"He is a very holy man," said one of the peasants.
"And he dwells alone in a hut midway up the mountain," added a second.
"In a hut which he built for himself with his own hands," a third
explained.
"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.
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