was indeed meant for the Church, and he learned without surprise that
the following spring he was to be sent to the seminary at Asti.

With a view to prepare him for this change, the canonesses suggested his
attending them that year on their annual pilgrimage to the sanctuary of
Oropa. Thither, for every feast of the Assumption, these pious ladies
travelled in their litter; and Odo had heard from them many tales of the
miraculous Black Virgin who drew thousands to her shrine among the
mountains. They set forth in August, two days before the feast,
ascending through chestnut groves to the region of bare rocks; thence
downward across torrents hung with white acacia and along park-like
grassy levels deep in shade. The lively air, the murmur of verdure, the
perfume of mown grass in the meadows and the sweet call of the cuckoos
from every thicket made an enchantment of the way; but Odo's pleasure
redoubled when, gaining the high-road to Oropa, they mingled with the
long train of devotees ascending from the plain. Here were pilgrims of
every condition, from the noble lady of Turin or Asti (for it was the
favourite pilgrimage of the Sardinian court), attended by her physician
and her cicisbeo, to the half-naked goatherd of Val Sesia or Salluzzo;
the cheerful farmers of the Milanese, with their wives, in silver
necklaces and hairpins, riding pillion on plump white asses; sick
persons travelling in closed litters or carried on hand-stretchers;
crippled beggars obtruding their deformities; confraternities of hooded
penitents, Franciscans, Capuchins and Poor Clares in dusty companies;
jugglers, pedlars, Egyptians and sellers of drugs and amulets. From
among these, as the canonesses' litter jogged along, an odd figure
advanced toward Odo, who had obtained leave to do the last mile of the
journey on foot. This was a plump abate in tattered ecclesiastical
dress, his shoes white as a miller's and the perspiration streaking his
face as he laboured along in the dust. He accosted Odo in a soft shrill