. And lo! the day of
wrath is dawning, the day which 'solvet saeclum in favilla, teste David
et Sibylla.' Wherefore now is the time to repent and do penance and
renounce the false delights of this world."

At the good Brother's word bosoms heaved with remorse and deep-drawn
sighs were heard. Not a few, both men and women, were near fainting when
the preacher cried:

"I read in your souls that ye keep mandrakes at home, which will bring
you to hell fire."

It was true. Many Parisians paid heavily to the old witch-wives, who
profess unholy knowledge, for to buy mandrakes, and were used to keep
them treasured in a chest. These magic roots have the likeness of
a little man, hideously ugly and misshapen in a weird and diabolic
fashion. They would dress them out magnificently, in fine linen and
silks, and the mannikins brought them riches, chief source of all the
ills of this world.

Next Brother Joconde thundered against women's extravagant attire.

"Leave off," he bade them, "your horns and your tails! Are ye not shamed
so to bedizen yourselves like she-devils? Light bonfires, I say, in the
public streets, and cast therein and burn your damnable head-gear,--pads
and rolls, erections of leather and whalebone, wherewith ye stiffen out
the front of your hoods."

He ended by exhorting them with so much zeal and loving-kindness not to
lose their souls, but put themselves in the grace of God, that all who
heard him wept hot tears. And Simone la Bardine wept more abundantly
than any.

When, finally, coming down from his platform, Brother Joconde crossed
the cloister and graveyard, the people fell on their knees as he went
by. The women gave him their little ones to bless, or besought him to
touch medals and rosaries for them. Some plucked threads from his gown,
thinking to get healing by putting them, like relics of the Saints, on
the places where they were afflicted. Guillaumette Dyonis followed the
good Father as easily as if she saw him with her bodily eyes. Simone
la Bardine trailed behind her, sobbing. She had pulled off her horned
wimple and tied a kerchief round her head.

Thus they marched, the three of them, along the streets, where men and
women, who had been at the preaching, were kindling fires before their
doors to cast therein head-gear and mandrake roots. But on reaching
the river bank, Brother Joconde sat down under an elm, and Guillaumette
Dyonis came up to him and said:

"Father, it hath been revealed