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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/77040-0.txt b/77040-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e49ab75 --- /dev/null +++ b/77040-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3169 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77040 *** + + +[Illustration] + + + + +_LE SELVE_ + + + + +_UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME._ + +=A Gender in Satin.= By RITA. + +=The Making of Mary.= By JEAN FORSYTH. + +=Diana’s Hunting.= By R. BUCHANAN. + +=Sir Quixote of the Moors.= By JOHN BUCHAN. + +=Dreams.= By OLIVE SCHREINER. _6th Edition._ + +=The Honour of the Flag and other Stories.= By W. CLARK RUSSELL. + + + + + Le Selve + + BY + OUIDA + + LONDON + T. FISHER UNWIN + 1896 + + + + + COPYRIGHT BY T. FISHER UNWIN, 1896 + (_for Great Britain_). + + COPYRIGHT BY + BACHELLER, JOHNSON & BACHELLER + (_for the United States of America_). + + + + +_Le Selve._ + + + + +I. + + +It was a cold black night, with neither moon or stars, and an old +peasant lay dying. He was all alone. No one thought it worth while to +waste time beside him. He was eighty-three years old, and, according to +his sons, ought to have been dead long before this autumn. + +They and their families sat round a fire of logs and chips, and talked +amongst themselves; not of him, he was no more of any account. On the +morrow, or at farthest the day after, he would be carried to the ditch +in the burial-ground at the nearest village and tumbled into it; and +so--_Addio per sempre_. It would be trouble enough to take him there; +the graveyard was fifteen miles and more away. + +The big room, which was kitchen, eating-place, and cellar in one, was +reeking with filth; cobwebs years old hung black and gray from the +rafters; the floor of beaten earth was deep with the dust and mud +brought by scores of dirty feet; the smoke from the yawning chimney +hung in dark mist about the walls. Upstairs there was no fire. Why +waste good fuel in warming cold limbs, cold from age and death? + +“I am cold, I am cold!” muttered the old man; but no one heeded. Of +course he was cold; people who were dying always were so. He shivered +and shook under his cotton coverlet; and it was dark, so dark, they had +left him no light; light burns oil, and what could he see or hope to +see? His eyes were already glazing. + +“Lazzaro got a whole crown for those turkeys which died of the pip,” +said his elder son in the kitchen below, stretching his hands towards +the blaze. Lazzaro was a neighbour who dwelt on a clearing, and made +cask-hoops and wooden shoes. + +“Some folks have luck,” said his son’s wife as she gave her left breast +to her youngest child who stood at her knee. Then they were silent, +and the man cracked a nut with his teeth. The wood crackled, the child +sucked, some big boys gambled with plum-stones for counters on the +dirty bricks, a girl of twelve years old caught a cricket amongst +the ashes, and pulled it in a leisurely way to pieces; two smaller +children, twins, watching enviously and with deep interest. + +“The northern birds went overhead at noon,” said the younger brother +Lucio after a time. + +“Damn them! they fly too high to be shot,” said the elder, Alcide. + +“They were all in a black three-sided mass,” said the younger. + +“They always fly like that,” said the elder. “They’re a shrewd lot, +those big birds.” + +“How they keep time! ’tis amazing,” said Lucio. “Come regular with the +first frost and go regular when the catkins peer out on the sallows.” + +Then silence fell again between them. + +The fire burnt more silently and more hotly; the woman put her child +away from her, and thrust her breast back behind the iron busk of her +stays; the twins fell asleep leaning against each other. The boys +gambling with the plum-stones swore and struck at each other. From +between the rafters overhead the sound of a low groan was heard now +and then, and the elder son muttered, with many an oath, “Can’t ye be +quiet, old one?” + +Time went on. They had no watch or clock, but they could tell that an +hour had passed by the look of the burning wood. There was a louder +sound as of lamentation from the room above. Alcide got up and went to +the foot of the wooden stair. + +“Hold your jaw, old one!” he shouted. “Can’t you die in a quiet way? +You’ve lived a deal too long as it is.” + +One small boy nudged his twin brother. “Grandfather’s dying,” he +whispered with glee, and the two little creatures chuckled together. +There would be one mouth the less for the polenta, one throat the less +for the rare thin wine; the tic-tac of his stick on the stones would no +longer come after them when they were truant, the stroke of his crutch +would no longer make their shoulder-blades tingle when he caught them +stealing, the sound of his voice on the stairs would no longer wake +them up out of warm slumber amongst the straw and lumber on black +winter mornings when the cows were lowing to be milked. + +Grandfather had been so long to be feared, it was