t on all sides that he could not ask which
was the King.

At last the shouting grew loud and then quiet, and men bowed down on all
sides; and he saw the man whom he knew must be the King.

He had a long face (as I saw for myself afterwards), rather sallow, with
a long straight nose and small, full mouth; his eyebrows were black and
arched high, and beneath them his sorrowful eyes looked out on the
people; he was bowing his head courteously as he came. On his head he
wore a black peaked cap of velvet; there was ermine at his collar and a
gold chain lay across his shoulders.

Now this is what Master Richard saw with the eyes of his body, but with
the eyes of his soul he saw something so strange that I know not how to
name or explain it. He told me that it was our Saviour whom he saw go by
between the gilded glaives, as He was when He went from Herod's hall. I
do not understand how this may be. The King wore no beard as did our
Saviour, he was full fourteen years younger at that time than was Jesu
Christ when He suffered His bitter passion. They were of a height, I
suppose, and perhaps the purple that the King wore was of the same
colour as that which our Lord had put on him, but that was all the
likeness that ever I could see, for the King's hair was black and his
complexion sallow, but our Lord's was corn colour, and His face white
and ruddy. [A reference, I suppose, to Cant. Cant. v. 10.] And, again,
the one was but a holy man, and the other God Almighty although made man
for our salvation.

Yet perhaps I did not understand Master Richard aright, and that he
meant something else and that it was only to the eyes of the soul that
the resemblance lay. If this is so, then I think I understand what it
was that he saw, though I cannot explain it to you, any more than could
he to me. There be some matters so high that no mouth can tell them,
heart only can speak to heart, but I can tell you this, that Master
Richard did not mean that our Lord was in the hall that day as He is in
heaven and in the sacrament of the altar; it was something else that he
meant.... [There follows a doctrinal disquisition.]

* * * * *

When Master Richard came out from the hall, he told me that he was in a
kind of swoon, but having his eyes open, and that he knew not how he
came back to the guest-house. It was not until he knocked upon the door
that he saw that the crowd was about him again, staring on him silentl