“I thought thy question hasty!” exclaimed the wealthy peasant, swelling like one who gets justice, though tardily.  “Now let us to this knotty affair of the headsman.”

Taking his place with the Neapolitan and the Westphalian, Nicklaus assumed the grave air of a judge, and an austerity of manner which proved that he entered on his duty with a firm resolution to do justice.

“Thou ’art well known here, pilgrim,” observed the officer, with some severity of tone, to the next that came to the gate.

“St. Francis to speed, master, it were else wonderful!  I should be so, for the seasons scarce come and go more regularly.”

“There must be a sore conscience somewhere, that Rome and thou should need each other so often?”

The pilgrim, who was enveloped in a tattered coat, sprinkled with cockle-shells, who wore his beard, and was altogether a disgusting picture of human depravity, rendered still more revolting by an ill-concealed hypocrisy, laughed openly and recklessly at the remark.

“Thou art a follower of Calvin, master,” he replied, “or thou would’st not have said this.  My own failings give me little trouble.  I am engaged by certain parishes of Germany to take upon my poor person their physical pains, and it is not easy to name another that hath done as many messages of this kind as myself, with better proofs of fidelity.  If thou hast any little offering to make, thou shalt see fair papers to prove what I say;—­papers that would pass at St. Peter’s itself!”

The officer perceived that he had to do with one of those unequivocal hypocrites—­if such a word can properly be applied to him who scarcely thought deception necessary—­who then made a traffic of expiations of this nature; a pursuit that was common enough at the close of the seventeenth and in the commencement of the eighteenth centuries, and which has not even yet entirely disappeared from Europe.  He threw the pass with unconcealed aversion towards the profligate, who, recovering his document, assumed unasked his station by the side of the three who had been selected to decide on the fitness of those who were to be allowed to embark.

“Go to!” cried the officer, as he permitted this ebullition of disgust to escape him; “thou hast well said that we are followers of Calvin.  Geneva has little in common with her of the scarlet mantle, and thou wilt do well to remember this, in thy next pilgrimage, lest the beadle make acquaintance with thy back,—­Hold! who art thou?”

“A heretic, hopelessly damned by anticipation, if that of yonder travelling prayer-monger be the true faith;” answered one who was pressing past, with a quiet assurance that had near carried its point without incurring the risks of the usual investigation into his name and character.  It was the owner of Nettuno, whose aquatic air and perfect self-possession now caused the officer to doubt whether he had not stopped a waterman of the lake—­a class privileged to come and go at will.