"But that she does not," answered Dame Julian. "She dwells a good way off, and was here by chance."
"Ay, 'tis a sad tale, indeed," rejoined her companion; "but I must go, good dame. Gramercy for your bounty. But tell me,--I saw an abbey as I came along; have they any famous relics there?"
"Ay, that they have," rejoined the reeve's wife, with a look of pride. "Our abbey is as rich in relics as any other in England;" and she began an enumeration of all the valuable things that it contained; amongst which, the objects that she seemed to set the greatest store by, was a finger of St. Luke the Evangelist, the veil of the blessed Virgin, and one of the ribs of St. Ursula.
The pilgrim declared that he must positively go and visit them, as he never passed any holy relics without sanctifying himself by their touch.
He accordingly took his way towards the abbey direct, and visited and prayed at the several shrines which the church contained, having secured the company and guidance of one of the monks, who were always extremely civil and kind to pilgrims and palmers, when they did not come exactly in the guise of beggars. The present pilgrim was of a very different quality; and he completely won the good graces and admiration of the attendant monk, not so much, indeed, by the devotion with which he told his beads and repeated his prayers, as by his generosity in laying down a large piece of silver before the rib of St. Ursula, another at the shrine of St. Luke, and a small piece of gold opposite to the veil of the blessed Virgin.
Having thus prepared the way, the stranger proceeded to open a conversation with the monk, somewhat similar to that which he had held with Dame Julian, the reeve's wife; and now a torrent of information flowed in upon him; for his companion had been one of the brethren who accompanied the abbot to the cottage whither the body of Catherine Beauchamp had been carried. The tale, however, though told with much loquacity, furnished but few particulars beyond those which the pilgrim had already gained; for the monk appeared a meek, good man, who took everything as he found it, and deduced but little from anything that he heard. All that he knew, indeed, he was ready to tell; but he had neither readiness nor penetration sufficient to gather much information, or to sift the corn from the chaff.
The pilgrim seemed somewhat disappointed, for he was certainly anxious to hear more; and he was on the eve of leaving the church unsatisfied, when he beheld another monk pacing the opposite aisle, with a grave, and even dull air. He was an old man, with a short, thin, white beard, and heavy features, which, till one examined closely, gave an expression of stupidity to his whole countenance, only relieved by the small, elephant-like eye, which sparkled brightly under its shaggy eyebrow.
"What brother is that?" demanded the pilgrim, looking across the church.
"Oh, that is brother Martin," replied the monk; "a dull and silent man, from whom you will get nothing. He is skilled in drugs and medicines, it is true. His cell is like an alchymist's shop; but we all think he must have committed some great sin in days of old, for half his time is spent in prayers and penances, and the other half in distilling liquors, or roasting lumps of clay and other stuffs in crucibles and furnaces. 'Tis rather hard, the lord abbot favours him so much, and has granted him two cells, the best in the whole monastery, to follow these vain studies, which, in my mind, come near to magic and sorcery. I saw him once, with my own eyes, make a piece of paper, cut in the shape of a man, dance upright, as if it had life."
"I will speak to him," said the pilgrim, "and will soon let you know if there be anything forbidden in his studies; for I have been in lands full of witches and sorcerers, and have learnt to discover them in an instant."