delightful to them to +hear him soundly rated, now that he could not get up and come down with +his ash-stick raised. + +“Grandfather’s dying,” they said to each other for the twentieth time +with glee, as the ruddy lights from the blazing billets shone on their +little unwashed brown faces. + +“’Tis time we ate something,” said the woman, and she unhooked the pot +hanging on a chain over the fire, and poured the contents out into an +earthenware bowl. It was bean-soup, strongly flavoured with lentils and +fennel; it was turned into pewter plates and supped up noisily with +wooden spoons; pieces of black bread were wrenched off a loaf and eaten +with it. They fed as ravenously as pigs, and with less cleanliness. +Just as they finished a sound of knocking was heard at the door of the +house, which was bolted and barred. + +“Who’s there?” shouted Alcide. + +“It is I,” answered a voice with a foreign accent. + +“’Tis the new steward, perdition seize him!” said Alcide, and he strode +across the bricks and drew back the bolts. “What’s amiss that you +honour us at this time of night, sir?” he said sullenly to the person +who stood on the step holding a horse’s bridle. + +“There is much amiss here, they say,” replied the new-comer. “Is it +true that your father, Adamo, is dying?” + +“What’s that to anyone?” said Alcide, unwillingly. “Folk usually die +when they get nigh ninety.” + +The tone was half jocose, half sullen. The visitor in silence led his +horse over the step into the entrance, hung the bridle on a nail in the +wall, closed the door and said to Alcide: + +“Take me to him.” + +He was a fair man, tall, slender and young. + +All the family gathered near to stare at him. + +“There is nothing to see, sir,” muttered Alcide. “He’s as good as dead.” + +“What doctor have you?” + +“There is no such thing in these parts for forty miles or more.” + +“Do you mean the Commune has no medical aid?” + +“Safe and sure, it hasn’t.” + +“Take me to him; I know something of medicine.” + +They were all silent, vaguely frightened and ashamed. The woman nudged +Alcide. + +“Best take the gentleman upstairs to poor Nonno, though he’s past all +help.” + +And she forced a little water into her eyes and gave a little sob. + +Alcide took the one light off the table and tramped up the steep rotten +stair. + +“What a piece of work about a dead greybeard!” he muttered. “When +they’re past labour they’re best gone. You don’t leave a sere tree +standing to cumber the ground.” + +He pushed open a ricketty, worm-eaten door, and the feeble oil wick +shed a dim flickering light on the miserable room, where all was +silence. The steward took the lamp from him, and went up to the bed of +sacking and dry leaves, of which the odours were foul as a dung-heap. +On it lay a gaunt old man’s lifeless body. The old tree was down; it +cumbered the soil no more. + +The steward examined the body. It was still warm, but life was extinct; +the jaw had dropped; one clenched lean hand was knotted in the white +beard. + +“You have let him die alone!” said the young man with indignation and +horror. + +Alcide grinned, showing his strong white teeth. + +“Dying’s the only thing nobody grudges our doing,” he said with +unabashed indifference. “What would you, sir? We work all day. We can’t +wait on sick souls all night.” + +“May the measure you have served to your father be served to you by +your sons!” + +“Thank you, sir. Thank you kindly,” answered Alcide, which is the +peasant’s synonym for “I will pay you out for that before long.” + +“It is frightful! Incredible!” murmured the young man. “You knew he +was dying, and you left him alone, without even a drop of water by his +side!” + +“He had his coffin to keep him company,” said Alcide, with a gruesome +grin. “Some have to go naked into the earth.” + +He pointed to a corner in which a box, roughly made from unplaned +planks, was leaning against the wall. + +“Hush!” said the steward with authority. “Have you no sense of +shame?--no feeling?--no remorse?” + +“I have done nothing wrong, sir,” said Alcide sullenly. “I didn’t kill +him. Old age killed him.” + +“And neglect!” + +Alcide shrugged his shoulders. Whether you hindered or hastened the +death of a man so aged and so useless could not matter much, he +thought; the deceased was eighty-three years of age, and had long been +a burden to everybody. + +“It’s more than ten years that he’s not done a stroke of work,” he +replied sullenly, “and yet he expected his share in the polenta and +the broth, just for all the world as if he’d earned it. When they get +childish, they get unreasonable like children. Many’s the time I’ve +said to him, ‘Why aren’t you underground, father?’ We ought to be +allowed to put them there when their time’s come, and they won’t go in +the course of nature.” + +The steward turned from him in disgust and pain, and rested his gaze on +the old, worn, rugged form lying on its bed of sacking. + +About the doorway, peeping and curious, the children were gathered. + +“Is it all over?” said their mother with a whine. + +“It is all over indeed!” said the steward gravely, and with a flash of +loathing in his blue eyes. “You will learn what he suffered when you +lie on your own death-bed. I came as soon as I heard of it. Why could +you not even let me know?” + +They tittered in concert: men, women, boys, and girls. What a fuss +about old Nonno! But, of course, this young man was a foreigner, and +that was as good as saying he was a fool. Did he not want dogs fed, +and cows kept clean? Did he not say men should wash their bodies and +women should not swaddle their children? Was he not a new-comer, an +interloper, a meddler, a stranger from nobody knew where? + +Alcide’s wife, however, had the wit to see that they were on the wrong +tack. + +“Good sir,” she said, with tears in her voice, “we have done what we +could, but you know we are poor, poor, poor; and now there will be no +end of money to find for the burial, and we ought to be allowed to +scratch a hole and put him in the woods, but you know the powers that +be won’t let us, and we have to carry him all the way to San Vitale, +and we must borrow a neighbour’s mule, and when we get there pay all +the church and graveyard dues, and sacristans and sextons--they live +like carrion flies getting fat on corpses----” + +“Hold your tongue, you idiot!” said her husband. “For sure the +Ministro here will help us through all these troubles. He knows how +poor we are. Not a bit of bread sometimes all the twenty-four hours +through.” + +“I will send here early in the forenoon, and will do all that is +necessary,” said the steward. “Let your women folk cleanse and clothe +the body, and watch by it through the night. You may be poor, but +poverty need not be brutality, and you--you would make the wolves of +the steppes seem beside you like angels of mercy.” + +His words were unintelligible to his auditors; but they understood that +he was offended and disgusted with them. They did not care a jot for +his opinion, but they cared much for his purse. Without even a glance +at them, he made the sign of the cross reverently on the brow and +breast of the corpse, and in silence went out of the garret; took the +bridle from the nail on the wall, led his horse out over the doorstep, +and vaulted into the saddle. + +“Not even a copper piece has he left behind him!” moaned the woman. + +Alcide stood on the threshold, and watched the form of the horseman +vanishing into the blackness under the trees. He made a gesture as of +lifting an imaginary gun to his shoulder and pointing it. “Eh?” he said +to his brother Lucio. + +Lucio, who was of a slower and weaker temperament, scratched his head. + +“I don’t say no,” he answered; “but it’s always a dangerous game to +play at, ’Cide.” + +“Pooh!” said Alcide. “The woods are good friends; they never prate. But +one can wait. Perhaps we shall get something out of him to-morrow.” + +“Anyhow, he is gone now,” said Lucio, as the sound of the horse’s +hoofs grew faint on the wet moss of the forest road. + +The young steward rode through them this dark night very slowly, for +the road was bad, and his horse, though well used to such work, felt +each step carefully, and sometimes whinnied with fear as an owl flew +past or a pole-cat rushed across the path. + +But even in this cautious passage through the almost impenetrable gloom +he nearly trampled on a woman who stood in his way and cried to him to +stop. He checked his horse, just in time to avoid collision, and the +animal’s nostrils brushed the woman’s head. + +He could see nothing of her except the shine of two great eyes as he +struck a match in front of her. + +“It is I, Muriella!” she said quickly. “Is he dead, sir?” + +“Yes; your grandfather is dead,” he answered gravely, “and he died +alone and unaided as I would not let a sick steer die.” + +“Gone without the holy oil? Gone without shrive?--O Christ, help us!” +she said in a voice of awe. + +“He died as I would not let a sick steer die,” repeated the rider. + +“I had been to fetch the vicar of San Vitale,” she added; “’twas the +nearest; but he was away, and the sacristan said he would not be back +for two days.” + +“Could you not have gone by preference for a doctor?” + +“No; there is nobody who would pay, and, besides, one must go to +Ronciglione, twenty-five miles away, and the doctor there would refuse, +for he has nought to do with us. To be sure, there is an apothecary at +San Vitale, but he would have to be paid, and who amongst us could pay +him?” + +“This is shocking! A whole commune without medical aid!” + +“I am more sorry he is gone unshriven,” she said with regret. “But +perhaps--up yonder--somebody will see to it, and say a good word for +him. I did what I could, sir; those above must see to the rest.” + +The young man sighed: the nothingness, the blankness, the horror of +death weighed on him. He saw that she had some vague, shapeless hope +which solaced her; and he forbore to disturb it. + +She put her hand on the saddle-bow and reached up nearer to him. + +“Don’t ride alone at night like this,” she whispered. “Knives are sharp +amongst