The interment took place in the abbey church, in the transept where rested so many of the St. Aliquis stock. They laid upon the Lady Odelina's breast a silver cross engraved with the words of absolution; and in the heavy stone casket also were buried four small earthen pots, each of which had contained some of the incense burned during the funeral ceremony. Finally, when the rites were over, Conon employed a cunning sculptor to make a life-size marble effigy of his mother, to rest upon the slab covering her tomb--an effigy which, by the dignity and genuine peace of form and face, was long to express how truly noble had been his gracious mother. Common folk cannot have marble caskets and effigies, but even poor peasants are graced with decidedly elaborate funerals. When a person of the least consequence in the village dies, a crier goes down all the lanes, ringing a bell and calling out the name of the deceased, adding, "Pray God for the dead." Peasants of quality are likely to be laid away in plaster coffins, although the poorest class of villeins are wrapped only in rags and tossed into shallow pits. Still worse is the fate of those who die excommunicated by the Church or of suicides. These unfortunates cannot even be buried in holy ground. Their bodies are often exposed, to be torn by the dogs and crows. Sometimes, however, a hardened sinner repents sufficiently on his deathbed to be restored to the graces of religion. But in this case his body is frequently burned, all laden with iron or brazen fetters. The idea is thus to mortify the body, even after the breath of life has departed, and so to abate those fires in purgatory assuredly awaiting for all save great saints, who can pass straight to heaven, or the numerous reprobates whose guilt requires not temporary, but eternal torment. FOOTNOTES: [82] As a result of this attitude, such a distinguished and genuinely learned scholar as Albert the Great is said to have confounded tendons and nerves. [83] A mediæval medical treatise deliberately advises the use of this argument to silence patients when the physicians cannot make a diagnosis, yet must say something. Chapter XVIII: Popular Religion. Pilgrimages. Superstitions. Relic Worship. All the folk of St. Aliquis are Christians. Nobody, far and wide, except a few Jews in Pontdebois, openly dissents from the Catholic religion, denies the validity of the creeds, or refuses a certain outward conformity to the Church practices. The age is not greatly interested in improving the general moral and social condition of the common people. The common people even are not always interested in this themselves. Each peasant prays for "just treatment" and for good luck. Otherwise, castle and village alike accept as a kind of natural law the immutability of society. God has established the various orders and gradations. All that one can ask is that each man shall accept the condition assigned to him and live in it efficiently and happily.