thomas had his choice of the warmest place to sleep in--by the "four,"as is the wont of pilgrims,for in his humility this holy man would not suffer the farmer's wife and the farmer to give him their bed,as they desired.

I,too,was very kindly entreated by the young lads,but I could scarcely sleep for marvelling at these miracles done by one so unworthy;and great,indeed,I deemed,must be the virtue of that relic which wrought such signs in the hands of an evil man.But Ihave since held that he feigned all by art magic and very sorcery,for,as we wended next morning on our road,he plainly told me,truly or falsely,that he had picked up the blackened finger-bone out of the loathly ashes of the dead in the burned castle near Ruffec.

Wherefore I consider that when Brother Thomas sold the grace of his relic,by the touching of rings,he dealt in a devilish black simony,vending to simple Christians no grace but that of his master,Sathanas.Thus he was not only evil (if I guess aright,which I submit to the judgment of my ecclesiastical superiors,and of the Church),but he had even found out a new kind of wickedness,such as I never read of in any books of theology wherein is much to be learned.I have spoken with some,however,knights and men of this world,who deemed that he did but beguile our eyes by craft and sleight-of-hand.