Pilgrims with "scallop-shell and sandal shoon," were gathered in little knots, discussing the various merits of the different shrines and holy places they had visited. One tall, stalwart-looking fellow related that, after walking bare-headed, with dried peas in his shoes, to the tomb of the holy St. Thomas à Becket, he had been suddenly cured of an ulcer in the leg which had troubled him for five years. Here a little man with a shrill voice interrupted him, and declared that nothing could equal the efficacy of the holy water from the altar of our Lady of Lorreto, and that her shrine was covered with offerings made to her by those whose prayers for safety from danger and recovery from sickness had been answered, even though they were far away. The sonorous voice of a vender of reliquaries was now heard, declaring that a morsel of the finger-nail of St. Bridget, which he had there in a leaden box, would keep a sailor from even wetting his feet during the hardest storm that ever blew on the Channel. He had also a crucifix, blessed by the Pope, containing a hair of St. Joseph which would give to whoever wore it next his heart long days of uninterrupted happiness and prosperity, and all this for a single noble! A little at one side stood a pardoner with his little pieces of parchment inscribed with pardons for every imaginable sin, and covering various periods, from a week to a lifetime. The prices were graded according to the enormity of the offence, and the length of time; one poor fellow who had knocked down a priest having to pay a mark, while another, who had only taken a chicken from his neighbor’s yard, went off happy and secure from all transgressions for the next month, on the payment of a few groats. As he turned to a new set of applicants, a sturdy begging friar went around beseeching, or rather demanding, charity, in the name of all the saints in the calendar. But now pilgrim, pardoner, and beggar turned alike toward the judgment-seat, for the crier had called upon John Beverly, Sir Roger Ashton, and many others, to come into court, and the men-at-arms were beating back the crowd, to make room for the prisoners to approach the table. All eyes were turned upon the nine-and-thirty men who marched between soldiers armed to the teeth, up the long hall, and took their places before their judge. A boy, who had just edged his way through the crowd, stood, with flushed cheeks and panting breath, as near to them as he could get, and then the trial began.