So Thomas lived innocently enough, but overmuch immersed in secular employment, and seldom troubling himself to come to Mass, even on Holy Days, except it were Easter or Christmas, or when he brought a child to the christening. Whereby Sir John, our priest, was somewhat troubled, and at times exhorted Thomas that he should come to Church more regularly, as befitted a Christian. To which Thomas would answer that the way was something long to the Church from his house, and he trusted he served God all the same, and so, smiling gently, he would home to his wife and babes and little amendment made. But in the spring of the year of our Lord eleven hundred and eighty-nine, there came a wandering man of religion to the town, who was destined to be the means whereby, under God, a great miracle should be wrought in this man. For it was in that year that our sovereign Lord and King, Richard, being moved by the wrongs which Christ suffered at the hands of the heathen and accursed Saracens, in Jerusalem, the town of His Passion, made a strong vow, assumed the cross and proclaimed that he would set out with a great company of Christian knights and men-at-arms to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of the unbelievers. Many holy men therefore, moved thereto by the Pope and the Bishops, went about all Christendom, exhorting the people to take up the Cross and follow the pious King overseas. Of these devoted preachers, came one Master Benedict to our village, and, having obtained permission, as was seemly, of Sir John, he preached daily to the people. Master Benedict was truly a man filled with the Holy Ghost, and his sermons and speeches cast a spell over the town. ‘O ye people, sons of God,’ he would cry, ‘why will ye make it your only care that your swine and cattle increase, that your corn shall ripen, that your grass wax strong and long in the water meadows, when your Lord is day by day crucified afresh in His Holy City at the hands of idolaters and blasphemers?’ He told of the bitter wrongs which Christian pilgrims suffered when they visited our Lord’s Sepulchre; then men shook and wept with grief. He told how our King had entered on that glorious enterprise first of all Christian Princes, and asked if they desired him to set out to that sacred slaughter single-handed and with no following of his liege people; then men’s eyes flashed with holy devotion and loyalty, and they cried out vehemently, ‘Nay, nay.’ He told how the Holy Father had offered a plenary indulgence to all who took the Cross, and how the souls of all Christians who suffered death on the Crusade would be borne instantly to Paradise; then the people fell down on their knees and cried out with fierce sobs, ‘Holy Cross, Holy Cross; we will follow the Cross.’