attered rocks. He had already retired thither several
times, notably when he was preparing the Rule of 1223.

The doctors, having exhausted the therapeutic arsenal of the time,
decided to resort to cauterization; it was decided to draw a rod of
white-hot iron across his forehead.

When the poor patient saw them bringing in the brazier and the
instruments he had a moment of terror; but immediately making the sign
of the cross over the glowing iron, "Brother fire," he said, "you are
beautiful above all creatures; be favorable to me in this hour; you know
how much I have always loved you; be then courteous to-day."

Afterward, when his companions, who had not had the courage to remain,
came back he said to them, smiling, "Oh, cowardly folk, why did you go
away? I felt no pain. Brother doctor, if it is necessary you may do it
again."

This experiment was no more successful than the other remedies. In vain
they quickened the wound on the forehead, by applying plasters, salves,
and even by making incisions in it; the only result was to increase the
pains of the sufferer.[5]

One day, at Rieti, whither he had again been carried, he thought that a
little music would relieve his pain. Calling a friar who had formerly
been clever at playing the guitar, he begged him to borrow one; but the
friar was afraid of the scandal which this might cause, and Francis gave
it up.

God took pity upon him; the following night he sent an invisible angel
to give him such a concert as is never heard on earth.[6] Francis,
hearing it, lost all bodily feeling, say the Fioretti, and at one moment
the melody was so sweet and penetrating that if the angel had given one
more stroke of the bow, the sick man's soul would have left his
body.[7]

It seems that there was some amelioration of his state when the doctors
left him; we find him during the months of this winter, 1225-1226, in
the most remote hermitages of the district, for as soon as he had a
little strength he was determined to begin preaching again.

He went to Poggio-Buscone[8] for the Christmas festival. People
flocked thither in crowds from all the country round to see and hear
him. "You come here," he said, "expecting to find a great saint; what
will you think when I tell you that I ate meat all through Advent?"[9]
At St. Eleutheria,[10] at a time of extreme cold which tried him much,
he had sewn some pieces of stuff into his own tunic and that of his
companion, so as to make their