"Oh, Benede!" he exclaimed, recognising Benedetto, "are you here?"
Benedetto begged for a drink of milk, for the love of God!
"You can explain to the monks," said he. "You can say I was exhausted,
and asked for a little milk, for the love of God."
"Yes, yes! It is all right! Take it! Drink!" the man exclaimed, for he
believed Benedetto to be a saint. "And have you passed the night out
here? You were out in all that rain? Good Lord! how wet you are! You are
soaked through like a sponge!" Benedetto drank.
"I thank God," he said, "for your Madness and for the blessing of the
milk."
He embraced the man, and years afterwards the herder, Nazzareno Mercuri,
used to tell that while Benedetto held him in his arms, he, Nazzareno
did not seem to be himself; that his blood first turned to ice and then
to fire; that his heart beat hard, very hard, as it did the first time
he received Christ in the Sacrament; that a terrible headache which
had tormented him for two days suddenly disappeared; that then he had
realised he was in the arms of a saint, a worker of miracles; and that
he had fallen on his knees at his feet! In reality he did not fall on
his knees, but stood as one petrified, and Benedetto had to say twice to
him: "Now go, Nazzareno; go, my dear son.
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