The Spectator at war: A pilgrim in wartime

From ‘A Pilgrim in Wartime’, The Spectator, 10 July 1915:

WITH a heavy bundle on her head, and gathered skirts which swung as she walked, I mistook her for a peasant carrying fodder home to the farm. Then as I saw the cockleshell sewn on to her cape my heart gave a bound. “O Pellegrina, stop and talk to me a while,” I cried. And there on the Fiesole hillside she turned to greet me—a little old woman, erect and agile, with white hair and brown, weather-beaten skin, her poor rough garments clean and neat. At once I felt she could be no ordinary pilgrim, and as I watched her penetrating dark eyes I knew that the Sacred Fire glowed within, giving her a vision of things beyond my reach. While she spoke of nine years of travel throughout the length and breadth of Italy to every shrine of hill and plain, her eyes lit up and her earnest expression softened in a smile.