“And he lives on nuts and herbs and such scraps of food as are left him by the charitable,” put in the fourth, to show himself as full of knowledge as his fellows.
But now it was Giovannozza who took up the story, firmly and resolutely; and being a woman she easily kept her tongue going and overbore the peasants so that they had no further share in the tale until it was entirely told. From her I learnt that the anchorite, one Fra Sebastiano, possessed a miraculous image of the blessed martyr St. Sebastian, whose wounds miraculously bled during Passion Week, and that there were no ills in the world that this blood would not cure, provided that those to whom it was applied were clean of mortal sin and imbued with the spirit of grace and faith.
No pious wayfarer going over the Pass of Cisa into Tuscany but would turn aside to kiss the image and ask a blessing at the hands of the anchorite; and yearly in the season of the miraculous manifestation, great pilgrimages were made to the hermitage by folk from the Valleys of the Taro and Bagnanza, and even from beyond the Apennines. So that Fra Sebastiano gathered great store of alms, part of which he redistributed amongst the poor, part of which he was saving to build a bridge over the Bagnanza torrent, in crossing which so many poor folk had lost their lives.
I listened intently to the tale of wonders that followed, and now the peasants joined in again, each with a story of some marvellous cure of which he had direct knowledge. And many and amazing were the details they gave me of the saint—for they spoke of him as a saint already—so that no doubt lingered in my mind of the holiness of this anchorite.
Giovannozza related how a goatherd coming one night over the pass had heard from the neighbourhood of the hut the sounds of singing, and the music was the strangest and sweetest ever sounded on earth, so that it threw the poor fellow into a strange ecstasy, and it was beyond doubt that what he had heard was an angel choir. And then one of the peasants, the tallest and blackest of the four, swore with a great oath that one night when he himself had been in the hills he had seen the hermit's hut all aglow with heavenly light against the black mass of the mountain.
All this left me presently very thoughtful, filled with wonder and amazement. Then their talk shifted again, and it was of the vintage they discoursed, the fine yield of grapes about Fontana Fredda, and the heavy crop of oil that there would be that year. And then with the hum of their voices gradually receding, it ceased altogether for me, and I was asleep with my head pillowed upon my arms.
It would be an hour later when I awakened, a little stiff and cramped from the uncomfortable position in which I had rested. The peasants had departed and the surly-faced host was standing at my side.
“You should be resuming your journey,” said he, seeing me awake. “It wants but a couple of hours to sunset, and if you are going over the pass it were well not to let the night overtake you.”
“My journey?” said I aloud, and looked askance at him.
Whither, in Heaven's name, was I journeying?