ise.
This was very meet and right, seeing the time was Holy Week.

II.

[Illustration: 046]

Now on Holy Easter Day, Maitre Jacquet Coquedouille, a notable citizen
of the place, was peeping through a hole in a shutter of his house and
watching the countless throng of pilgrims passing down the steep street.
They were wending homewards, happy to have won their pardon; and the
sight of them greatly magnified his veneration for the Black Virgin. For
he deemed a lady so much sought after must needs be a puissant dame.
He was old, and his only hope lay in God's mercy. Yet was he but
ill-assured of his eternal salvation, for he remembered how many a time
he had ruthlessly fleeced the widow and the orphan. Moreover, he had
robbed Florent Guillaume of his scrivenry at the sign of Our Lady. He
was used to lend at high interest on sound security. Yet could no man
infer he was a usurer, forasmuch as he was a Christian, and it was only
the Jews practised usury,--the Jews, and, if you will, the Lombards and
the men of Cahors.

Now Jacquet Coquedouille went about the matter quite otherwise than the
Jews. He never said, like Jacob, Ephraim, and Manasses, "I am lending
you money." What he did say was, "I am putting money into your business
to help your trafficking," a different thing altogether. For usury and
lending upon interest were forbidden by the Church, but trafficking was
lawful and permitted.

And yet at the thought how he had brought many Christian folk to poverty
and despair, Jacquet Coquedouille felt the pangs of remorse, as he
pictured the sword of Divine Justice hanging over his head. So on this
holy Easter Day he was fain to secure him against the Last Judgment
by winning the protection of Our Lady. He thought to himself she would
plead for him at the judgment seat of her divine Son, if only he gave
her a handsome fee. So he went to the great chest where he kept his
gold, and, after making sure the chamber door was shut fast, he opened
the chest, which was full of angels, flor-ins, esterlings, nobles, gold
crowns, gold ducats, and golden sous, and all the coins ever struck by
Christian or Saracen. He extracted with a sigh of regret twelve
deniers of fine gold and laid them on the table, which was crowded
with balances, files, scissors, gold-scales, and account books. After
shutting his chest again and triple-locking it, he numbered the deniers,
renumbered them, gazed long at them with looks of affection, and