Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/247

 cannot well tell which I admire at most, the impious confidence of those wretches or God’s patience.

Og. At the north side there is a certain gate, not of a church, don’t mistake me, but of the wall that encloses the churchyard, that has a very little wicket, as in the great gates of noblemen, that he that has a mind to get in must first venture the breaking of his shins and afterwards stoop his head too. Me. In truth, it would not be safe for a man to enter in at such a little door. Og. You are in the right of it. But yet the verger told me that some time since a knight on horseback, having escaped out of the hands of his enemy, who followed him at the heels, got in through this wicket. The poor man at the last pinch, by a sudden turn of thought, recommended himself to the holy Virgin that was the nearest to him, for he resolved to take sanctuary at her altar, if the gate had been open. When, behold, which is such a thing as was never heard of, both man and horse were on a sudden taken into the churchyard and his enemy left on the outside of it stark mad at his disappointment.

Me. And did he give you reason to believe so wonderful a rela- tion? Og. Without doubt. Me. That was no easy matter to a man of your philosophy. Og. He shewed me a plate of copper nailed on the door, that had the very image of this knight that was thus saved, and in the very habit which was then in fashion among the English, which is the same we see in old pictures, which, if they are drawn truly, the barbers and dyers and weavers in those days had but a bad time of it. Me. Why so ? Og. Why, he had a beard like a goat, and there was not a wrinkle in any of his clothes they were made so strait to his body that the very straitness of them made his body the more slender. There was also another plate that was an exact descrip- tion of the chapel and the size of it. Me. Then there was no doubt to be made of it. Og. Under the little wicket there was an iron grate, no bigger than what a man on foot could just get in at; for it was not fit that any horse afterwards should tread upon that place which the former knight had consecrated to the Virgin. Me. And very good reason.

Og. From hence towards the east, there is another chapel full of wonders; thither I went. Another verger received me. There we prayed a little; and there was shewn us the middle joint of a man’s finger. I kissed it, and asked whose relic it was ? He told me it was St. Peter’s. What, said I, the Apostle? He said it was. I then took notice of the bigness of the joint, which was large enough to be taken for that of a giant. Upon which, said I, Peter must needs have been a very lusty man. At this, one of the company fell a laughing. I was very much vexed at it; for if he had held his tongue the verger would have shewn us all the relics. However, we pacified him pretty well, by giving him a few groats.

Before this little chapel stood a house, which he told us, in the win- ter time, when all things were buried in snow, was brought there on a sudden from some place a great way off. Under this house there were two pits brimful, that were fed by a fountain consecrated to the holy Virgin. The water was wonderful cold, and of great virtue in curing pains in the head and stomach. Me. If cold water will cure pains in the head and stomach, in time oil will quench fire. Og. But, my