The Strolling Saint

me at longer length than I reme

may be that she, too, had felt something of the crucial quality of that moment in the armoury, just as she must have perceived my firs

dining-room, but which, in fact, was all thin

s, with their frescoed ceilings, their walls hung with costly tapestries, many of which had come from the loom

would spend long hours, and this private dining-room where we now sat. Into the spacious gardens of the castle she would seldom wander,

what you are," says the proverb. "Show me your

permeated by the nature of its tenant as

high up near the timbered, whitewashed ceiling, so that it was impossible either

perhaps half the natural size of a man; and it was the most repulsive and hideous representation of the Tragedy of Golgotha that I have ever seen. It filled one with a horror which was far indeed removed from the pious horror which that Symbol is intended to

ral to that mangled, malformed, less than human representation. Into the place of the wound made by the spear of Longinus, he had introduced a strip of crystal whi

e as was best calculated to produce the effect upon which the sculptor had counted. What satisfaction it can have been to her to see reflected from that glazed wound the light which she herself h

tuck a withered, yellow branch of palm, which was renewed on each Palm Sunday. Before it was

opposite corner there was another smaller cupboard with a sort of writing-pulpit beneath. Here my mother kept the accounts of her household, her books

Battista of Varano, Princess of Camerino, who founded the convent of Poor Clares in that c

," dedicated "Al Supremo Capitano e Gloriosissimo Trionfatore, Gesu Cristo, Figliuolo di Maria," and this dedi

achieved a great

e issued down to 175

however, MS. copie

s to one of these

fe

he board stood a few lesser chairs for those who habitually dined there. These were, besides myself, Fra Gervasio, my tutor; Messer Giorgio, the castellan, a bald-headed old man long since past the fighting age and who in times of stress would have been as useful for purpo

ich the English language affords, comprising as it does a sense of courage and address at arms.

he seneschal, a lantern-jawed fellow with black, beetling brow

ve the barrier of the salt. There was no sitting above it or below at our board, as, from time immemorial, is the universal custom in feudal homes. That her ha

t room were whit

y a carpet of rushes that was cha

y full of character, the smell which is never absent from a sacristy and rarely from conventual chambers; a smell difficult to define, faint and yet tenuously pungent, and like no other smell in all the world that I have ever known. It is a musty

h us at meal-times, eating being performed-like everything else in that drab household-as a sort of devotional act. Occasionally the s

eats that were especially prepared for him. And there was something of grimness in that silence; for none-and Fra Gervasio le

anderer and destitute, and all through my own weakness, all because I had failed him in his need, just as I had faile

rayers of thanksgiving whose immoderate length

schal; Lorenza followed at a sign from my mother, and

brother. That is to say, he was the child of a sturdy peasant-woman of the Val di Taro, from whose

ear as a result of a long winter immersion in the icy waters of the Taro laid him at the point of death, and left him thereafter of a rather weak and sickly nature. But he was quick and intelligent, and was admitted to learn his letters with

and the conventual rules too rigorous for his condition, he was given licence to become the chaplain of Mondolfo. Here he had

-set, dark eyes, very gentle in their gaze, a tender mouth that was a little drawn by lines of suffe

oke at first as if communing with himself, like a man who thinks aloud; and between his thumb and

lly; and now he is turned adrift, to die to no purpose. Ah, well." He heaved a deep sigh and fell silent, whils

Gervasio?" quoth my mo

he said, "or I am unworthy of the scapulary I wear. I must reprove

evil thoughts and evil words-an unfailing sign that she was stirred to anger and sough

him, "when you call unchristian an act which

t were well you should proceed with caution a

en for so much she must have been oddly moved. "I think I have," s

habit of repression had not yet succeeded in extinguishing. He cast his eyes to the ceiling in such a glance of despair as left me thoughtful. It was as an invocation t

not quite so clear-sighted as to re

is teacher and interpreter, this man of holy life who was accounted profoundly learned in the Divinities; and he told her that she had done an evil thing. Yet ou

red an explosion of the wrath of which I perceived in him the signs. Bu

that Gino Falcone shou

nd with that answer left him weapon-less, for against the armour of a c

nce. "There is something that it were best I tell you, that once for all you may fathom the

upon the roll of saints and are its glory

ill thing save when it is wielded in a holy cause. In my lord's hands, wielded in the unholiest of all causes, it became a thing accursed. But God's anger ove

ed Gervasio in

expiate the evil he had wrought; moreover, his life was become a menace to my child's salvation. It was his wish to make of Agostino such another as himself, to lead his only son ad

iar protested. "You coul

tell you that the thing was planned. I took counsel

ed, Fra Gervasio white-faced and wi

ould stand against the hosts of Heaven. His stubbornness in sin had made him mad. Quem Deus vult perdere..." And she waved one of her emaciated hands, leaving the quotation unfinished. "Heaven showed me the way, chose me for Its

ke case, it seemed, was Fra Gervasio, for he passed a hand over his

e?" he echoed. "To

e papal emissaries had knowledge of it

Fra Gervasio's voice was hoarse

iet satisfaction, in a tone that revealed how

usually went bowed. His hands were clenched and the knuckles showed blue-white like marble. His face was very pale and in his temple a little puls

ng that he could have done would have surprised me. Had he fallen upon my mother then, and torn

d have surprised me. Rather should I have said that n

st as ever. Then quite slowly, his hands unclenched, his arms fell limply to his sides, his head sank forward upon his breast, and his figure bowe

head in his hands. A groan escaped him. She h

urpose. You were a votive offering, Agostino; you were vowed to the service of God that your father's life might be spared, years ago, ere you were born. From the

rcely, "Agostino in the end should have no v

to God. And that God accepted the gift, He showed when He gave Giovanni back to life. How, then, co

grace by which God bestowed them upon me. But I am accounted something of a casuist. I am a doctor of theology and of canon law, and but for the weak state of my health I should

nder what she accounted his praise of her wisdom and divine revelation; for vanity is the last huma

that reveals to me

drew away from the table. He looked at her as he would speak, but checked on the though

ening. And presently as I listened, I came gradually once more under the spell o

knowledge to which I have come. The handling of a sword had thrilled me strangely, as I have shown. Yet was I ready to believe that such a thrill was but a lure of Satan

world. She dealt at length upon the love of God for us, and the love which we should bear to Him, and she read to me passages from the book of the Blessed Varano and fro

ey had been subjected, and of the happiness they had felt in actual suffering, of the joy that their ver

to have plied me then as she did; for thereby, beyond doubt, she checked me upon the point of self-questioning to which that day's happenings were urging me, and she brought me on

at is more, my imagination fired to some touch of ecstasy by those tales of sainted martyrs, I

that night to pray that God might watch over poor errant Falcone, it was to the end that Falcone might b