eal to the
intelligence; they say nothing, but they express everything with
marvellous modulations like a celestial accompaniment, which follows the
believer's emotions from the most agonizing struggles to the most
unspeakable ecstasies.

So Francis went on his way, deeply inhaling the odors of spring, singing
at the top of his voice one of those songs of French chivalry which he
had learned in days gone by.

The forest in which he was walking was the usual retreat of such people
of Assisi and its environs as had any reason for hiding. Some ruffians,
aroused by his voice, suddenly fell upon him. "Who are you?" they asked.
"I am the herald of the great King," he answered "but what is that to
you?"

His only garment was an old mantle which the bishop's gardener had lent
him at his master's request. They stripped it from him, and throwing him
into a ditch full of snow, "There is your place, poor herald of God,"
they said.

The robbers gone, he shook off the snow which covered him, and after may
efforts succeeded in extricating himself from the ditch. Stiff with
cold, with no other covering than a worn-out shirt, he none the less
resumed his singing, happy to suffer and thus to accustom himself the
better to understand the words of the Crucified One.[19]

Not far away was a monastery. He entered and offered his services. In
those solitudes, peopled often by such undesirable neighbors, people
were suspicious. The monks permitted him to make himself useful in the
kitchen, but they gave him nothing to cover himself with and hardly
anything to eat. There was nothing for it but to go away; he directed
his steps toward Gubbio, where he knew that he should find a friend.
Perhaps this was he who had been his confidant on his return from
Spoleto. However this may be, he received from him a tunic, and a few
days after set out to return to his dear St. Damian.[20]

He did not, however, go directly thither; before beginning to restore
the little sanctuary, he desired to see again his friends, the lepers,
to promise them that he would love them even better than in the past.

Since his first visit to the leper-house the brilliant cavalier had
become a poor beggar; he came with empty hands but with heart
overflowing with tenderness and compassion. Taking up his abode in the
midst of these afflicted ones he lavished upon them the most touching
care, washing and wiping their sores, all the more gentle and radiant as
their sores wer