A countryman was going along driving a pig before him. 'Let's have a
bit of fun with that fellow,' said the brother porter of a monastery
to the father guardian, [337] as they saw him coming along the
road. 'I'll call his pig an ass, and of course he'll say it's a pig;
then I shall laugh at him for not knowing better, and he will grow
angry. Then I'll say, "Well, will you have the father guardian to
settle the dispute? and if he decides I'm right I shall keep the beast
for myself." Then you come and say it is an ass, and we'll keep it.'
The father guardian agreed, with a hearty laugh; and as soon as the
countryman came up the brother porter did all as he had arranged.
The countryman was so sure of his case that he willingly submitted
to the arbitration of the father guardian; but great was his dismay
when the father guardian decided against him, and he had to go home
without his pig.
But what did the countryman do? He dressed himself up as a poor girl,
and about nightfall, and a storm coming on, he rang at the bell of
the monastery and entreated the charity of shelter for the night.
'Impossible!' said the brother porter; 'we can't have any womenkind
in here.'
'But the dark, and the storm!' clamoured the pretended girl; 'think
of that. You can't leave me out here all alone.'
'I'm very sorry,' said the porter, 'but the thing's impossible. I
can't do it.'
The good father guardian, hearing the dispute at that unusual hour,
put his head out of the window and asked what it was all about.
'It is a difficult case, brother porter,' he said when he had heard the
girl's request. 'If we take her in we infringe our rule in one way;
if we leave her exposed to every kind of peril we sin against its
spirit in another direction. I only see one way out of it. I can't
send her into any of your cells; but I will let her pass the night
in mine, provided she is content not to undress, and will consent to
sit up in a chair.'
This was exactly what the countryman wanted, therefore he gave a
ready assent, and the father guardian took him up into his cell. The
pretended girl sat up in a chair quietly enough through the dark
of the night, but when morning began to dawn, out came a stick that
had been hidden under the petticoats, and whack, whack [338]--a fine
drubbing the poor father guardian got, to the tune of--'So you think
I don't know a pig from an ass, do you?'
When he had well bruised him all over, the countryman made the best
of his way downstairs, and off and away he was before anyone could
catch him.
The next day what did he do? He dressed up like a doctor, and came
round asking if anyone had any ailments to cure.
'That's just the thing for us,' said the brother porter to himself
as he saw him come by. 'The father guardian was afraid to let the
doctor of the neighbourhood attend him, for fear of the scandal of
all the story coming out; the strange doctor will just do, as there
is no need to tell him anything.'
The countryman in his new disguise, therefore, was taken up to the
father guardian's cell.
'There's nothing very much the matter,' he said when he had examined
the wounds and bruises; 'it might all be set right in a day by a
certain herb,' which he named.
The herb was a difficult one to find, but as it was so important to
get the father guardian cured immediately, before any inquiry should
be raised as to the cause of his sufferings, the whole community set
out to wander over the Campagna in search of it.
As soon as they were a good way off, the pretended doctor took out a
thick stick which he held concealed under his long robe, and whack,
whack--belaboured the poor father guardian more terribly even than
before, to the tune of--'So you think I don't know an ass from a pig,
do you?'
How far soever the brothers were gone, his cries were so piteous
that they recalled them, but not till the countryman had made good
his escape.
'We have sinned, my brethren,' said the father guardian when they were
all gathered round him; 'and I have suffered justly for it. We had no
right to take the man's pig, even for a joke. Let it now, therefore,
be restored to him, and in amends let there be given him along with
it an ass also.'
So the countryman got his pig back, and a donkey into the bargain.