The Sin of the Prince Bishop 171

middle portal, not with his own effigy but
with an image of the child; and he bade him
make two colossal figures of the white oxen ;
and to the great wonderment of the people
these were set up high in the tower so that
men could see them against the blue sky.
«And as for me,” he said, “let my body be
buried, with my face downward, outside the
great church, in front of the middle entrance,
that men may trample on my vainglory and
that I may serve them as a stepping-stone to
the house of God; and the little child shall
look on me when I lie in the dust.”

Now the little girl in the niche was carved
with wisps of hay in her hands, but the child
who had fed the oxen knew nothing of this,
and as she grew up she forgot her childish
service, so that when she had grown to
womanhood and chanced to see this statue
over the portal she did not know it was her
own self in stone. But what she had done
was not forgotten in heaven.

And as for the oxen, one of them looked
east and one looked west across the wide
fruitful country about the foot of the hill-
city. And one caught the first grey gleam,
and the first rosy flush, and the first golden