Chapter X: Part 10

[Cancellieri has collected some curious incidents ('Morcato,' p. 210-12, Appendix N. xxii.) concerning an attempt which was made by Princess Anne Colonna to obtain from Urban VIII. the authority to remove a part of the Saint's body to her chapel at Naples. The Fathers of the Oratory and the people were greatly averse to dividing it, as it was very well preserved in its entirety. By a fatality, which the people readily believed to be providential, Monsig. Moraldo, who was charged to bring the matter under the Pope's notice, forgot it every time he was in attendance on the Pope, though it was the most important thing he had to say. At last he put the Bull concerning it out on his desk that he might be sure to remember it, though otherwise he would have kept it concealed, for it bore the endorsement, 'Per levare (to remove) parte del corpo di S. Filippo Neri.' While he was talking about it to one of the papal secretaries standing near the window, a priest, who had come about other matters, was shown in, and thus happened to pass by the side of the table when the endorsement of the Bull caught his eye. With all a Roman's desire to preserve the body to Rome intact, he immediately gave notice at the Oratory, and two courageous young fathers took upon themselves to hide the body. When the prelates, therefore, came shortly after to claim the fulfilment of the Bull, the Rector opened the shrine in good faith, but the body was not there, and the report ran among the vulgar that it had been miraculously removed. Subsequently the Rector gave them the heart, and drew a tooth of the Saint, which was a verbal compliance with the terms of the Bull, being certainly 'a part of the body.' Some years after, the body was restored to its shrine, and in 1743 Prince Chigi provided it with velvets and brocades to the value of 1,000 scudi.]

THE PARDON OF ASISI. [212]

St. Felix, [213] St. Vincent, [214] and St. Philip went together once upon a time to the Pardon of Asisi.

As they were three great saints, the Pope sent for them as soon as they came back, saying he had a question to ask them. It was Innocent IX. or X., I am not sure which; but I know it was an Innocent. [215] He took them one by one, separately, and began with St. Felix.

'Were there a great many people at the Pardon?' said the Pope.

'Oh yes, an immense number,' answered simple St. Felix; 'I had not thought the whole world contained such a number.'

'Then a vast number of sins must have been remitted that day?' said the Pope.

St. Felix only sighed in reply.

'Why do you sigh?' asked the Pope.

St. Felix hesitated to reply, but the Pope bade him tell him what was in his mind.

'There were but few who gained the indulgence in all that multitude,' replied the Saint; 'for among them all were few who came with the contrition required.'

'How many were there who did receive it?' again asked the Pope.

Once more St. Felix hesitated till the Pope ordered him to speak.

'There were only four,' he then said.

'Only four!' exclaimed the Pope. 'And who were they?'

St. Felix showed even more reluctance to answer this question than the others; but the Pope made it a matter of obedience, and then he said,

'The four were Father Philip, Father Vincent, one old man, and one other.' [216]

The Pope next called for Father Vincent, and went through nearly the same dialogue with him, and his list was

'Father Philip, Father Felix, one old man, and one other.'

Then the Pope sent for St. Philip, and held the same discourse with him, and his list was

'Father Vincent, Father Felix, one old man, and one other.'

And the Pope saw that their testimony agreed together, and that each out of humility had abstained from naming that he was one of the four.

But when the people heard the story, they all began demanding that the three fathers should be canonized.

[Concerning St. Philip's devotion to the Portiuncula, Cancellieri, 'Mercato,' § xxi. note 7, records that he never missed attending it every August at the little Church of S. Salvatore, in Onda, near Ponte Sisto, now a hospice for infirm priests (he gives a curious inscription in note * * *), then in the hands of the Franciscans for many years, while he lived in the neighbouring Palazzo Caccia.]

PADRE VINCENZO.

1

There was Padre Vincenzo too, who wasn't much less than Good Philip himself. He was a miracle of obedience. One day when he was ill the Father-General sent him a codfish. Padre Vincenzo sent back word to thank him, but said he couldn't eat it. 'Nonsense!' answered the Father-General, who thought he spoke out of regard to his love of abstinence. 'Nonsense! tell him he is to eat it all.' The message was given to Padre Vincenzo, who was really too ill to eat anything; but in his simplicity thinking he ought to obey, he ate the whole fish, head, tail, bones, and all.

By-and-by the Father-General came to see him. He seemed almost at the last gasp, suffocated by the effort he had made, and his throat all lacerated with swallowing the fish-bones. The Father-General praised the simplicity of his obedience, but told the brother who took the message that he ought to have explained it better.

But Padre Vincenzo did not lose anything by his obedience, for that same evening he was cured of his illness altogether, and was quite well again.

