Chapter VIII

UST at that very moment, who should come by who should come by but the Vicar of Condé, with his two Curates, the Churchwardens, the Beadle himself, the man that played the fiddle, the man that played the cornet, and all the wicked little choirboys.

They were all marching off to sing the Mass on St. Calixtus’s day.

The Vicar at that time was a stout clergyman, as big as a barrel, but he was a very holy man, and very severe about good and modest behaviour.

Naturally, when he saw the landlord’s daughters all strutting away behind our Johnny, he was Shocked!

‘Are you not ashamed of yourselves,’ he cried out, ‘great lasses like you, to run about the country after a lad?’

So he plucked the youngest girl by the sleeve to stop her, but, behold! no sooner had he touched her than he could not leave hold, and _he_ had to march after the golden goose!

‘Oh, sir, oh, sir!’ cried the Beadle (who was a long, thin-legged man, like a heron), and he ran up, caught hold of the Vicar by his gown, and there he stuck.

The Vicar cried for help to the rest of his company, so first the Curates, then the Organist, then the man with the violin, then the cornet-player, and, lastly, all the wicked little choir-boys, rushed to hold the Vicar back, but they were all caught, and had all to run after Johnny, while Johnny just followed his goose!

Pilgrims came to do him honour from all the country round, and, as Saint Calixtus was famous for curing lame people, they made a very singular procession.

The maimed and the halt and the blind were there, humpbacks by the dozen, cripples by the score, men with wooden legs, men with iron hooks instead of hands, men with wry necks--in short, they were a funny spectacle.

They would not have been funny, but very pitiful, if they had really been lame and blind, but the truth is that they were all persons whom the good Saint had cured, and now they were only making believe, for one day in the year, to suffer from their old complaints. But, to tell the truth, they looked so odd that the images of the other Saints in the chapel were set, on that day, with their faces to the wall, for fear they should break out laughing.

When the High Mass had been sung, all the worthy cripples threw away their sham humps, and bandages, and wooden legs, and they laughed, and danced, and skipped, and revelled, so that it was a pleasure to see so many people enjoying themselves.