eople
heard the music of the organ, rolling over them for the first time,
with various feelings of delight. But the performer on and author of
the instrument was forgotten in his work, and there was no
re-instatement of the former favourite. The religious ceremony was
followed by a civic festival, in which Auxerre welcomed its future
lord. The festival was to end at nightfall with a somewhat rude popular
pageant, in which the person of Winter would be hunted blindfold
through the streets. It was the sequel to that earlier stage-play of
the Return from the East in which Denys had been the central figure.
The old forgotten player saw his part before him, and, as if
mechanically, fell again into the chief place, monk's dress and all. It
might restore his popularity: who could tell? Hastily he donned the
ashen-grey mantle, the rough haircloth about the throat, and went
through the preliminary matter. And it happened that a point of the
haircloth scratched his lip deeply, with a long trickling of blood upon
the chin. It was as if the sight of blood transported the spectators
with a kind of mad rage, and suddenly revealed to them the truth. The
pretended hunting of the unholy creature became a real one, which
brought out, in rapid increase, men's evil passions. The soul of Denys
was already at rest, as his body, now borne along in front of the
crowd, was tossed hither and thither, torn at last limb from limb. The
men stuck little shreds of his flesh, or, failing that, of his torn
raiment, into their caps; the women lending their long hairpins for the
purpose. The monk Hermes sought in vain next day for any remains of the
body of his friend. Only, at nightfall, the heart of Denys was brought
to him by a stranger, still entire. It must long since have mouldered
into dust under the stone, marked with a cross, where he buried it in a
dark corner of the cathedral aisle.

So the figure in the stained glass explained itself. To me, Denys
seemed to have been a real resident at Auxerre. On days of a certain
atmosphere, when the trace of the Middle Age comes out, like old marks
in the stones in rainy weather, I seemed actually to have seen the
tortured figure there--to have met Denys l'Auxerrois in the streets.

CHAPTER III. SEBASTIAN VAN STORCK

It was a winter-scene, by Adrian van de Velde, or by Isaac van Ostade.
All the delicate poetry together with all the delicate comfort of the
frosty season was in the leafless branch