t which has cost me the labors of a life. Give me the dross! Here
are the precious relics, and, oh, I pray you that you will handle them
softly and with reverence, else had I rather left my unworthy bones here
by the wayside."

With doffed caps and eager hands, the comrades took their new and
precious possessions, and pressed onwards upon their journey, leaving
the aged palmer still seated under the cherry-tree. They rode in
silence, each with his treasure in his hand, glancing at it from time to
time, and scarce 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 the 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
gray 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 no end then
to the wickedness of humankind? 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 gray palmer
walking slowly along in front of them. He turned, however, at t