The crowds jostled and frightened Jeanne and her little son, who were trying to reach a place where they could peep through. It was hard work, for Jeanne was frail and her little boy was lame. "Canst thou see here, little son?" she stopped and asked. "If I could but lift thee! For surely thou must see, when we have toiled so hard to come." She looked down longingly at the little fellow, who clung with one hand to her skirt while with the other he held tight to his crutch. "And thou shalt see," she hugged him close to her. "Thou shalt see. The holy relic has worked miracles before, they say, miracles harder than to cure thee. When the priest comes and lifts it, I will hold thee up, Christolphe. Somehow, somehow, my poor body, thou must be good for that!" The little boy smiled up at her, and patiently they waited for the great moment to come.

This was the day of the Procession of the Holy Blood in Bruges. On this day in May, as for a hundred years before, a procession had formed and was escorting through the streets of Bruges its chief treasure,—the drops of the Holy Blood. This was the Holy Blood of our Lord which Count Dierick and his chaplain had brought from Palestine three hundred years before. For in reward for his good services as a Crusader the Patriarch of Jerusalem had given him in a little tube some of the water with which Joseph of Arimathea had washed the body of our Lord and which had in it some of his blood, as all believed. It had been placed in the Chapel of the Holy Blood, and once a year it was brought out and carried in a beautiful shrine through the streets of the city to the Place du Bourg, where, at an altar, it was lifted up by the priest in the sight of all the people.

This tapestry woven in the middle of the fifteenth century shows some of the costumes of the time,—the high, horned headdresses of the ladies and the sausage-shaped hats of the men. (Photograph furnished by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

Today, as so many times before, the people were waiting anxiously for that great moment. At last sounds of music were heard,—the solemn chanting of litanies and singing of hymns as the procession came in view. Priests were in front, nuns in their long veils and burghers in rich dressed followed, and behind them groups, or living pictures, from the holy time gone by. There were John and James and Peter and others of the Apostles, King Herod and his court, and, best of all, Mary and Joseph and the babe in the manger.

"Ah, if thou couldst but see the Christ Child," Jeanne whispered to her son, "and his blessed mother, too. Ah, but Mary is sweet this year, sweeter to look on than I ever saw her." Behind all this pageant came the bishops and priests, and acolytes with their incense pots sweetening the air, and in their midst the Sacred Shrine containing the Holy Blood. They came to the altar, and the priest stood above the crowd and raised high the tube with the sacred blood so that all might see. Then Jeanne with a great effort caught up her boy in her arms. "Look!" she said. "Look well and say thy prayer." Then as everyone bowed low she dropped him back in his place and knelt down beside him; and all kept solemn silence while the holy relic was returned to its place in the chapel close by.

But when all was over and the crowd began to move, Jeanne did not stir. Christolphe pulled at her skirt, but she stayed on her knees with her head sunk forward. Someone came up beside him, and he felt an arm about him; and the kind face of Sister Lisette framed in the wide bonnet of the Béguines looked into his. "Come with me," she said. "Thy mother is ill, and here comes Sister Margot to care for her. But thou and I will go to my house in the Béguinage, and soon there will be good hot soup for thee and me." Christolphe went with her and there he stayed. It was not for one night only but for many nights and years, for with the passing of the Holy Blood his tired mother had died and passed on to her place of rest.

The buildings at the back of the picture are the church and houses of the Béguines, or Sisters

But Sister Lisette was glad to give him a home in her neat little whitewashed cottage in the quiet inclosure of the Béguinage, and he was happy, as far as a motherless boy can be. For Christolphe was not cured of his lameness, whether because he had not looked long enough on the relic or whether because for some reason it was not a day of miracle-working.

Yet he, with his one bad leg, could walk as fast as other boys with two good ones, and his hands were cleverer and his head was busier than most with inventions and dreams. The good sisters, sitting in the sun at their lace-making or walking to and from their church, found their lives less tranquil than they had been: some strange contrivance known only to a boy lay in their path, or across their green lawn echoed the shouts of children. But Sister Lisette was content. Her garden grew twice as well since Christolphe's fingers helped to pull at the weeds, and on cold winter nights when she came back from visiting her sick the fire on her hearth was burning brightly, and a little boy lay curled up before it building up the coals a city of dreams. This was Christolphe's favorite hour and place, especially when he came in cold and disappointed from watching the skaters. Skating was one of the things he could not do, though he greatly longed to glide and whirl like the others and make the beautiful, sweeping motions lovely as the flight of a bird.