us if guns be rusty.” + +“I am armed,” he answered briefly. + +He felt rather than saw that she gave an impatient gesture. + +“What serves it to be armed?” she answered. “They know the lay of the +lands and the ways of the woods better than you, and they will follow +you some night when it is dark like this, and you will know nothing +till you fall on your beast’s neck, or back on his crupper, as it may +be.” + +“I do my best by the people. If they please to pay me so, they must,” +he replied. “Good-night. You mean well. Thanks.” + +She drew back in silence, discouraged, to let the impatient horse and +his rider go onward. + + + + +II. + + +These estates, known generally as Le Selve, were vast tracts of forest +and pasture land lying along and beyond the Mons Ciminius, between the +lakes of Bracciano and of Vico. They were of immeasurable antiquity, +but had for more than a century been ill preserved, and much robbed +and desecrated. Their timber was chiefly oak, ilex, and pine, with +occasional groups of silver birch; their undergrowth was of arbutus, +myrtle, bay, privet, and box, with much broom and heather. They covered +many miles, and were the property of a Roman nobleman, and had within +them oaks which might have seen the litters of Poppea and Faustina +pass. In later times they had belonged to the Countess Matilda, and had +been given by her to the Popes with the rest of her superb bequest. +Here and there in them was a farm, a water-mill, a charcoal burner’s +hut, patches of semi-cultivation due to squatters; but these were very +few and isolated. For the most part the woods were little altered since +the days of the Cæsars; wholly unaltered since the days of the Farnese +and the Borgia. + +An old hunting-palace, which was now given up to the use of underlings, +stood in the centre of the woods, the only large house in them, a +gray stone building of the fifteenth century, which had once been a +favourite retreat of the sporting cardinal from whom the Gandolfo had +inherited this property. Around it were level grasslands, bordered by +low granite balustrades, with colossal stone hounds seated on the +coping; and, immediately beyond, the great woods began, enclosing the +grassy squares with walls of foliage which were pierced at intervals by +narrow avenues or drives; in full view of the front terraces rose the +peaks of the Sabine mountains; from the back were visible very far off +Monte Amiata and the Cetona range. + +It was a distance of five miles and more to this dwelling, and it +was long past midnight when the young steward rode in at the gates. +The stablemen and guards of the place ran to take his horse. But +he followed the animal, and saw it safe in stall before he himself +entered the house, and felt the warmth of the oak logs burning on +an open hearth in the great vaulted hall of which he made his chief +sitting-room. + +“Sir, why will you be out so late?” said an old woman, who was the +_Massajà_ or housekeeper of the place, omnipotent over its womenkind +and its stores. “The woods are not as safe as a city street, and even +in the towns it’s ill being out alone after midnight. Daggers are +quickly whipped out; and pistols bark and bite both.” + +“My good Caterina,” he answered wearily, “what have I done that anyone +should want my life? Money, as they know, I never carry.” + +“So best,” said the old woman. “As for what you’ve done, sir, you’re +put in power here, and you’re a stranger. That’s crime enough.” + +He did not answer, but stood a moment or two in silence in the warmth +of the hearth. + +“You are from the North,” she added. “That’s bad enough.” + +“North or South, what matter. Have we not a common humanity?” + +Caterina shook her head. + +“You mean well; but you are from the North.” + +The argument seemed to her unanswerable. To him it seemed ridiculous; +but he saw that it was one of these ideas based on prejudice, +ignorance, and superstition, which are infinitely more tenacious and +hard to uproot than the strongest opinions founded on reason. + +“Your woodlanders are great ruffians, I fear, Caterina,” he said after +a pause. + +“They are not lambs, sir,” said the old woman curtly. + +“The old man was dead when I reached the place, and they had let him +die all alone.” + +“They don’t waste their time on sick folks, sir; and old ones, when +they have naught to leave, have no friends. Won’t you come to table?” + +“Is it true that there is no doctor in the whole district?” + +“I never heard of one, sir.” + +“What do the people do when they are ill?” + +“Well, sir, they die or get well, as Heaven pleases. But there are wise +women who know a good deal of herbs and magic, and there is a hermit +who sells charms up by the Sasso Scritto, that bald peak which you +see from the back door here. I bought a ring of him to keep my blood +flowing straight; here it is; look; I have never ailed a minute since I +wore it!” + +“Are we in the last years of the nineteenth century?” + +Caterina did not reply. She knew nothing about centuries, their +numeration or civilization. + +She