There the maiden remained three years, growing daily worse. After describing her horrible symptoms and wasted frame, the chronicler narrates her marvellous cure at Finchale. Thrice did the devoted mother take her thither until the clemency of St. Godric was outpoured and “he settled and removed the noxious humours.” When at length the girl threw back the close hood, her mother beheld her perfectly sound. The scene of this pitiful arrival and glad departure was that beautiful spot at the bend of the river Weir, now marked by picturesque ruins. The complete recovery was attested by all, including the sheriff and the kind priest, Normanrus. We reluctantly lose sight of the delivered damsel, wondering whether the cruel step-father received her less roughly when she got home. It is simply recorded that never did the disease return, and that she lived long to extol the power given by God to His servant Godric. (4) _A Taunton Monk._—Seldom do we know the after-life of such patients, but a touching picture shows us one cleansed of his leprosy, serving his former fellow-inmates. This was John King, a monk of Taunton Priory. Prior [p098] Stephen tells how he was smitten with terrible and manifest leprosy, on which account he was transferred to a certain house of poor people, where he stayed for more than a year among the brethren. The prior’s letter, after declaring how the fame of St. Thomas was growing throughout the world, refers to divers miracles, by one of which John was completely cured. Returning from Canterbury, he was authorized to gather alms for his former companions:— “We . . . earnestly implore your loving good will for the love of God and St. Thomas, that you listen to the dutiful prayer of our brother John, wonderfully restored to health by God, if you have power to grant it. For he earnestly begs you to help by your labour and your alms the poverty of those sick men whose company he enjoyed so long.”[63] Two similar instances of service are recorded. Nicholas, a cripple child cured at St. Bartholomew’s, was sent for a while to serve in the kitchen,—“for the yifte of his helth, he yave the seruyce of his body.” In the same way a blind man who had been miraculously cured by the merit of St. Wulstan (1221), afterwards took upon himself the habit of a professed brother in the hospital of that saint in Worcester. He had been a pugilist and had lost his sight in a duel, but having become a peaceable brother of mercy, he lived there honourably for a long while.[64] (ii) CROWN PENSIONERS Leaving the chronicles, and turning to state records, we find that the sick, impotent and leprous were recipients of royal favour. An early grant of maintenance was [p099] made in 1235 to Helen, a blind woman of Faversham whom Henry III caused to be received as a sister at Ospringe hospital. Similar grants were made from time to time to faithful retainers, veteran soldiers or converted Jews (who were the king’s wards).