2

Padre Vincenzo worked so many miracles that all Rome was talking about him, and the Father-General thought he would get vain, so he told him not to work any more miracles. Padre Vincenzo therefore worked no more miracles; but one day as he was walking along the street, he passed under a high scaffolding of a house that was being built. Just as he came by, a labourer missed his footing and fell over from the top. 'Padre Vincenzo, save me!' cried the man, for everybody knew Padre Vincenzo, and he had just seen him turn into the street. 'Stop there!' said Padre Vincenzo; 'I mustn't save you, as the Padre-Generale says I'm not to work miracles; but wait there, and I'll go and ask if I may.' Then he left him suspended in the air while he ran breathless to ask permission of the Father-General to work the miracle of saving him.

3

One morning Padre Vincenzo had to pass through the Rotonda [217] on business of his community. A temptation of the throat [218] took him as he saw a pair of fine plump pigeons such as you, perhaps, cannot see anywhere out of the Rotonda hanging up for sale. Padre Vincenzo bought the pigeons, and took them home secretly under his cloak. In his cell he plucked the pigeons, and cooked them over a little fire. The unwonted smell of roast pigeon soon perfumed the corridor, and two or three brothers, having peeped through the keyhole and seen what was going on in Padre Vincenzo's cell, ran off to say to the Father-General,

'What do you think Padre Vincenzo, whom we all reckon such a saint, is doing now! He is cooking pigeons privately in his cell.'

'It's a calumny! I can't believe it of him,' answered the Father-General indignantly.

The spying brothers bid him come and see.

'I am certain if I do, it will be to cover you with confusion in some way or other for telling tales!' replied the Father-General as he went with them.

As they passed along the corridor there was the smell of roast pigeon most undeniably; but when the Father-General opened the cell door what did they see?

Padre Vincenzo was on his knees, praying for forgiveness in a tone of earnest contrition; round his throat were tied the two pigeons, burning hot, as he had taken them from the fire. A spirit of compunction had seized him as he was about to accomplish the unmortified act of eating in his cell in contravention of his rule, and he had adopted this penance for yielding in intention to the temptation.

PADRE FONTANAROSA.

1

There was Padre Fontanarosa too. Did you never hear of him? He was a good friend to the poor; and all Rome loved him. He was a Jesuit; but somehow there were some Jesuits who didn't like him. Papa Braschi [219] was very fond of him, and used to make him come every day and tell him all that went on in Rome, for he was very good to the people, and that way the Pope heard what the people wanted; and many things that were wrong got set right when Padre Fontanarosa explained to the Pope the real state of the case.

One day Padre Fontanarosa said to the Pope, 'People say I have been talking too freely, and call it telling tales; but I have only obeyed the wishes of Your Holiness. If I have done wrong send me away.' But Papa Braschi answered, 'You have done me good service. Fear nothing.'

The next day after that Padre Fontanarosa did not come to the Vatican, or the next, or the next.

Then Papa Braschi called for his carriage, and said, 'Drive to the Gesù!' Arrived at the Gesù, he said, 'I want Padre Fontanarosa; where is he?'

They answered, 'In his cell.'

But he had been confined in his cell on bread and water for chattering.

'Then let him be brought out of his cell; for I want him!' answered Papa Braschi.

That time he took Padre Fontanarosa away in his carriage, and no one durst say anything to him any more.

2

Father Fontanarosa was very simple in his habits himself; and he thought the best way to keep the Order simple was to keep it poor. Whenever anyone wanted to leave money to it, instead of encouraging them, he used to tell them of some other good work to which they might leave it.

One day there was a penitent of his who was very devoted to the Jesuits, a very rich nobleman, who came to die, and, as he was making his will, he would have Padre Fontanarosa and the notary present together. 'I leave all of which I die possessed to the Church of the Gesù,' dictated the rich nobleman.

'What! do you leave all to the Son and nothing to the Mother!' said Padre Fontanarosa, who knew he was too weak to argue with him as to whether the Order was better without the money or not, and therefore adopted this mode of avoiding the snare, without damaging the good purpose of the testator.

'Ah! you are right,' answered the dying man. 'Thank you for reminding me. Make a codicil,' he said to the notary, 'and say I meant it for Gesù and Maria.'

The notary wrote just what he was bid, and the dying man and the witnesses signed all duly. But the money had to go, not to 'the Gesù' at all, but to the church of 'Gesù e Maria'--you know where, at the end of the Corso, which doesn't belong to the Jesuits at all, but to the Augustinians.

3

Others give him not quite such a good character, and tell the following story of him:--

The reason why the Jesuits did not look favourably on Father Fontanarosa was that they thought he went too often to the house of a certain lady. He perceived that they had found out that he visited her, but he went on all the same, only he said to her, 'If anything happens that the fathers send after me, and anyone comes into the room suddenly; fall down on your knees before the crucifix, and I will speak so that I may seem to be here to give you a penitential warning.'

There happened to be a handsome crucifix, kept more for ornament than devotion, on a slab in her boudoir, and she promised to heed his caution.