drew his attention to the supper-table, which she had laden with +good things, or what she thought were good. But he had no appetite. +He drank a cup of coffee, and told her to go to bed. He said he felt +no desire to sleep. His heart was heavy with its own sorrows, and +his mind was oppressed by a fear that he had undertaken a task which +was beyond his strength. “You cannot wash a blackamoor white,” says a +homely proverb; and he began to perceive that those whom he desired +to cleanse were very black indeed. He knew that all the acts which in +moral codes are called thefts, arson, contraband, fraud, were merely +sport in their eyes, and that even murder appeared to almost all of +them a wholly natural and legitimate way of settling old scores and +redressing uneven balances, whilst to cheat the revenue, to defraud the +landlord, to weave a dramatic coil of lies, and to poach, purloin, and +plunder as occasion served, seemed to them all the mere playful pastime +of summer eve and winter dawn, simple as the frisking of young leverets +on a sward. + +He was a Russian of Esthonia, a noble, and an officer of the Imperial +Guard; he had been merely a man of pleasure, until he had been +impressed and converted by Tolstoi and other humanitarians. Then the +zeal of his reformation as shown in his acts and his words had led +to condemnation by his military superiors; he had been cashiered, +arrested, and accused of Nihilism; he had been found guilty of +subversive doctrines and collectivist opinions; the influence of his +own powerful family, and others with which he was connected had been +of no avail to save him; he had been condemned to the mines of Siberia +for life, and his estates confiscated by the court-martial before +which he had been brought up for judgment; he had escaped from the +fortress in which he was confined before he was taken to the mines, +and in disguise, and by the help of some of his late comrades, had got +across the frontier and across Germany. When, penniless and famished, +he had chanced to meet in Brussels a friend of earlier years, Alfonso +Gandolfo, that gay and generous prince could induce him to accept +nothing, not even a dinner or a cigar, but at length offered him the +stewardship of the estates of Le Selve, and succeeded with difficulty +in persuading him that in this homely and obscure post he could do +good, and more than earn his maintenance. + +“We have been ill served,” said the Roman gentleman; “we have been +the prey of a series of scoundrels; if you can put down the perpetual +thefts, and protect the timber in some degree, my father and I shall be +infinitely grateful.” + +He was not deceived by the kindly courtesy of the terms in which the +offer was made, but at last was induced to yield to it; he saw that in +the seclusion of these great neglected forests he would be able to +hide his own identity in safety from the world; and he had been now +eighteen months in the woodlands, regarded by the country people as +a mere agent of their lords, and known only by his baptismal name of +Cyrille, called by the forest-folks Cirillo. + +Fortunately for himself, he had learned the language when a youth from +a tutor, who had translated the “Divina Commedia” into German, and wide +as is the gulf between the Italian of scholars and the dialects of +the provinces, he had the facility of his nation in acquiring foreign +tongues, and quickly adapted himself to the idiom of the people of the +forest. + +He was intensely unhappy; he was separated from all he had known +and loved from birth; he had lost everything he had possessed and +cherished, and brave men have killed themselves for sorrows less than +his; but the active and open-air life saved him from falling into +despondency or ill health, and he earnestly occupied himself with +the condition of the peasants and the interest of the proprietors. +He had received unlimited powers from the Gandolfo princes, in whose +vast estates these woods in all their antiquity and extent were but a +mere patch of verdure never visited. To a man, exiled, ruined, with a +price set on his head in his own country, and with his heart aching +ceaselessly for all he had left for ever, it was a welcome solitude, +a blessed, a thrice-blessed sanctuary. Sometimes he thought he was +already dead and in the Elysian fields, so profound was the silence, so +sweet the air, so spiritual the green light under the trees. + +When the woodlanders climbed the summits of the colossal pines to +gather the ripe cones, they could see if they cared to look, and if +the day were clear, a glistening ray of gold, a shining band of +silver, and the one was the cross of St Peter’s and the other was the +Tyrhemian Sea. To them these said nothing; vaguely they knew that Rome +was the throne of the Viceroy of God, whence sins were remitted and +life eternal was given, but of the sea they had never heard, though the +light of the Pharos of Palo was visible on clear nights from the higher +ground of their forest. But to Cyrille, when he mounted into the