And then, despite the nakedness and poverty wherein they had first seen us,
they would have it that we were gods sent down to them from the world
beyond the mountains by their fathers of old time; for of Holy Church,
and the Blessed Trinity, and the Mother of God they knew no more than
did I at that time, but were heathen, as the Gentiles of yore agone.
And even when we put all that Godhood from us, and told them as we
might and could what we were (for we had no heart to lie to such simple
folk), their kindness abated nothing, and they bade us abide there,
and were our loving friends and brethren.
"There in sooth had I been content to abide till eld came upon me,
but my lord would not have it so, but longed for greater things
for me. Though in sooth to me it seemed as if his promise
of worship of me by the folk had been already fulfilled;
for when we had abided there some while, and our beauty,
which had been marred by the travail of our way-faring,
had come back to us in full, or it maybe increased somewhat,
they did indeed deal with us with more love than would most men
with the saints, were they to come back on the earth again;
and their children would gather round about me and make me
a partaker of their sports, and be loth to leave me; and the faces
of their old folk would quicken and gladden when I drew nigh:
and as for their young men, it seemed of them that they loved
the very ground that my feet trod on, though it grieved me that I
could not pleasure some of them in such wise as they desired.
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