This colossal figure, five storeys high, extends from the pavement of the church to the roof.  Christopher has a beard which flows in a stream, and legs as thick as the pillars of the nave.  Bending and adoring, he bears on his shoulders a Child with a round face, as white as the chalk of a clown, blessing all comers with a smile.  The Saint is wading barefoot through a pool full of little reeds, and imps, and horned fishes and strange flowers—­all represented on a minute scale to emphasize the mighty stature of the Saint.

“That good friend,” thought Durtal, “though venerated by the poor, was somewhat coldly treated by the Church, for he, with Saint George and some other martyrs, was among those whose existence remains open to doubt.

“In Mediaeval times Saint Christopher was invoked for the cure of weakly children, and also as a protector against blindness and the plague.

“But indeed the Saints were the chief healers of that time.  Every disease which the leeches and apothecaries could not alleviate was brought to the Saints.  Some indeed were reputed specialists, and the ills they cured were known by their names.  The gout was known as Saint Maurus’ evil, leprosy as Job’s evil, cancer was Saint Giles’, chorea Saint Guy’s, colds were Saint Aventinus’ ill, a bloody flux Saint Fiacre’s—­and I forget the rest.

“Others again remained noted for delivering sufferers from certain affections they were reputed to heal:  Saint Genevieve for the burning sickness and ophthalmia, Saint Catherine of Alexandria for headache, Saint Bartholomew for convulsions, Saint Firmin for cramp, Saint Benedict for erysipelas and the stone, Saint Lupus for pains in the stomach, Saint Hubert for madness, Saint Appolina, whose statue, standing in the chapel of the Hospital of Saint John at Bruges, is graced by way of ex votos with strings of teeth and wax stumps, for neuralgia and toothache—­and how many more.

“And granting,” said Durtal, “that medical science is at this day a greater delusion than ever, I cannot see why we should not revert to the specific of prayer and the mystical panaceas of the past.  If the interceding Saints should, in certain cases, refuse to cure us, at any rate they will make us no worse by a mistaken diagnosis and the exhibition of dangerous remedies.  Though after all, even if our modern practitioners were not ignoramuses, of what use would that be, since the medicines they prescribe are adulterated?”

CHAPTER XVI.

The day had come for Durtal to strap his portmanteau and set out with the Abbe Plomb.

He became fidgety with waiting as the hours went by.  At last, unable to sit still, he went out to kill the time, but a drizzling rain drove him for shelter into the cathedral.

After offering his devotions to the Virgin of the Pillar, he seated himself amid a camp of vacant chairs to meditate.