high +pine-tops or climbed the crumbling stair of an old watch-tower, to gaze +from its roof over the vast verdure of these woods westward that speck +of sunlit gold, that streak of sparkling light spoke, as they must +ever speak so long as earth and sea shall last, to the scholar and the +student. + +Only one highway traversed Le Selve, one which ran crosswise, and +met the old coaching road which goes still, although scarcely ever +used except by muleteers and peasantry, from Viterbo by Ronciglione, +and Sutri to La Storta, and on to Rome itself; a road once the great +artery of life between the Patrimonium Petri and the cities of Umbria, +of Tuscany, and of Lombardy, a road once crowded by pilgrims of all +nations; by the pomp of travelling cardinals, by the litter and +lacqueys of regal women, by the strings of sumpter mules, the massed +multitudes of armed horsemen, the straggling hordes of camp followers, +the splendid retinue of Prince and Nuncio. Now, some dusty public +vehicle, painfully drawn by blown and raw-boned horses, some string of +charcoal-bearing asses, some long line of timber-wagons drawn by great +white oxen, red-eyed, yoke-burdened, with heavy flanks and parching +tongues, are all that the once great highway sees. + +But a past of more than two thousand years is touched at every step +in these heather-covered lands, a past which makes the Borgia, the +Farnese, the Medici, seem but as mere parvenues of a near hour. +In the rocks are the sculptured tombs of a perished race; and the +faithful soil holds the vanished nation’s arts and letters, and keeps +their secrets which no living man can read. When he reached those +loftiest summits where the wild doves and their foes the falcons +made their nests, the whole panorama of what had once been Etruria +and Latium was outstretched beneath him, and in the deep green light +of the thick-woven branches he could read his Horace, his Strabo, +his Marcus Aurelius, while, from far down below, the humble music of +the belled flocks rose faintly to his ear in a gentle rhythm which +has never ceased there through thrice a thousand years. And that +resigned sadness which succeeds despair came to him in that sense of +unceasing sorrow, of endless succession of creation and annihilation +of which such a scene must ever speak to those who look upon it with +the eyes which see, and with the ears which hear. He realised his +own infinitesimal nothingness, the infinite beauty and the infinite +ruthlessness of nature, and he seemed to hear, not the passing of the +browsing flocks over the grass below, but the passage of the multitudes +hurrying on their course from the womb to the grave, each runner +passing the torch from his dying hand to the living hand of the runner +who follows him in that fine figure which Lucretius has made immortal. + +But in these Elysian Fields there were rude realities, and his +conscience, which was sensitive, never allowed him to evade them. He +was there, not to steep his soul in poppied rest, but to serve the +interests of his employers and of the lands and people committed to his +charge. + +Within the forest there were remains of rock-dwellings and of Etruscan +tombs; he would willingly have consecrated his years to their +exploration, and led such a life here as Avvolto of Corneto and the +Campanari of Toscanelli had led amidst the sepulchres of a vanished +race. + +He would willingly have spent all his time searching in the soil for +relics such as were at times found by the peasantry, but his duties +allowed him no such leisure. He took those duties to heart with the +conscientious seriousness of temper which had changed him from an +officer of the palace guard to a political reformer, and had exiled him +from all which he held dear. + +The Gandolfo princes would have been the first to smile at such a +view of a steward’s duties; but to Cyrille the obligation was a +law of honour. They gave him shelter, food, and wage; he laboured +unremittingly in their service. If none were grateful to him he did not +complain; greater than he had served mankind, and only been beaten with +the rods of the world’s ingratitude in return. + +There were small, very poor, holdings here and there, scattered many +miles one from another on patches of more or less cultivated ground. +And in earlier times some wanderer turned adrift by fire or sword, some +criminal fleeing from pursuit, or some nomad tired of roaming had made +a hut of boughs, and called the spot their own; and in the peasantry +living on and by these clearings, the new-comer found his greatest +enemies and his greatest anxieties. Long years of license and centuries +of occupation had made these sons of the soil look on it as their own; +indeed, in a manner, the Latin law confirmed their title, and plunder +had become with them a right divine. All his natural sympathies were +with the poor, and the creeds of his teacher held them excusable in +all errors, and these people were very poor indeed, but their cynical +dishonesty revolted him, and their habitual insubordination