Of the four years that followed little mention need be made in these pages,
save for one incident whose importance is derived entirely from that which
subsequently befell, for at the time it had no meaning for me. Yet since
later it was to have much, it is fitting that it should be recorded here.

It happened that a month or so after old Falcone had left us there wandered
one noontide into the outer courtyard of the castle two pilgrim fathers, on
their way--as they announced--from Milan to visit the Holy House at Loreto.

It was my mother's custom to receive all pilgrim wayfarers and beggars in
this courtyard at noontide twice in each week to bestow upon them food and
alms. Rarely was she, herself, present at that alms-giving; more rarely
still was I. It was Fra Gervasio who discharged the office of almoner on
the Countess of Mondolfo's behalf. Occasionally the whines and snarls of
the motley crowd that gathered there--for they were not infrequently
quarrelsome--reached us in the maschio tower where we had our apartments.
But on the day of which I speak I chanced to stand in the pillared gallery
above the courtyard, watching the heaving, surging human mass below, for
the concourse was greater than usual.

Cripples there were of every sort, and all in rags; some with twisted,
withered limbs, others with mere stumps where limbs had been lopped off,
others again-- and there were many of these--with hideous running sores,
some of which no doubt would be counterfeit--as I now know--and contrived
with poultices of salt for the purpose of exciting charity in the piteous.
All were dishevelled, unkempt, ragged, dirty, and, doubtless, verminous.
Most were greedy and wolfish as they thrust one another aside to reach Fra
Gervasio, as if they feared that the supply of alms and food should be
exhausted ere their turn arrived. Amongst them there was commonly a small
sprinkling of mendicant friars, some of these, perhaps, just the hypocrite