Italian Yesterdays, vol. 2

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

His conversion came about through a holy man, whose name has not survived. Raniero, one day, was playing and dancing with some damsels in the shade of a great tree, outside the city, when he noticed a man standing near who seemed to be studying him intently; after a while, he laid his lyre down on the grass and returned the gaze, with the intention of bringing home to the stranger the annoyance which the look was causing him. But the stranger continued to stare, and presently the boy arose to approach him.

But, although he had risen to his feet, he made no attempt to advance, for something in the stern, yet gently pitying, eyes of the other arrested his movement, and, before he could recover from the half-hypnotised condition, the stranger was moving off himself.

Then the boy came to life, and ran after the man of God, flinging himself upon his knees, and catching at the hem of his garment, and crying out his sorrow for his sins; the other lifted him up, and bade him be of good cheer, but Raniero, by now, was half blind with weeping and it was some time before he could see or hear clearly.

He did not turn back again towards Pisa, but made his way, by slow stages, to the Holy Land—no very safe harbourage in the middle of the Twelfth Century. On arriving, he took off his own clothes, and received from a priest the shirt of a slave, which, for the proper humiliation of the flesh, he continued to wear until he died.

Now it is the habit, even of the most broad-minded of our Protesting brethren deliberately to close every avenue by which information might reach their intelligences, and to seal them up tightly, before they embark upon any study of the Saints, or of the Church. In parenthesis, it must be said of the Germans, doubtless true to the Teutonic passion for accuracy, that as a general rule they will and do search after and transcribe the true facts of a happening, at whatever cost to their own private feelings—as Haeckel found to his cost. Not so with the English. They glory in incredulity—and prune their belief daily until nothing more than the bare tree is left. So that one is not in the least astonished to find in the middle of an Englishman’s otherwise fairly faithful tale a shocked horror—indeed, it cannot be described in any other terms—at the thought of the desert’s being an abiding-place for devils. People, on the other hand, find that people with any real experience of the desert are quite ready to believe that anything horrible might he found there. If ever there was a proper ballroom for Satan, says one, it is the desert!

St. Raniero found them there, aplenty—so did St. Anthony—and St. Ephrem—and St. Procopius and St. Jerome, and many, many more.

St. Raniero vowed himself to abstinence, and a hard struggle he found it to be until one morning, very early, when after a night of tossing and turning and praying, he fell asleep and dreamed that a wonderfully wrought vessel of gold, covered with the most beautiful gems, stood beside him. It was full of pitch and sulphur, and these presently ignited, burning fiercely, and threatening the destruction of the vase. But, just as it seemed to be on the point of destruction, a little phial containing a few drops of water appeared, and he was bidden to sprinkle some upon the fire; he did so with some difficulty, since it was burning so fiercely, and, behold! the fire was extinguished in a moment.

On awakening he considered the dream for some time, trying to read some meaning into it, and presently it was borne in upon him that the vessel was his body, the pitch and sulphur his passions and appetites, and that the water was temperance, which would quench these. From that time onward he lived altogether upon bread and water, even performing the most of his miracles with water, for which he had an especial reverence, so that he came to be known in Pisa as “San Domini dell’Acqua.”

That he was a water-drinker himself did not affect his detestation of dishonesty in the matter of wine, however. Being at one time in Messina, he stayed one night at an inn there, and, after watching the innkeeper for a little while, became persuaded that he was mixing water into the wine which he was selling. Beckoning to him, Raniero told him to cease, but the host first laughed and then grew angry, telling him to mind his own business. Then the Saint took him by the shoulder and turned him round, and pointed to a cask which was set in a distant corner.

“See there,” he said. Every one by now was looking in the same direction, and to their terror and amazement there appeared upon the cask a huge black cat with enormous wings. The host flung himself at the Saint’s feet, howling, and the rest of the company began to crowd and push out of the place, but the Saint directed them to remain, and dismissed the demon swiftly.