Poor Francis was in despair. He flung the money on a window seat in disgust, and begged the priest at least to give him a shelter for a few days. That much bewildered man, hardly knowing what to say or do, consented, and Francis took up his abode with him.

But not for long. Pietro, when he found his son did not return home as usual, made enquiries and found where he was located. He was very anxious and uneasy, as he was sure now that his son was afflicted by a religious mania, he would have to renounce all the high hopes he had formed for him. However, he resolved to make a determined effort to recover him, and set out with a large party of friends to storm St.

Damian's. They hoped that Francis would listen to reason, and consent to follow them back quietly to a.s.sisi.

[Sidenote: _A Lonely Struggle._]

But Francis never waited to receive them. An uncontrollable fear took possession of him, and he fled and hid himself in a cavern he alone knew of. His father's party ransacked the priest's abode, and all the country round, but they had to return home baffled.

For a month, Francis remained shut up in the cavern. An old servant who loved him dearly, was let into the secret, and used to bring him food. During this month he suffered intensely. It was the first time in his life he had ever suffered contradiction--the first time in his life he had ever had anyone really, openly opposed to him. To be sure, people did not understand him, but they had never shown him any animosity. A sense of utter failure oppressed him. It was a hard trial to one of his temperament, and if his consecration had not been very real, he would never have stood the test.

He wept and prayed, and confessed his utter nothingness, his weakness, his inability to accomplish anything of himself. Never in his life had he felt weak and incapable before. Then humbly he entreated that G.o.d would enable him to accomplish His will, and not permit his incapacity to frustrate G.o.d's designs for him. A consciousness of Divine strength was manifested to him as never before. It was as if a voice said, "I will be with thee, fear not." Strengthened with a strength he never knew heretofore, he came out of the cavern and made straight for his father's house.

That day as Pietro Bernardone sat at work indoors, the voice of a mighty tumult was borne in to him. Such a clamour, and yelling, and shouting he never had heard in a.s.sisi in all his time! Rushing upstairs he looked out of the window. It seemed as though the entire populace had turned loose, and were buffeting someone in their midst.

"A madman, a madman," yelled the crowd, and sticks and stones and mud flew from all sides.

"A madman, a madman," echoed the children.

Determined not to lose the fun, Pietro hastened out into the street, joined the crowd, and discovered that his son Francis was the madman in question! With a howl of rage, he rushed upon him, dragged him into the house with oaths and blows, and locked him up in a sort of dungeon.

During the succeeding days, he and his wife did all they could to persuade Francis to return to his old mode of life. Pietro entreated and threatened, Pica wept and caressed, but all in vain.

[Sidenote: _A Command from G.o.d._]

"I have received a command from G.o.d," was their answer, and "I mean to carry it out."

At last, after some time, Pietro being absent for several days on business, Pica unlocked the dungeon and let her son go free.

When Pietro returned, he cursed his wife and set off to St. Damian's to fetch Francis back. But Francis declined to go. He said that he feared neither blows nor chains, but G.o.d had given him a work to do, and nothing, nor n.o.body would prevent him carrying out that mission.

Pietro was struck by his son's coolness, and seeing that force would be no use, he went to the magistrates and lodged a complaint against his son, desiring the magistrates to recover the money that his son had given to the church, and to oblige him to renounce in legal form all rights of inheritance. The magistrates seem to have been much shocked at Pietro's harshness, but they summoned Francis, who would not appear. When asked to use violence, they said--

"No, since your son has entered G.o.d's service, we have nothing to do with his actions," and utterly refused to have anything further to do with the case.

CHAPTER IV.

VICTORY WITHOUT AND WITHIN.

"For poverty and self-renunciation The Father yieldeth back a thousand-fold; In the calm stillness of regeneration, Cometh a joy we never knew of old."

Pietro was not avaricious. He cared nothing for the money as money.

His plan now was to cut off all supplies, and when his son, who had always been accustomed to the daintiest and softest of living, and was in no way inured to hardship, found that he was now literally a beggar, he would, after a little privation, come to his senses, and sue his father for pardon. This was his idea when he sought the bishop and made his complaint to him. The bishop called Francis to appear before him.

On the appointed day he appeared with his father. The venerable bishop, who was a man of great good sense and wisdom, heard all there was to hear, and then turning to the young man, he said--

"My son, thy father is greatly incensed against thee. If thou desirest to consecrate thyself to G.o.d, restore to him all that is his."

He went on to say that the money was not really Francis', and therefore he had no right to give away what was not his, besides G.o.d would never accept money that was an occasion of sin between father and son. Then Francis rose and said--

"My lord, I will give back everything to my father, even the clothes I have had from him!"

