“’Tis the week’s mind of his burial,” he said, half choked with tears. “Where shall I find a quiet church where I may say his De profundis in peace?”
“Mayhap,” returned Tibble, “the chapel in the Pardon churchyard would serve your turn. ’Tis not greatly resorted to when mass time is over, when there’s no funeral in hand, and I oft go there to read my book in quiet on a Sunday afternoon. And then, if ’tis your will, I will take you to what to my mind is the best healing for a sore heart.”
“Nurse Joan was wont to say the best for that was a sight of the true Cross, as she once beheld it at Holy Rood church at Southampton,” said Ambrose.
“And so it is, lad, so it is,” said Tibble, with a strange light on his distorted features.
So they went forth together, while Giles again hugged himself in his doleful conceit, marvelling how a youth of birth and nurture could walk the streets on a Sunday with a scarecrow such as that!
The hour was still early, there was a whole summer afternoon before them; and Tibble, seeing how much his young companion was struck with the grand vista of church towers and spires, gave him their names as they stood, though coupling them with short dry comments on the way in which their priests too often perverted them.
The Cheap was then still in great part an open space, where boys were playing, and a tumbler was attracting many spectators; while the ballad-singer of yesterday had again a large audience, who laughed loudly at every coarse jest broken upon mass-priests and friars.
Ambrose was horrified at the stave that met his ears, and asked how such profanity could be allowed. Tibble shrugged his shoulders, and cited the old saying, “The nearer the church”—adding, “Truth hath a voice, and will out.”
“But surely this is not the truth?”
“’Tis mighty like it, sir, though it might be spoken in a more seemly fashion.”