One day, when they were together, they heard a ring at the outer door; then a whispering in the passage; then footsteps in the adjoining room. Padre Fontanarosa looked at the lady, and the lady looked at Padre Fontanarosa. Each understood that they were under surveillance. She fell down on her knees before the crucifix, and he exhorted her to take a pattern from the Magdalen; and, as she knelt clasping the foot of the cross, with her beautiful hair all loose over her shoulders, she really looked like a living picture of the Magdalen. Still no one came into the room. But they felt they were being watched; so it was necessary to keep up the deception. Padre Fontanarosa had to speak loudly and fervently in order to make his words resound well in the adjoining room; the lady had to sob to show she was attending to them. Still no one came in; and Padre Fontanarosa had to continue his discourse till, partly through fear lest his courage should fail, and partly lest he should be discovered, he forced himself to forget present circumstances, and to throw himself into his exhortation to such an extent that he preached with a force and eloquence he had never exercised in his life before.

At last those who had been listening felt satisfied of his sincerity, and went back to the General and told him there was no fault to be found in him.

But so effectually had he preached, and so salutary had been his warnings, that the next day the lady entered a convent, to be a penitent all her days.

S. GIUSEPPE LABRE. [220]

1

'There was Giuseppe Labre too, and many wonderful things he did; he was a great saint, as all the people in the Monti [221] knew. I don't know if they've put all about him in books yet; if so, you may have read it; but I can't read.'

'I know a Life of him has been published; but tell me what you have heard about him all the same.'

Giuseppe Labre, you know, passed much of his time in meditation in the Coliseum; the arch behind the picture of the Second Station, [222] that's where he used to be all day, and where he slept most nights, too. There was a butcher in the Via de' Serpenti who knew him, and kept a little room for him, where he made him come and sleep when the nights were bad and cold, or stormy. These people were very good to him, and, though not well off themselves, were ready to give him a great deal more than he in his love for poverty would consent to accept.

One great affliction this butcher had; his wife was bedridden with an incurable disorder. One night there was a terrible storm, it was a burning hot night in summer, and Giuseppe Labre came to sleep at the butcher's. He was lying on his bed in the little room, which was up a step or two higher than the butcher's own room, where his wife lay, just as it might be where that cupboard is there. Presently the butcher's wife heard him call her, saying,

'Sora Angela, bring me a cup of water for the love of God!'

'My friend, you know how gladly I would do anything to help you, but my husband is not come up, and I have no one to send, and you know I cannot move.'

Nevertheless Giuseppe called again, 'Sora Angela, bring me a cup of water for the love of God!'

'Don't call so, good friend,' replied she; 'it distresses me; you know how gladly I would come if I could only move.'

Yet still the third time Giuseppe Labre said,

'Sora Angela, hear me! Bring me a cup of water for the love of God!' And he spoke the words so authoritatively that the good woman felt as if she was bound to obey him, she made the effort to rise, and, can you believe it! she got up as if there was nothing the matter with her; and from that time forward she was cured.

2

There was a poor cobbler who always had a kind word for Giuseppe too. One day Giuseppe Labre came to him, and said he wanted him to lend him a pair of shoes as he was going a pilgrimage to Loreto. The cobbler knew what a way it was from Rome to Loreto, and that there would not be much left of a pair of shoes after they had done the way there and back. Had Labre asked him to give them, his regard for him would have prompted him to assent however ill he could afford it; but to talk of lending shoes to walk to Loreto and back seemed like making game of him, and he didn't like it. Nevertheless he couldn't find it in his heart to refuse, and he gave him a pretty tidy pair which he had patched up strong to sell, but without expecting ever to see them again.

Giuseppe Labre took the shoes and went to Loreto, and when he came back his first call was at the cobbler's shed; and sure enough he brought the shoes none the worse for all the wear they had had. So perfectly uninjured were they that the cobbler would have thought they were another pair had it not been that he recognised the patches of his own clumsy work.

3

Another more matter-of-fact account of this story was that he did not wear the shoes on the journey, as he did that barefoot, i.e. with wooden sandals, and only borrowed the shoes to be decent and reverent in visiting the Sanctuary. In this case the story was told me to illustrate his conscientiousness both in punctually returning the shoes and in taking so much care of his trust.

THE TWELVE WORDS OF TRUTH. [223]

This is a 'ritornella,' the whole being repeated over as each new sentence is added. I remember, years ago, meeting the same in Wiltshire, and then there was this additional refrain to be repeated:

'When want is all the go;
And it evermore shall be so.'

Then it went on:

'I'll sing you three O;
Three O are rivo.'

If I remember right, there were no numbers before three-o. Four, were the four Evangelists, and nine, the nine orders of angels, as in the text; but the seventh line was 'seven are the seven bright stars in the sky,' and this, taken in connexion with the text, establishes a curious link in popular mythology between the mysterious Seven-branch Candlestick and the Pleïades. Subjoined is a translation of the text.

