That's why we arranged for you to meet Domenichino in the town."
"Yes; but why Brisighella?
A frontier town is always full of spies."
"Brisighella just now is a capital place.
It's swarming with pilgrims from all parts of the country."
"But it's not on the way to anywhere."
"It's not far out of the way to Rome, and many of the Easter Pilgrims are going round to hear Mass there."
"I d-d-didn't know there was anything special in Brisighella."
"There's the Cardinal.
Don't you remember his going to Florence to preach last December?
It's that same Cardinal Montanelli.
They say he made a great sensation."
"I dare say; I don't go to hear sermons."
"Well, he has the reputation of being a saint, you see."
"How does he manage that?"
"I don't know.
I suppose it's because he gives away all his income, and lives like a parish priest with four or five hundred scudi a year."
"Ah!" interposed the man called Gino; "but it's more than that. He doesn't only give away money; he spends his whole life in looking after the poor, and seeing the sick are properly treated, and hearing complaints and grievances from morning till night.
I'm no fonder of priests than you are, Michele, but Monsignor Montanelli is not like other Cardinals."
"Oh, I dare say he's more fool than knave!" said Michele. "Anyhow, the people are mad after him, and the last new freak is for the pilgrims to go round that way to ask his blessing.
Domenichino thought of going as a pedlar, with a basket of cheap crosses and rosaries.
The people like to buy those things and ask the Cardinal to touch them; then they put them round their babies' necks to keep off the evil eye."
"Wait a minute.
How am I to go--as a pilgrim?
This make-up suits me p-pretty well, I think; but it w-won't do for me to show myself in Brisighella in the same character that I had here; it would be ev-v-vidence against you if I get taken."
"You won't get taken; we have a splendid disguise for you, with a passport and all complete."
"What is it?"
"An old Spanish pilgrim--a repentant brigand from the Sierras.
He fell ill in Ancona last year, and one of our friends took him on board a trading-vessel out of charity, and set him down in Venice, where he had friends, and he left his papers with us to show his gratitude.
They will just do for you."
"A repentant b-b-brigand?
But w-what about the police?"
"Oh, that's all right!
He finished his term of the galleys some years ago, and has been going about to Jerusalem and all sorts of places saving his soul ever since.
He killed his son by mistake for somebody else, and gave himself up to the police in a fit of remorse."
"Was he quite old?"
"Yes; but a white beard and wig will set that right, and the description suits you to perfection in every other respect.
He was an old soldier, with a lame foot and a sabre-cut across the face like yours; and then his being a Spaniard, too-- you see, if you meet any Spanish pilgrims, you can talk to them all right."
"Where am I to meet Domenichino?"
"You join the pilgrims at the cross-road that we will show you on the map, saying you had lost your way in the hills.
Then, when you reach the town, you go with the rest of them into the marketplace, in front of the Cardinal's palace."
"Oh, he manages to live in a p-palace, then, in s-spite of being a saint?"
"He lives in one wing of it, and has turned the rest into a hospital. Well, you all wait there for him to come out and give his benediction, and Domenichino will come up with his basket and say:
"Are you one of the pilgrims, father?" and you answer:
'I am a miserable sinner.'
Then he puts down his basket and wipes his face with his sleeve, and you offer him six soldi for a rosary."
"Then, of course, he arranges where we can talk?"
"Yes; he will have plenty of time to give you the address of the meeting-place while the people are gaping at Montanelli.
That was our plan; but if you don't like it, we can let Domenichino know and arrange something else."
"No; it will do; only see that the beard and wig look natural."