He was always a little unhappy after such afternoons of watching by the Minnewater, but one day he heard something which sent him to the fire to think. One of the bigger girls had asked another why she did not try the Wishing Bridge. And she explained that beyond the Minnewater there was a little bridge and if you went there just at midnight and made a wish, alone, they said you wish came true. "Go try it tonight," she coaxed the other girl, "do, and see if Jan's heart won't come back and be true to thee." So Christolphe lay before the fire questioning whether it were only wishes about hearts, or whether wishes about legs would probably come true, too. It seemed worth the trying. He said nothing, but that night he did not go to sleep as usual, and when he heard the bells ring half past eleven, he slipped into his clothes and stole out. The night was dark and bitter cold and terrifyingly still. He almost hoped that the girl would be there, too, even though she spoiled his wish, for it was shivery work to be alone near the black water at such an hour. He crept along softly, as if the least sound might startle a hobgoblin or a demon. But no one was at the bridge, nothing was anywhere but blackness and cold and stillness. He waited. Suddenly there was a loud clangor, and he jumped in terror. But it was only the familiar deep, sweet tones from the Great Belfry, sounding at this hour strange and wild. Ten, eleven, twelve,—the Belfry chimes were telling him that his moment of midnight was come. Quickly he made his wish: "I want to run like other boys. Please give me a new leg." Then he ran back faster than most boys could hope to do, and he did not stop shaking until long after he was safely back in bed. Sister Lisette never knew about it, and he never told anyone, but waited, wondering how long it took the magic to work.

This is a tapestry woven in Flanders three hundred years ago and shows the people skating in the moat of a castle. (From a tapestry lent to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

But Sister Lisette did discover that he had a cold, and watching the skaters was therefore forbidden, so he had to find some other occupation. By good luck he found one much better. He was straying down the street when through an open door he saw a sight that held him open-mouthed and wide-eyed. On a huge sort of frame was stretched a picture, and even while he watched, the picture grew, as a man's hands went back and forth weaving with bright-colored threads. Already there were the tops of two trees and something gold hanging and a fearful creature's head,—a dragon with a long, red tongue. The old weaver looked up from his task and saw Christolphe's crutch and glowing face. "Come in an' thou wilt," he said. "I reckon thy life isn't overfull of pleasures, is it? Come in, lad, if thou wilt be still and not trouble us while we work." Christolphe went in and looked and looked. The room was full of looms with men at work, but it was the old weaver's tapestry that held him. Only after a long time did he dare to breathe aloud, "What is it?"

"What! Dost not know the Golden Fleece?" the old weaver exclaimed. "And thou a boy of Bruges! Not to know the Golden Fleece when he sees it! Why, it was here but round the corner that Duke Philip founded his Order of the Knights,—the Knights of the Golden Fleece. I well remember the day,—the day when he and Isabella of Portugal were married. Dost not know the Knights? Thou must have seen one."

Christolphe shook his head. "What does he look like?" he asked.

"He looks like a very splendid gentleman, to be sure," said the weaver, "and thou knowest him from all others by his long red coat and his cap with a long tail to it, and because around his neck he wears a collar,—a chain of steel links and firestones and hanging from it a lamb of gold."

"I did not know," said Christolphe. "Are there really golden lambs?"

"Tut, tut!" the old weaver shook his head. "He does not even know the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece. Why, lad, where dost thou live?"

"In the Béguinage with Sister Lisette."

"Ah, so, so. I see, I see. Well, dost see here," he pointed to his loom, "a fleece of gold and a dragon? And soon my fingers will weave Jason—Jason who came over land and over sea, and did all sorts of deeds thou shouldst hear about, until at last he carried off the Golden Fleece. But Medea helped him, she who was the enchantress and knew all the secret ways to protect him against the dragon."

"Oh, tell me please," begged Christolphe.

"Nay, I am no story-teller,—except with my fingers," the old man said, and he threaded on his bobbin a gleaming thread of gold. Yet he told, bit by bit, enough about Jason and the quest for the Golden Fleece so that Christolphe had the story. Then his mind was full of questions.

The Duke is dressed in the costume of the Order of the Golden Fleece,—crimson gown, cloak, cap and collar with golden lamb

"And is it from Jason's Golden Fleece that Duke Philip has named his Knights?" he asked.

"So thinks the lord for whom I weave this tapestry," the weaver replied. "But some say it is from Gideon's fleece they got their name."

"Gideon's fleece! Tell me that! Who was Gideon?" begged Christolphe all in one breath, for he was hearing more stories today than he had even known existed outside of his own head.

But the old weaver had had enough stories enough for one afternoon. "Go ask the priest," he said. "Gideon is his story, for Gideon was a man of God. However, Jason suits me well enough, and I would I had his Golden Fleece."

"Where is it now?" Christolphe demanded eagerly.

"I said but now, I would I knew." The old man took his shears and cut off the knotted ends of his threads. "Perhaps some day some young hero like thee will find it." He winked slyly at Christolphe. "I'm old,—no more adventures for me."

"But Duke Philip's Knights,—do they not go to seek the Golden Fleece?"

"Nay, they get their gold an easier way,—by fleecing the burghers and the poor of Bruges," and at that, the weaver put back his head and laughed and laughed at his own joke. But after that, when Christolphe tried to question him about the fleece, he said, "I know not where it is, and there's an end to it." And he refused to talk any more.