He laughed. 'Why, when the taverner's wife set me before him, scoured clean and dressed in a comely suit of green cloth, not unlike the suit I am wearing now—for I have affected green ever since in memory of him and of the first fair raiment I ever wore, which was of his providing—it may be that I presented a comely appearance. He stared at me in sheer surprise. I can see him now, seated on a three-legged stool in a patch of sunlight that came through the blurred glass of the window, one hand on the knee of his booted leg, the other stroking his crisp black beard, his grey eyes conning me with an increasing kindliness.
'"Come hither, boy," he bade me, and held out his hand.
'I went without fear or hesitation. He rested me against his knee, and set a hand upon my head still tingling from its recent combing.
'"What did you tell me is your name?" he asked.
'"Ilario," I answered him.
'He stared a moment, then a smile half scornful broke upon his rugged, weather-beaten face. "Ilario, thou? With that solemn countenance and those big melancholy eyes?" He ran on in words which I remember, though I barely caught their meaning then. "Was there ever an Ilario less hilarious? There's no hilarity about you, child, nor ever has been, I should judge. Ilario! Faugh! Bellario, rather, with such a face. Is he not a lovely lad?" He turned me about for the approval of the taverner's wife, who stood behind me, and she, poor woman, made haste to agree, with fawning smiles, as she would have agreed with anything uttered by this dread man who must be conciliated. "Bellario!" he repeated, savouring the word of his invention with an inventor's pride. "That were a better name for him, indeed. And by the Host, Bellario he shall be renamed. Do you hear me, boy? Henceforth you are Bellario."'
Thus, he explained, the name so lightly bestowed became his own; and later because of his rapid and rather excessive growth, the monks at the Grazie fell into the habit of calling him Bellarione, or big Bellario.
It still wanted an hour or so to noon when the twain emerged from the forest onto the open road. A little way along this they came upon a homestead set amid rice-fields, now denuded, and vineyards where men and women were at the labours of the vintage, singing as they harvested the grape. And here Bellarion had an instance of how the little brothers of Saint Francis receive alms without being so much as put to the trouble of asking for them. For at sight of the friar's grey frock, one of the labourers, who presently announced himself the master of the homestead, came hurrying to bid them stay and rest and join the household at dinner, of which the hour was at hand.
They sat down to rough, abundant fare in the roomy kitchen, amid the members of that considerable family, sharing with them the benches set against a trestle table of well-scoured deal.
There was a cereal porridge, spread, like mortar, upon a board into which each dipped a wooden spoon, and, after this, came strips of roast kid with boiled figs and bread moist and solid as cheese. To wash all down there was a rough red wine, sharp on the palate, but wholesome and cool from the cellar, of which the friar drank over-copiously.