Only a few dockers looked up from their labours to greet him. When they did, they ignored him: his gown placed him on a higher level, in a world they neither desired nor recognised. For their sort, the church was for others.
Sitting on a stone seat, he watched them winching cargoes out of their boats, swinging the crane round to pile up goods on the quayside or load them straight on to waiting carts.
“The townsfolk won’t come to us – that’s most unlikely – so we must take the Word to them, in their taverns or even their homes. What do they call that?” A voice seemed to answer in his head, ‘evangelism’, but he was alone. “How often do my brothers leave their cloistered monastery, apart from going to the vegetable fields, stables or milking shed? Rarely. Yet, it’s so clear – walking up to