'One, and first, is the Lord God, ever ready to help us.' ('Domeniddio' is a popular way of naming God, like the French 'le bon Dieu,' identical with the German 'unser Herrgott.') [224]

'Two stands for the keys of heaven. There is gold.' (This would be the literal rendering of this line, but it has manifestly been lamed by bad memory.) [225]

'Three stands for three patriarchs, &c.' [226]

'Four stands for the four columns which support the world, &c.' [227]

'Five stands for the five wounds of Jesus Christ.' [228]

'Six stands for the six cocks which crowed in Galilee.' [229]

'Seven are the seven tapers that burnt in Jerusalem.' ('Cantorno' for cantarono, a vulgar transposition, like 'hunderd,' and 'childern,' in English; 'ardorno' similarly, instead of 'arderono,' though 'arsero' would be the correct form.) [230]

'Eight' stands for the octave of Christ. (Probably in allusion to the 'octave,' or eight days' festival, of Christmas.) [231]

'Nine' stands for the nine quires of angels. [232]

'Ten' stands for the ten years of Christ. (What 'ten years' it is not easy to see.) [233]

'Eleven' stands for the crowning with thorns. (St. Bridget or Soeur Emmerich, in their minute meditations or 'Revelations' on the Passion, have fixed a number for the thorns in our Lord's crown, but I do not remember what they make it; there may be a tradition that it was eleven.) [234]

'Twelve' stands for the Twelve Apostles. [235]

GHOST AND TREASURE STORIES AND FAMILY AND LOCAL TRADITIONS.

THE DEAD MAN IN THE OAK-TREE. [236]

There was a parcel of young fellows once who were a nuisance to everybody in Rome, for they were always at some mischievous tricks when it was nothing worse. But there was one of them who was not altogether so bad as the rest. For one thing, there was one practice of devotion he had never forgotten from the days when his mother taught him, and that was, to say a De Profundis whenever he saw a dead body carried past to burial. But what concerned his companions, was the fear lest he should some day perhaps take it into his head to reform, and in that case it was not impossible he might be led to give information against them.

At last they agreed that the best thing they could do was to put him out of the way. Quietly as their conspiracy was conducted, he saw there was something plotting, and determined to be out of reach of their murderous intentions; so he got up early one morning, and rode out of Rome.

On, on, on, [237] he went till he had left Rome many miles behind, and then he saw hanging in an oak-tree the body of a man all in pieces, among the branches.

For a moment he was overcome with horror at the sight; but, nevertheless, he did not forget his good practice of saying a De Profundis.

No sooner had he completed the psalm, than one by one the pieces came down from the tree and put themselves together, till a dead man stood before him, all complete. Gladly would he have spurred his horse on and got away from the horrible sight, but he was riveted to the spot, and durst not move, or scarcely take breath. But worse was in store, for now the dreadful apparition took hold of his bridle.

'Fear nothing, young man!' said the corpse, in a tone, which though meant to be kind, was so sepulchral that it thrilled the ear. 'Only change places with me for a little space; you get up in the oak-tree, and lend your horse to me.'

The youth mechanically got off his horse, and climbed up into the tree, while the mangled corpse got on to the horse, and rode away back towards Rome. He had not been gone five minutes when he heard four shots [238] fired.

Looking from his elevation in the direction of the sound, he saw his four evil companions, who had just fired their pieces into the corpse which rode his horse, without making it sit a bit less erect than before. Then he saw them go stealthily up to the figure and look at it, and then run away, wild with terror.

As soon as they had turned their backs, the corpse turned the horse's head round, and trotted back to the oak-tree.

'Now, my son,' said the corpse, alighting from the horse, 'I have done you this good turn because you said a De Profundis for me; but such interpositions don't befall a man every day. Turn over a new leaf, before a worse thing happens.'

Having said this, the dead body, piece by piece, replaced itself amid the branches of the oak-tree, where it had hung before.

The young man got on his horse again, penitent and thoughtful, and rode to a friary, [239] where, after spending an edifying life, he died a holy death.

THE DEAD MAN'S LETTER. [240]

There was a rich man, I cannot tell you how rich he was, who died and left all his great fortune to his son, palaces and houses, and farms and vineyards. The son entered into possession of all, and became a great man; but he never thought of having a mass said for the soul of his father, from whom he had received all.

There was also, about the same time, a poor man, who had hardly enough to keep body and soul together, and he went into a church to pray that he might have wherewithal to feed his children. So poor was he, that he said within himself, 'None poorer than I can there be.' As he said that, his eye lighted on the box where alms were gathered, that masses might be offered for the souls in Purgatory. 'Yes,' he said, then, 'these are poorer than I,' and he felt in his pocket for his single baiocco, and he put it in the alms box for the holy souls. [241]

As he came out, he saw a painone [242] standing before the door, as if in waiting for him; but as he was well-dressed, and looked rich, the poor man knew he could have no acquaintance with him, and would have passed on.

'You have done me so much good, and now you don't speak to me,' said the stranger.

'When did I thee much good?' said the poor man bewildered.

'Even now,' said the stranger; for in reality he was no painone, but one of the holy souls who had taken that form, and he alluded to the poor man's last coin, of which he had deprived himself in charity.

'I cannot think to what your Excellency [243] alludes,' replied the poor man.

