‘To-day,’ continued Gilbert, ‘the Pope will stand in his great church at Rome before the True Cross of Christ and bless all Christian folk from East to West. Yea, Meg, my wife, it is a blessed thing that we lived not of old ere this great salvation came in, else we should have altogether perished with the just heathen, whereas now I may go to the alehouse or the dice as often as I will, and have more joy hereafter than Master Virgil or Master Cato or any of those righteous ancients of whom we hear so much from Master Parson, and who never saw the true light or heard of Our Lady or Christ.’ ‘Yea,’ quoth Meg and no more. ‘Upon Holy Day, look thou,’ went on Gilbert, ‘we Christian folk go up to the Altar and eat the very Body and Blood of Christ, and thereby become partakers with Him in everlasting joy; so being deceased and shoved into our graves, we shall yet rise again like Him and live in delight and bliss for ever and ever. For these blessed privileges, being a plain man as I am, and of no great merits in myself, I am bound to say “Deo Gratias,” and therefore should we this morning creep on our knees to the Cross and kiss it for a jewel, for it bore Christ’s Body to our boot. Is it not so, Meg, my wife?’ ‘Yea,’ quoth Meg. By this time they were gotten near the village and could see the Town Church. ‘Look now,’ quoth Gilbert, ‘how the people throng; they pour through the doorway like water over a mill-dam. Marry, but I have not seen such crowds this seven year; there is that good fellow Hob of the Cross and the Bailey’s wife and John the Miller, who would not give thee more than tenpence the bushel for thy corn.’ So they came into the Church and were fain to stand during the Blessed Sacrament of the Mass owing to the thick press of people. The Church was decked with fair flowers from the fields, a hundred white tapers burnt like stars before the Altar, a sweet smoke of incense went curling up among the rafters, and little clergy boys with faces like unto angels’ sang loudly and clearly the Easter Hymn: ‘Alleluia, alleluia, O filii et filiae. Rex coelestis, Rex gloriae, Morte surrexit hodie. Alleluia.’ Lit by candleshine, with white lilies round her feet, stood God’s Mother clasping her little Son, and He stretched His little arms out and smiled towards them through the odorous mist. Gilbert’s eyes filled with happy tears, and he said to himself as Master Parson had taught him to say whenever he entered the Church, ‘I am glad in these things that are said to me; let us go in the House of the Lord: Our feet shall stand within thy walls, O thou Jerusalem.’ But Meg said no word nor joined in the holy responses.