Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/317

Rh under the cherry-tree. They rode in silence, each with his treasure in his hand, glancing at it from time to time, and scarcely able to believe that chance had made them sole owners of relics of such holiness and worth that every abbey and church in Christendom would have bid eagerly for their possession. So they journeyed, full of this good fortune, until opposite the town of Le Mas, where John's horse cast a shoe, and they were glad to find a wayside smith who might set the matter to rights. To him Aylward narrated the good hap which had befallen them; but the smith, when his eyes lit upon the relics, leaned up against his anvil and laughed, with his hand to his side, until the tears hopped down his sooty cheeks.

'Why, masters,' quoth he, 'this man is a coquillart, or seller of false relics, and was here in this smithy not two hours ago. This nail that he hath sold you was taken from my nail-box, and as to the wood and the stones, you will see a heap of both outside from which he hath filled his scrip.'

'Nay, nay,' cried Alleyne, 'this was a holy man who had journeyed to Jerusalem, and acquired a dropsy by running from the house of Pilate to the Mount of Olives.'

'I know not about that,' said the smith, ' but I know that a man with a grey palmer's hat and gown was here no very long time ago, and that he sat on yonder stump and ate a cold pullet and drank a flask of wine. Then he begged from me one of my nails, and filling his scrip with stones, he went upon his way. Look at these nails, and see if they are not the same as that which he has sold you.'

'Now may God save us!' cried Alleyne, all aghast. 'Is there then no end to the wickedness of human kind? He so humble, so aged, so loth to take our money—and yet a villain and a cheat! Whom can we trust or believe in?'

'I will after him,' said Aylward, flinging himself into the saddle. 'Come, Alleyne, we may catch him ere John's horse be shod.'

Away they galloped together, and ere long they saw the old grey palmer walking slowly along in front of them. He