'Nevertheless it is true,' returned the painone; 'and now I will ask you to do me another favour. Will you take this letter to such and such a palace?' and he gave him the exact address. 'When you get there, you must insist on giving it into the hands of the master of the house himself. Never mind how many times you are refused, do not go away till you have given it to the master himself.'

'Never fear, your Excellency,' answered the poor man, 'I'll deliver it right.'

When he reached the palace, it was just as the painone had seemed to expect it would be. First the porter came forward with his cocked hat and his gilt knobbed stick, with the coloured cord twisted over it all the way down, and asked him whither he was going.

'To Count so-and-so,' answered the poor man.

'All right! give it here,' said the splendid porter.

'By no means, my orders were to consign it to the count himself.'

'Go in and try,' answered the porter. 'But you may as well save yourself the stairs; they won't let such as you in to the count.'

'I must follow orders,' said the poor man, and passed on.

At the door of the apartment a liveried servant came to open.

'What do you want up here? if you have brought anything, why didn't you leave it with the porter?'

'Because my orders are to give this letter into the count's own hands,' answered the poor man.

'A likely matter I shall call the "Signor Conte" out, and to such as you! Give here, and don't talk nonsense.'

'No! into the count's own hands must I give it.'

'Don't be afraid; I've lived here these thirty years, and no message for the "Signor Conte" ever went wrong that passed through my hands. Yours isn't more precious than the rest, I suppose.'

'I know nothing about that, but I must follow orders.'

'And so must I, and I know my place too well to call out the "Signor Conte" to the like of you.'

The altercation brought out the valet.

'This fellow expects the "Signor Conte" to come to the door to take in his letters himself,' said the lackey, laughing disdainfully. 'What's to be done with the poor animal?'

'Give here, good man,' said the valet, patronisingly not paying much heed to the remarks of the servant; 'I am the "Signor Conte's" own body servant, and giving it to me is the same as giving it to himself.'

'Maybe,' answered the poor man, 'but I'm too simple to understand how one man can be the same as another. My orders are to give it to the count alone, and to the count alone I must give it.'

'Take it from him, and turn him out,' said the valet, with supreme disdain, and the lackey was not slow to take advantage of the permission. The poor man, however, would not yield his trust, and the scuffle that ensued brought the count himself out to learn the reason of so much noise.

The letter was now soon delivered. The count started when he saw the handwriting, and was impelled to tear the letter open at once, so much did its appearance seem to surprise him.

'Who gave you the letter?' he exclaimed, in an excited manner, as soon as he had rapidly devoured its contents.

'I cannot tell, I never saw the person before,' replied the poor man.

'Would you know him again?' inquired the count.

'Oh, most undoubtedly!' answered the poor man; 'he said such strange things to me that I looked hard at him.'

'Then come this way,' said the count; and he led him into a large hall, round which were hung many portraits in frames. 'Do you see one among these portraits that at all resembles him?' he said, when he had given him time to look round the walls.

'Yes, that is he!' said the poor man, unhesitatingly, pointing to the portrait of the count's father, from whom he had inherited such great wealth, and for whom he had never given the alms of a single mass.

'Then there is no doubt it was himself,' said the count. 'In this letter he tells me that you of your poverty have done for him what I with all my wealth have never done,' he added in a tone of compunction. 'For you have given alms for the repose of his soul, which I never have; therefore he bids me now take you and all your family into the palace to live with me, and to share all I have with you.'

After that he made the man and all his family come to live in the palace, as his father directed, and he was abundantly provided for the rest of his life.

['I know one of that kind,' interposed one sitting by. 'Will you hear it? But mine is true, mine is a real fact, and happened no longer ago than last October;' and he told me the very names and address of the people concerned with the greatest particularity; this was in January 1873.]

THE WHITE SOUL. [244]

The people he had named were a husband and wife, shopkeepers, with a good business. They had taken in a woman, a widow, as they thought, to board with them for life. [245]

The first night after she came the wife suddenly woke up the husband, saying:--

'What is it that kneels at the foot of the bed? surely it is a white soul.'

'I see nothing,' said the husband; 'go to sleep!'

The wife said no more, but the next night it was the same thing, and the next, and the next; and she described so sincerely what she saw, and with so much earnestness, that the husband could have no doubt that what she said was true. And as he saw it disturbed her rest, and made her ill, he said:--

'If it comes again, to-night, we will conjure it.'

It had been going on almost a month (I told you it happened in October), and it was just the night of All Souls' day [246] that he happened to say this.

That night, again, the wife woke him with a start--

'There it is,' she said, 'the white soul; it kneels at the foot of the bed.'

The husband said nothing, but following the direction of his wife's hand, he solemnly bid the apparition depart, in the name of the Most Holy Trinity and the Madonna.

