and warm, there was the musical, low sound of many voices speaking in
the monotone of prayer, and now and then, on whirring wings, a droning
beetle hummed his way from one field to another, just above the heads
of the great multitude.

The prayer said, they all moved onward, past the first houses of the
village and past the open smithy with its shelter of twisted chestnut
boughs, beneath which the horses were protected from the sun while they
were being shod. But the smith had not been to the preaching, because
Alric, the Saxon groom, had brought him Gilbert's horse to shoe just
when he was going, and had forced him to stay and do the work with the
threat of an evil spell learned in Italy. And now, peering through the
twilight, he stood watching the long procession as it came up to his
door. He was a dark man, with red eyes and hairy hands, and his shirt
was open on his chest almost to his belt. He stood quite still at
first, gazing on Bernard's face, that was luminous in the dusk; but as
he looked, something moved him that he could not understand, and he
came forward in his leathern apron and his blackened hose, and knelt at
the abbot's feet.

"Give me also the Cross," he cried.

"I give thee the sign, my son," answered Bernard, raising his hand to
bless the hairy man. "The crosses we had are all given. But thou shalt
have one to-morrow."

But as the smith looked up to the inspired face the light came into his
own eyes, and something he could not see took hold of him suddenly and
hard.