On the bridal day, therefore, away he crept to Church in a shabby green jerkin, which he had had from Nick the Piper in pawn, with a favour in his bosom and a stick in his hand. Holy Virgin, but a pretty couple the jolly young Margot and he made, she fresh and fair as a mead in May when it is all be-starred with flowers, he like a figure of Old Time on a monument. He tottered along clinging to her arm like a brat to his mother’s gown, stumbling and coughing and wheezing and spitting as though he would shatter his old frame to pieces. She looked straight before her, and the tears stood in her bonny blue eyes. So they came to the threshold of the Church, and lo, just as the wretched old man put forth his quivering foot to touch consecrated ground, the Lord showed full mightily that He does not sleep or slumber, for He touched the stone whereon William had carved the carrying hence of Master Matthew by Devils with His finger and it fell suddenly from its place and smote the usurer on his bald and shining skull, crushing him to the ground. When they ran to him and raised him up, he was dead. Truly, when William carved that stone, God inspired him more than he thought, so that his chisel carved not only symbols but also prophecies. When the news of this event became known in the town, folk said that it was a judgment of God upon Master Matthew, because he had practised the sin of usury, and they began to ask how long the remaining eleven Apostles would be suffered to live in their wickedness. Many thought that each in his turn would be slain in precisely the same manner, each by his own carven stone as he went through the great West porch to offer hypocrisy at the altar of the Most High. When men met any of them walking abroad, they would stand and jeer at them with cunning words. ‘Nay, I know not, Master Luke,’ would Nick the Piper say, ‘but if I were one of you fellows, who live in the corner of the Market, I would never go into the Church unless it were by the windows.’ ‘Is Master Mark alive yet?’ would ask the Fletcher. ‘I wot he had been killed by a shrewd blow on the pate days ago.’ ‘Hast thou heard?’ quoth Sim. ‘An angel sat watching all last Holy Day on the great porch. I marvel, Master Mark, that thou and thy fellows come not to Church. Surely thou hast been instructed and knowest what is fit for a Christian man?’ ‘Has Master Philip’s stone fallen from the Church porch yet?’ asked the Arrowsmith. ‘Methinks it seemed perilously loosened last time I saw it.’ Robert the Carpenter, meeting three of the Apostles in the Market Place, stopped them and roundly declared in the hearing of all that he would build eleven good oak coffins for such as might be in need of them as cheaply as might be, were they only bespoken at once and in that quantity.