door presently swung back on its hinges, the crowd surged quickly
backwards as though in some sort afraid. Within the narrow doorway
stood the priest, a small, slim man in rusty black, with a crucifix
suspended from his rosary, which he held up before the crowd, who
most of them crossed themselves with apparent devotion.

"Peace be with you, my children!" was his somewhat incongruous
salutation to the blood-thirsty mob; and then turning his bright
but benignant eyes upon Cuthbert, he said:

"This is a leper house, my son. Yet methinks thou wilt be safer
here a while than in the street. Dost thou fear to enter? If thou
dost, we must e'en talk where we are."

"I have no fear," answered Cuthbert, who indeed only experienced a
lively curiosity.

The priest seemed pleased with the answer, and drew him within the
sheltering door; and Cuthbert followed his guide into a long, low
room, where a table was spread with trenchers and pitchers, whilst
an appetizing odour arose from a saucepan simmering on the fire and
stirred by one of the patients, upon whom Cuthbert gazed with
fascinated interest.

"He is well nigh cured," answered the priest. "Our sick abide on
the floor above; but there be not many here now. The plague carried
off above half our number last year.

"But now of thine own matters, boy: how comest thou hither? Thou
art a bold lad to venture a stranger into these haunts, unless thou