Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/35

 the cup is empty fill it again, and put in fresh leaves every fourth day, and thou shalt see, through our Lord’s great goodness and mercy, before twelve days shalt be past, thy disease shall be cured and thy body altered.’”

After this simple prescription, Wallis pressed him to eat: “But he said, ‘No, friend, I will not eat; the Lord Jesus is sufficient for me. Very seldom doe I drinke any beere neither, but that which comes from the rocke. So, friend, the Lord God be with thee.’”

So saying, he departed, and was never more heard of; but the patient got well within the given time, and for many a long day there was war hot and fierce among the divines of Stamford, as to whether the stranger was an angel or a devil. His dress had been minutely described by honest Sam. His coat was purple, and buttoned down to the waist; “his britches of the same couler, all new to see to;” his stockings were very white, but whether linen or jersey, deponent knoweth not; his beard and head were white, and he had a white stick in his hand. The day was rainy from morning to night, “but he had not one spot of dirt upon his cloathes.”

Aubrey gives an almost exactly similar relation,