met and +thwarted him at every turn. They cringed to him to his face, but +cheated him and mocked at him behind his back. He was sensible of it, +and it strained his patience sorely. + +The ancestors of Alcide and Lucio had been squatters in these solitudes +for centuries. They paid a nominal rental in kind and in labour, and +did what they liked on their bit of clearing. This labour had been but +seldom required, and their payment generally excused; generation after +generation had lived in this way, and in earlier times the men of the +family had gone with their lord to battle, and the blood which they had +shed had been esteemed rent enough for their land. + +But now that times had changed, and there was no war service except +conscription, they had become averse to paying any rental at all, and +looked not only on their holding as their own, but on the timber, the +grass, the heather, the rushes, and all that was around them as their +own. When they tilled their small croft, they worked for their own +benefit, but grumbled even at doing that. They were brigands in blood +and instinct. The first of their forefathers who had settled there had +been a refugee from justice for the robbing and murder of a priest in +Rome; and they were never at ease save when thieving. + +They had no notion of time or of its reckonings; but they declared +that their family was as old as the woods themselves, and there was +nothing to disprove their assertions. They were, in reality, not +more than squatters, as their forefathers had been; but they thought +themselves the lawful lords of the soil. They would cringe and beg, +and even work when it suited them, but they had the old scornful Roman +pride in their veins, and vowed vengeance on any who offended it. The +woods might be the Gandolfo’s or the Pope’s for aught they cared; they +laid their hands on everything they wanted. + +There were not more than a dozen such families scattered over the fifty +miles of forest; but every one of these was against the foreigner; +would have been equally against him whatever he might have done, if he +had been St Michael’s self, as Caterina and Muriella sometimes thought +that he was. They had always been poor, but they had enjoyed thieving, +drinking, reiving, sinning as they chose. He wished to make them less +poor, but he strove also to make them more honest. They did not want +to learn thrift, or cleanliness, or common sense. They only wanted to +be filthy, and lazy, and corrupt, and thievish, in the immemorial way +transmitted from their fathers. They wanted no new-fangled virtues. Any +wrong they did, such as kniving a neighbour or lifting a calf, was put +up in a bundle, as they put up weeds to burn, and was thrust away till +Easter, when the priest washed it clean, as once a year their women +washed their shirts in running water. That was the use of priests and +women. + +To the people of this volcanic and historic soil the new-comer, +Il Ministro as he was called, was accursed as ‘the northerner’: a +northerner whether from Bologna or Milano, whether from Russia or +Poland, made no difference to them; they did not know one of those +names from another; everybody at the back of their mountains beyond the +barrier of Monte Amiata sent the snow, and the bad winds, and meant +the North to them. He was like a bad wind to them. The very good-will +which he bore them was more offence than would have seemed to them his +enmity, since the latter they would have understood; the former seemed +to them only a deep-laid duplicity to entrap them to their ruin. + +There had been various agents of the Gandolfi there since that +memorable day a hundred years before when the cavalry of Murat had +encamped in Le Selve; a day that was still talked of over the oak logs +in winter evenings as freshly as though it had been last winter. They +had been men who had cheated their lords and wrung blood out of a post, +but just because they had been thieves and hypocrites, they had winked +at many evil deeds, and had never interfered with the ways and beliefs, +the robberies and stabbings, the family feuds and drunken brawls of the +country people. It had been their interest to shut their eyes to all +which did not concern the fillings of their own leathern money-bags, +and nod in mute condonation; and they had done so. + +One of them, indeed, had been shot dead as he stood at his bedroom +window with the moonlight full upon him; and another had been knived +as he had ridden home from a fair; but on the whole they had been +let alone and not disliked. They had been men of the province, _dei +nostri_; and that fact covers a multitude of sins. + +No one of these stewards would have gone to see the old peasant on +his death-bed, and made a fuss about his being left alone, and have +accompanied his corpse to its burial. They would have sent a barrel of +good wine to the survivors to make merry with after the funeral, and +would never have asked where the body was buried or what respect had +been shown to it. + +Moreover, they had been men of the