Though he had seen nothing, he, too, now heard a voice, and the voice said that it was her father whom the wife had seen; that it was not well that they should have in the house the woman whom they had taken in to board, for that it was on her account he was now suffering penance. 'Think of this,' he said, finally, 'for I cannot stay to tell you more; for it is the hour of prayer.' [247]

The lighting up of a masked ball could not be compared to the brightness [248] which filled the room as the spirit disappeared. And this the husband saw well, though he had not seen the soul.

The husband and wife thought a good deal of what they had heard; they had never known before of the father's intimacy with this woman, but they inquired, and found it was even so.

Then the man took into his head to go to one of these new people, what do they call it? spiritismo, magnetismo, [249] or whatever it is. He made them call up the spirit of his wife's father, and he asked if it was he who had appeared at night in the bedroom all the month through, and he said, 'yes, that it was.' And he asked him about all the particulars, and he confirmed them all. 'Then,' he said, 'if indeed it was you, give me some sign to-night;' and he said he would.

There was a ruler in the chest of drawers in the bedroom, and all through the night there were knocks; now on the ceiling, now on the floor, now on the walls, as if given with that ruler, and we know those 'spiritismo' people say the spirits make themselves understood by knocking.

After that, they sent away their boarder, though at considerable pecuniary loss.

['I know a story like that,' said the first man, 'and a true one too; it happened in 1848 or 1849.']

THE WHITE SERPENT. [250]

My story is also of a husband and wife, but they were peasants, and lived outside the gates.

'It is so cold to-night,' said the husband to the wife, as they went to bed, 'we shall freeze if we have another night like it. We must contrive to wake before it is light, and go and get some wood somewhere before we go to work, to make a fire to-morrow night.'

So they woke very early, before it was light, and went out to get wood. [251] The husband stood up in the tree, and the wife down below in a ditch, or hole. As she stood there she saw a great white serpent glide past her. 'Look, look!' she cried to her husband; 'see that great white serpent; surely there is something unnatural about it!'

'A white serpent!' answered her husband; 'what nonsense! Who ever heard of such a thing as a white serpent!'

'There it goes, then,' said the wife; 'you can see it for yourself.'

'I see nothing of the kind,' said the husband. 'There are no serpents about Rome this many a long year; and as for a white one, such a thing doesn't exist.'

While he spoke the serpent went through a hole in the ground. As the husband was so positive, the wife said no more, but they gathered up the wood and went home.

In the night, however, the wife had a dream. She saw an Augustinian friar, long since dead, standing before her, who said 'Angela! (that was indeed her name) if you would do me a favour listen to me. Did you see a white serpent this morning?'

'Yes,' she answered; 'that I did, though my husband said there was no such thing as a white serpent in existence.'

'Well, if you would do me a pleasure, go back to the place where you saw the white serpent go in--not where he came out, but where you saw him go into the earth. Dig about that place, and, when you have dug a pretty good hole, a dead man will start up; [252] but don't be afraid, he can't hurt you, and won't want to hurt you. Take no notice of him, and go on digging, and no harm will come to you; you have nothing to be afraid of. If you dig on you will come to a heap of money. Take some of the biggest pieces of gold and carry them to St. Peter's, and take some of the smaller pieces and carry them to S. Agostino, [253] and let masses be said for that dead man. But you must tell no one alive anything about it.'

The woman was much too frightened to do what the friar had said, but she managed to keep the story to herself, though it made her look so anxious her husband could not help noticing something.

The next night the friar came again, and said the same words, only he added: 'If you are so frightened, Angela, you may take with you for company a little boy, but he must not be over seven, nor under six; and what you do you must tell no one. But you have nothing to fear, for if you do as I have said no one can harm you.'

For all his assurances, however, she could not make up her mind to go, nor this day could she even keep the story from her husband, for it weighed upon her mind. When he heard the story he said, 'I'll go with you.'

'Ah! if you'll go, then I don't mind,' she said. 'But how will it be? The friar was so particular that I should tell no one, evil may happen if I take another with me.'

'If there is nothing in the story, there's nothing to fear,' said the husband; 'and, if the story is true, there is a heap of money to reward one for a little fear; so let's go. Besides, if you think any harm will happen to you for taking me, I can stand on the top of the bank while you go down to the hole, and it can't be said properly that I'm there, while I shall yet be by to give you courage and help you if anything happens.'

'That way, I don't mind it,' answered the wife; and they went out together to the place, the husband, as he had said, standing by on a bank, and the wife creeping down into a hole. They took also two donkeys with them to bring away the treasure.

At the first stroke of the woman's spade there came such lugubrious cries that she was frightened into running away.

'Don't be afraid,' said the husband; 'cries don't hurt!' So the woman began digging again, and then there came out cries again worse than before, and the noise of rattling of chains, dreadful to hear. So terrified was the woman that she swooned away.

The husband then went down into the hole with what water he could find to bring her to herself, but the moment he got into the hole the spirits set upon him and beat him so that he had great livid marks all over.

After that neither of them had the heart to go back to try it again.

