So they asked in vain, till at last they saw a boy sitting by
the wayside on the hill of the Temple, weeping and lamenting in the
Eastern fashion. The guide, who was also a Jew, asked him what had
chanced, and he said that his father was gone on a journey, leaving
him, his young son, in the house with his mother. And there had come a
Christian knight with a daughter and her woman and certain servants,
desiring to hire the house for a time because it was in a pleasant
place; and they had let him have it, he promising by an interpreter to
pay a great price; but he had not yet paid it. In the morning the young
man had seen Christians carrying away the body of this knight to bury
it; and he had been to the house, but the knight's servants would not
let him in, and did not understand his speech, and threatened to beat
him; and now he was afraid lest his father should come home unawares
and take him and his mother to account for letting strangers use the
house without even paying for it beforehand.
When Gilbert saw that he had found what he sought, he first gave money
to the boy, to encourage him, and bade the interpreter tell him to lead
them all to the house, saying that Gilbert himself would enter, in
spite of the servants. The boy took the money, and when he had measured
Gilbert with his eye, he understood, and went before them with no more
weeping; and the knight's step was light and quick with hope, for he
had begun to doubt whether Beatrix were really in the city after all.
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