"
"Of course you do," said the Goblin; "it's YOUR function to feel
sorry for them. If they were to leave off being poor you couldn't
fulfil your functions. You'd be a sinecure."
He rather hoped that the Saint would ask him what a sinecure meant,
but the latter took refuge in a stony silence. The Goblin might be
right, but still, he thought, he would like to do something for the
church mice before winter came on; they were so very poor.
Whilst he was thinking the matter over he was startled by something
falling between his feet with a hard metallic clatter. It was a
bright new thaler; one of the cathedral jackdaws, who collected such
things, had flown in with it to a stone cornice just above his
niche, and the banging of the sacristy door had startled him into
dropping it. Since the invention of gunpowder the family nerves
were not what they had been.
"What have you got there?" asked the Goblin.
"A silver thaler," said the Saint. "Really," he continued, "it is
most fortunate; now I can do something for the church mice."
"How will you manage it?" asked the Goblin.
The Saint considered.
"I will appear in a vision to the vergeress who sweeps the floors.
I will tell her that she will find a silver thaler between my feet,
and that she must take it and buy a measure of corn and put it on my
shrine. When she finds the money she will know that it was a true
dream, and she will take care to follow my directions. Then the
mice will have food all the winter.
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