But on the day of which I speak I chanced to stand in the pillared gallery above the courtyard, watching the heaving, surging human mass below, for the concourse was greater than usual.
Cripples there were of every sort, and all in rags; some with twisted, withered limbs, others with mere stumps where limbs had been lopped off, others again--and there were many of these--with hideous running sores, some of which no doubt would be counterfeit--as I now know--and contrived with poultices of salt for the purpose of exciting charity in the piteous.

All were dishevelled, unkempt, ragged, dirty, and, doubtless, verminous.

Most were greedy and wolfish as they thrust one another aside to reach Fra Gervasio, as if they feared that the supply of alms and food should be exhausted ere their turn arrived.

Amongst them there was commonly a small sprinkling of mendicant friars, some of these, perhaps, just the hypocrite rogues that I have since discovered many of them to be, though at the time all who wore the scapulary were holy men in my innocent eyes.

They were mostly, or so they pretended, bent upon pilgrimages to distant parts, living upon such alms as they could gather on their way.
On the steps of the chapel Fra Gervasio would stand--gaunt and impassive--with his posse of attendant grooms behind him.