long till I be christened, wherefore, holy father, I require
thee to minister to me the sacrament of baptism. And then St. Austin,
seeing the great meekness and obedience of the king that he had to be
christened, he took him up with weeping tears and baptized him with all
his household and meiny, and informed them diligently in the Christian
faith with great joy and gladness. And when all this was done St.
Austin, desiring the health of the people of England, went forth on foot
to York; and when he came nigh to the city there met him a blind man
which said to him: O thou holy Austin, help me that am full needy. To
whom St. Austin said: I have no silver, but such as I have I give thee;
in the name of Jesu Christ arise and be all whole, and with that word he
received his sight and believed in our Lord and was baptized. And upon
Christmas day he baptized, in the river named Swale, ten thousand men
without women and children, and there was a great multitude of people
resorting to the said river, which was so deep that no man might pass
over on foot, and yet by miracle of our Lord there was neither man,
woman, ne child drowned, but they that were sick were made whole both in
body and in soul. And in the same place they builded a church in the
worship of God and St. Austin. And when St. Austin had preached the
faith to the people and had confirmed them steadfastly therein, he
returned again from York, and by the way he met a leper asking help, and
when St. Austin had said these words to him: In the name of Jesu Christ
be thou cleansed from all thy leprosy, anon all his filth fell away, and
a fair new skin appeared on his body so that he seemed all a new man.

Also as St. Austin came into Oxfordshire to a town that is called
Compton to preach the word of God, to whom the curate said: Holy father,
the lord of this lordship hath been ofttimes warned of me to pay his
tithes to God, and yet he withholdeth them, and therefore I have cursed
him, and I find him the more obstinate. To whom St. Austin said: Son,
why payest thou not thy tithes to God and to the church? Knowest thou
not that the tithes be not thine but belong to God? And then the knight
said to him: I know well that I till the ground, wherefore I ought as
well to have the tenth sheaf as the ninth, and when St. Austin could not
turn the knight's entent, then he departed from him and went to mass.
And ere he began he charged that all they that were accursed should go
out of