"Don't, for mercy's sake!" cried Isel. "She's a tongue as long as a yard measure, and there isn't a scrap of gossip for ten miles on every side of her that she doesn't hand on to the first comer. She'd know all I had on afore I'd been there one Paternoster, and every body else 'd know it too, afore the day was out." The space of time required to repeat the Lord's Prayer--of course as fast as possible--was a measure in common use at that day. "Best put on your holiday clothes, then," said Stephen with a laugh, and whistling for his dog, which was engaged in the pointing of Countess's kitten, he turned down Fish Street on his way to the East Gate. Stephen's progress was arrested, as he came to the end of Kepeharme Lane, by a long and picturesque procession which issued from the western door of Saint Frideswide. Eight priests, fully robed, bore under a canopy the beautifully-carved coffer which held the venerated body of the royal saint, and they were accompanied by the officials of the Cathedral, the choir chanting a litany, and a long string of nuns bringing up the rear. Saint Frideswide was on her way to the bedside of a paralysed rich man, who had paid an immense sum for her visit, in the hope that he might be restored to the use of his faculties by a touch of her miracle-working relics. As the procession passed up the street, a door opened in the Jewry, and out came a young Jew named Dieulecresse [Note 4], who at once set himself to make fun of Saint Frideswide. Limping up the street as though he could scarcely stir, he suddenly drew himself erect and walked down with a free step; clenching his hands as if they were rigid, he then flung his arms open and worked his fingers rapidly. "O ye men of Oxford, bring me your oblations!" he cried. "See ye not that I am a doer of wonders, like your saint, and that my miracles are quite as good and real as hers?" The procession passed on, taking no notice of the mockery. But when, the next day, it was known that Dieulecresse had committed suicide in the night, the priests did not spare the publication of the fact, with the comment that Saint Frideswide had taken vengeance on her enemy, and that her honour was fully vindicated from his aspersions. "Ah!" said Gerhardt softly, "`those eighteen, on whom the tower in Siloam fell!' How ready men are to account them sinners above all men that dwell in Jerusalem! Yet it may be that they who thus judge are the worse sinners of the two, in God's eyes, however high they stand in the world's sight." "Well, I don't set up to be better than other folks," said Stephen lightly. He had brought the news. "I reckon I shall pass muster, if I'm as good." "That would not satisfy me," said Gerhardt. "I should want to be as good as I could be. I could not pass beyond that. But even then--" "That's too much trouble for me," laughed Stephen. "When you've done your work, hand me over the goodness you don't want."