"
With doffed caps and eager hands, the comrades took their new and
precious possessions, and pressed onwards upon their journey,
leaving the aged palmer still seated under the cherry-tree. They
rode in silence, each with his treasure in his hand, glancing at
it from time to time, and scarce able to believe that chance had
made them sole owners of relics of such holiness and worth that
every abbey and church in Christendom would have bid eagerly for
their possession. So they journeyed, full of this good fortune,
until opposite the town of Le Mas, where John's horse cast a
shoe, and they were glad to find a wayside smith who might set
the matter to rights. To him Aylward narrated the good hap which
had befallen them; but the smith, when his eyes lit upon the
relics, leaned up against his anvil and laughed, with his hand to
his side, until the tears hopped down his sooty cheeks.
"Why, masters," quoth he, "this man is a coquillart, or seller of
false relics, and was here in the smithy not two hours ago. This
nail that he hath sold you was taken from my nail-box, and as to
the wood and the stones, you will see a heap of both outside from
which he hath filled his scrip.
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