But the woman was in the habit of going to confession to one of the Augustinian fathers, and she told him all. The fathers sent and had the place dug up all about, and thought they had proved there was nothing there; but for all that, it generally happens that when a thing like that has to be done, it must be done by the person who is sent, and anybody else but that person trying it proves nothing at all.

One thing is certain, that when those horrid assassins [254] hide a heap of money they put a dead man's body at the entrance of the hole where they hide it, and say to it, 'Thou be on guard till one of such a name, be it Teresa, be it Angela, be it Pietro, comes;' and no one else going can be of any use, for it may be a hundred years before the coincidence can happen of a person just of the right name lighting on the spot--perhaps never.

'Yes, yes! that's a fact; that is not old wives' nonsense,' [255] was the chorus which greeted this enunciation. [256]

['I, too, know a fact of that kind which most certainly happened, for I know Maria Grazia to whom it happened well, before she went to live at Velletri,' said one of them.]

THE PROCESSION OF VELLETRI.

Maria Grazia lived in a convent of nuns at Velletri, and did their errands for them. One night one of the nuns who was ill got much worse towards night, and the factor [257] not being there, the Superior called up Maria Grazia and said to her,--'Maria Grazia, Sister Maria such a one [258] is so very bad that I must get you to go and call the provost to her. I'm sorry to send you out so late, but I fear she won't last till morning.'

Maria Grazia couldn't say nay to such an errand, and off she set by a clear moonlight to go to the house of the provost, which was a good step off and out of the town. All went well till Maria Grazia had left the houses behind her, but she was no sooner in the open country than she saw a great procession of white-robed priests and acolytes bearing torches coming towards her, chanting solemnly. 'What a fine procession!' thought Maria Grazia; 'I must hasten on to see it. But what can it be for at this time of night?'

Still she never doubted it was a real procession till she got quite close, and then, to her surprise, the procession parted in two to let her go through the midst, which a real procession would never have done.

You may believe that she was frightened as she passed right through the midst of those beings who must have belonged to the other world, dazed as she was with the unearthly light of the flaring torches; it seemed as if it would last for ever. But it did come to an end at last, and then she was so frightened she didn't know what to do. Her legs trembled too much to carry her on further from home, and if she turned back there would be that dreadful procession again. Curiosity prompted her to turn her head, in spite of her fears; and what gave her almost more alarm than seeing the procession was the fact that it was no longer to be seen. What could have become of it in the midst of the open field? Then the fear of the good nun dying without the sacraments through her faint-heartedness stirred her, but in vain she tried to pluck up courage. 'Oh!' she thought, 'if there were only some one going the same road, then I shouldn't mind!'

She had hardly formed the wish when she saw a peasant coming along over the very spot where the procession had passed out of sight. 'Now it's all right,' she said; for by the light of the moon he seemed a very respectable steady-looking peasant.

'What did you think of that procession, good man,' said Maria Grazia; 'for it must have passed close by you, too?'

The peasant continued coming towards her, but said nothing.

'Didn't it frighten you? It did me; and I don't think I could have moved from the spot if you hadn't come up. I've got to go to the provost's house, to fetch him to a dying nun; it's only a step off this road, will you mind walking with me till I get there?'

The peasant continued walking towards her, but answered nothing.

'Maybe you're afraid of me, as I was of the procession, that you don't speak,' continued Maria Grazia; 'but I am not a spirit. I am Maria Grazia, servant in such and such a convent at Velletri.'

But still the peasant said nothing.

'What a very odd man!' thought Maria Grazia. 'But as he seems to be going my way he'll answer the purpose of company whether he speaks or not.' And she walked on without fear till she came to the provost's house, the peasant always keeping beside her but never speaking. Arrived at the provost's gate she turned round to salute and thank him, and he was nowhere to be seen. He too had disappeared! He too was a spirit!

When the archpriest came he had his nephew and his servant to go with him, and they carried torches of straw, [259] for it seems in that part of the country they use straw torches; so she went back in good company.

And Maria Grazia told me that herself.

SMALLER GHOST AND TREASURE STORIES AND FAMILY AND LOCAL TRADITIONS.

1

But the belief in ghosts, though it exists, as we have seen by the above specimens, is by no means generally diffused. 'No! [260] I don't believe such things,' is the general reply I have received when inquiring for them. I could not, indeed, help being annoyed with the strongmindedness of an old woman one day, who asserted her contempt for the idea so persistently that she quite 'shut up' two others who were inclined to be communicative of their experiences.

'I've often slept in a room where it was said the ghost of a woman who was killed there, walked about with her head under her arm; but I never saw her,' said I, to set the thing going.

'Oh! I wouldn't have done that for the world!' exclaimed Nos. 2 and 3 together.

'And why not?' said No. 1. 'There was nothing to be seen, of course. There are no such things as ghosts!' [261]

'Ah! Some see them and some don't see them, and you're one of those who don't see them. That's where it is,' said No. 2.

'Yes,' added No. 3; 'I know lots of people who have seen them,' and she was going on to give examples, but No. 1 put her down.

'Did you ever see one yourself?' interposed I, to keep the ball rolling.