Returning into a neighbouring room, he stripped off all his rich garments, and clad only in a hair under-garment, laid them and the purse of money at his father's feet.

[Sidenote: _One Father._]

"Now," he cried, "I have but one father, henceforth I can say in all truth 'Our Father who art in Heaven!'"

There was a moment of dead silence. Everybody present was too astonished to speak, then Pietro gathered up the garments and money, and withdrew. A murmur of pity swept through the crowd as they looked at the young man standing half-naked before the tribunal. But no sentiments of pity stirred Pietro. Easy and good-natured when things went according to his liking, he was equally hard and unbending if his will was crossed. It was to him a rude awakening out of a glorious, golden dream, and from his standpoint life looked hard.

When Pietro departed the old bishop threw his own mantle round the young man's shoulders, and sent out for some suitable garment.

Nothing, however, was forthcoming except a peasant's cloak belonging to one of the gardeners. This Francis gladly put on and pa.s.sed out of the bishop's hall--a homeless wanderer on the face of the earth.

He was not inclined to return to St. Damian's at once. He desired solitude, so he plunged into the woods. As he travelled he sang with all his might praises to G.o.d in the French tongue. His singing attracted the notice of some robbers who were hidden in the fastness of the woods. They sprang out and seized him, demanding--

"Who are you?"

Francis always courteous replied,

"I am the herald of the Great King. But what does that concern you?"

The robbers laughed at him for a madman, and after they had made game of him for a time, they tore his garment from his back, and tossing him into a deep ditch where a quant.i.ty of snow still lay, they made off crying,

"Lie there, you poor herald of the Good G.o.d!"

When they had disappeared Francis scrambled out stiff with cold and clad only in his one garment, and went on his way singing as before.

[Sidenote: _Kitchen a.s.sistant._]

Happily his wanderings speedily brought him to a monastery among the mountains. He knocked at the door and begged for help. The monks regarded this strange half-naked applicant with much suspicion, and one can hardly blame them. Nevertheless they received him, and gave him employment in their kitchen as a.s.sistant to the cook, to do the rough and heavy work. His food was of the commonest and coa.r.s.est, and it never seemed to occur to any of them that he would be the better for a few more clothes. When his solitary garment appeared in imminent danger of dropping to pieces he left the monastery and went on a little further to a neighbouring town where a friend of his lived. He made his way to this friend and asked him out of charity to provide him with a worn garment to cover his nakedness. The case was manifestly an urgent one, and the friend bestowed upon him a suit of clothes consisting of a tunic, leather belt, shoes, and a stick. It was very much the kind of costume then worn by the hermits.

From here he started back again to St. Damian's. He stopped on his way to visit a lazar-house, and help in the care of the lepers. He had quite gotten over all his early antipathies, and it was a joy to him now to minister to those poor diseased ones. Probably he would have spent a much longer season here if it were not that again he seemed to hear the same voice calling him to repair the ruined church. So he left the lazar-house and proceeded on his way. He told his friend the priest that he was in no way disappointed or cast down, and that he had good reason to believe that he would be able to accomplish his purpose.

There was only one way in which he could attain this end. Money he had none, neither did he know of anyone who loved G.o.d and His cause well enough to expend a little of their riches in rebuilding His house.

Next day saw him at work. Up and down the streets of his native town he went begging for stones to rebuild St. Damian.

"He who gives me one stone shall receive one blessing, he who gives me two will have two blessings, and he who gives me three, three blessings."

[Sidenote: "_He is quite Mad._"]

The people were unable to do anything at first from pure astonishment. Francis Bernardone, the gay cavalier, the leader of feasts and song, sueing in the streets like a common beggar! They could hardly believe their eyes! "Truly the fellow was mad," they said to each other! But he did not look mad. His smile was as sweet as ever, and the native, polished, courtly manners that had won for him so many friends, now that they were sanctified, were doubly winning.

It was impossible to resist him, and stones were brought him in quant.i.ties. Load after load, interminable loads he bore on his back like a labourer to St. Damian. Up the steep little path he toiled between the grey-green olives, on and into the tangle of cypress and pine, and there stone by stone with his own hands he repaired the crumbling walls. It was a long wearisome toilsome work, and told considerably on his health.

"He is _quite_ mad," reiterated some as the days pa.s.sed from spring to summer, and from summer to autumn and from autumn into winter again.

But there were others who watched him with tears in their eyes. _They_ knew he was not mad. They realized that a great power had changed the once refined man into a servant of all--even the constraining power of the love of Christ, and they shed tears when they thought how far they came short.

The priest of St. Damian's was deeply touched at Francis'