Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/352

 344 monk who is gentle to him; the younger is suspicious and hostile. And it must be confessed that appearances favour the younger monk's attitude. A nobleman, at whose house the travellers are received, asks them in the morning before leaving to bless his babe. The monks comply graciously; Innocent, on the other hand, secretly stabs it to the heart. At a distance from the house he tells his companions what he has done, and justifies it on the ground that he has saved the parents' souls, to whom their child had become their god. Towards evening they arrive at another country seat, where they are supped; but Innocent refuses to go to bed, and persuades their host to watch and get constables into the house. A similar attempt upon the house to that narrated in the story of Christic is made by robbers, and defeated by our hero's prudence. At the next town the travellers find no house to receive them; and as they are forbidden the inns they are in a difficulty. Innocent solves it by stealing from a goldsmith's shop, and they are all three clapped into prison. At midnight an enemy assails the town, and sets it on fire. The prisoners are, as the youth has predicted, set at liberty; and he forthwith presents himself before the besieging prince and forbids him to destroy the town as he intended. He even with a word withholds the cannons from firing when shot; and the assailants are helpless. All take him for a sorcerer; and the younger monk says in so many words that he and his companion will be fortunate if he do not bring them to the gallows or the stake before reaching Rome. The next adventure is with the frogs. In this case the girl is one of evil life, who has presented herself before the altar in a state of mortal sin, and has put the host into her handkerchief. That very morning she has accidentally dropped it into the pond, where it has been swallowed by a frog; and Innocent hears the other frogs, who have surrounded the first, chanting their Maker's praises. The girl has been stricken blind, deaf and dumb. As they draw near the holy city, birds in a hedge foretell that one of the three shall be pope. The usual conversation occurs: the elder monk promises, if he attain the dignity, to make our hero his foremost cardinal; the other to make him beadle in his cathedral. In the procession Innocent bears a wand from the hedge where the birds sang. All happens as in the story of Christic; and he confers on his