'Well, yes ... so far that ...' she began, hesitatingly; but No. 1 broke in again with her vehement iteration that there are no ghosts.

'I know there are, though,' persisted No. 2; 'for my mother has told me there is a house....'

'Here in Rome?' asked I.

'Yes, here in Rome, where she used to work, where there was a ghost [262] that used to pull the bedclothes off anyone who slept in that particular room, and leave him uncovered. As fast as you pulled them over you, the spirit pulled them off again;' and she imitated the movement with her hands.

2

'Oibo!' interposed No. 1. 'I'll tell you what ghosts are. Ghosts are most often robbers, who get people to think they are ghosts, in order to be able to rob in peace. There was a famous one, I remember well, about the year 1830, who used to be called the Ghost of St. John's, [263] because he used to make himself heard in the houses about St. John Lateran. There were several robberies in the same neighbourhood just at the same time, but no one thought of connecting the two things, till at last one bethought him of it, and he laid in wait, pistol in hand, till the ghost came by.

'By it came; and "pop!" went the pistol. And there, on the spot, lay the body of one whom the police didn't see for the first time.

'That's what ghosts are!'

'That may have been,' replied Nos. 2 and 3; 'but that doesn't prove that there are no ghosts for all that.'

3

'Ghosts! ghosts! are all in silly people's own heads!' exclaimed No. 1. 'I can tell you of one there was in an old palace at Foligno. No one would sleep there because of the ghosts, and the palace became quite deserted. At last a sportsman, [264] who was a relation of mine, said he wasn't afraid; he would go up there one night, and give an account of it. He went there, pistol in hand. At the time for the ghosts to appear, in through a hole over the window did come a great thing with wings. The sportsman, nothing daunted, fired at it; and, lo and behold, a large hawk [265] fell dead on the floor; then another, and another, up to five of them.

'That's what ghosts are, I tell you!'

[The following is from another narrator.]

4

Some friars were going round begging for their convent, when night overtook them in a wood.

'What shall we do if any wolves come? I don't believe there is any habitation in these parts, and there will be no place to run to and no one to help us. We must commend ourselves to the Madonna, and wait the event.'

They had scarcely done so when one of them saw a light sparkling through the trees. They thought it came from some woodman's cottage, and followed its leading; but instead of a cottage they came to a handsome inn. As the door stood invitingly open they went in: a fire blazed on the hearth; a repast was spread on the table; a number of maidens, attired in pure and shining white, flitted about and brought all they wanted. When they had well supped, these led them to a room where was a bed apiece, and in the morning again they gave them breakfast.

Before they started again, the friars asked the maidens to take them to offer their thanks to the mistress of the house, and they led them into a room where was a most beautiful lady, who inquired kindly if they had been well served and wished them a good journey. Moreover, as they went she gave them a folded paper.

The friars, unused to be so entertained, were much bewildered, and wondered what lady it could be who lived all alone with her maidens in that wild wood; and they turned back to look at the inn that they might know it again, but it had entirely disappeared, nor was there a vestige of it to be found.

Then they opened the folded paper the lady had given them, and by the shining letters within they knew it was the Madonna herself had entertained them.

5

Another, who didn't believe there were ghosts to be seen--'she had heard plenty of such stories, but she didn't give her mind to such things,'--yet told me, she believed there were treasures hid in countless places, [266] but people could seldom get at them; there was always a hailstorm, or an earthquake, or something, which happened to stop them; the Devil wouldn't let people get at them.

6

Another, whose belief in ghosts was doubtful, reckoned she knew various cases to be facts, in which men hid treasures under a spell, that could be removed if a person could devise the counterspell, by hitting, even accidentally, on what the original spell had been. [267]

7

'If you want ghost-stories, I can tell them as well as another; but mind I don't believe such things,' said another.

'Tell me what you've heard, then.'

'Well, I have heard say that there was a woman in the Monti, [268] and not so long ago either, who was always finding money about the house, and that too, in places where she knew no one could have put it. The first thing in the morning when she got up she would find it on the floor all about the room. Or if she got up from her work in the middle of the day, though she knew no one had come in, there it would be.

'One day she saw three silver papetti [269] on the floor. It wasn't that there was no silver money ever to be seen, and nothing but dirty paper notes, and half of them false, as it is now o' days. It was in the time of the Pope, and there was plenty of silver for those who had money at all, but still, to see three silver papetti lying on the floor all of a sudden was a sight for anyone.

'It looked so strange that she hesitated before she picked it up. But at last she made up her mind and took it. No sooner had she done so than a spirit appeared before her, and said, "Come down with me into the cellar and I'll show you something."

'"No, thank you, sir," said the woman, not knowing what to do for fear.

'"Nonsense! come down, you shan't be hurt," said the spirit.

'"I'd rather not, sir, thank you," was all the woman could stammer out.

'"You must come! I'll give you something to make you rich for good and all," persisted the spirit; and, somehow, she didn't know how, she felt herself obliged to follow him.