people, who had known at most +bookkeeping by double entry, and something of cattle and forestry; +this northerner talked of trees and plants as though they were living +creatures with wills of their own; pretended that the roots of an oak +corresponded in size and shape with its branches, that its leaves were +its lungs, and all sorts of similar trash; he was never drunk, he +never swore, he kissed his horse on the forehead, he bathed in running +streams, he never made love to their daughters, he wanted to open a +school for the woodlanders’ children, and he had heathenish books +and devilish instruments in his rooms of which they caught appalling +glimpses. His employers had sent him a compass, a chronometer, an +aneroid, and a telescope with some globes and atlases from Rome, and +even his friend Caterina, who in a year and a half had grown to believe +him a harmless and even lovable person, could not see these objects +without horror, and she had begged to be allowed to bring over the +vicar from San Vitale to exorcise them. + +She was a stout, good-natured, handsome, old woman, who had been born +on the Gandolfo lands, and had lived on them all her life; a good cook +in her own limited, coarse fashion, and a bustling, spirited directress +of the lads and lasses about the house. + +“You fash yourself for nought, sir,” she said often to Cyrille. “Our +folks are as Nature made them: you will never alter them. They think +their own ways best, and they see no harm in a knife or a musket-shot +when there is any score to be wiped out. They will never listen to +you, not if you’re here fifty years.” + +“They will come to understand me in time,” he said to himself; but +there are some things which even time cannot touch, and amongst these +things are many human hearts. In appealing to their indulgence or to +their gratitude, or to their intelligence, he appealed to qualities +which did not exist. + +When he had taken his coffee he sat on, beside the fire, instead of +going to bed, a bad habit as he knew; but he had been a _viveur_ in the +fashionable clubs of S. Petersburg, and used to turn night into day; he +seldom did so now, for his days were laborious, and he kept labourer’s +hours usually. He looked into the wide hearth and on to the red-hot oak +logs and the crimson ashes, and in them he saw faces dear to him, on +which his eyes would probably never look again--one face most often +of all, fair, pale, proud, tender, with the gleam of diamonds in the +hair and at the throat; a woman who loved him and whom he loved--a +woman who was not his. Where was she this night? It was past midnight +now in Russia as here in Latium. Was she, as he had so often seen her, +the sought of all courtiers at some imperial ball? Was she present at +some ice fête on some frozen arm of the Neva, in the light of a million +torches, with the waltz music of Strauss throbbing on her ear? + +Anyhow, everywhere, forever, he felt that she was dead to him. + + + + +III. + + +The old man was buried next day, the steward lending the mules and the +cart; Lucio alone accompanied the coffin, grumbling at the injustice of +his brother in putting every disagreeable task upon his shoulders. Why +trouble about a dead man more than about a dead fox? Why not tumble out +the deal box into the nearest ditch? + +At a turn in the road a horse crossed their path. The rider was Cyrille. + +“I will come with you,” he said, “and discharge the fees.” He knew +that if left to himself, Lucio, were he trusted with the money, would +probably toss the coffin into the first ravine which was deep enough +to tell no tales. + +“No need to fatigue yourself so, sir,” said Lucio, greatly +disconcerted. “If you be good enough to wish to pay the burying you can +give me the money. There is no need for you to fag yourself coming to +the town.” + +“I will go with you,” said Cyrille, knowing that the money, if it left +his hands, would never reach the graveyard. + +Lucio cursed him silently for a suspicious, obstinate, niggardly, +foreign brute. “Spies on us even when we are nought but a carcass,” he +thought, where he sat at the coffin head, cracking nuts to beguile the +way. Did no one else pitch their dead into ditches? What matter was +it to this white-faced stranger if the old worn-out body were tumbled +amongst the weeds and toads at the bottom of a gully? And how did the +stranger know that it had been in Lucio’s mind to do away with it so, +and to sell the cart and mules somewhere far away, and come back on +foot, all tattered and torn, with a well-told tale of robbery and a +bare escape with life? + +“Damn him! he sees through the bones of one’s head what one is +thinking,” said the man to himself. The scheme had been ingenious and +feasible; it had been planned by Alcide; and now in addition to the +disappointment of not carrying it out, Lucio had the dread of his +elder’s fury when he should return home, having done nothing better +than to really bury the coffin, and return the mules to their stables. + +Cyrille, who suspected nothing worse than a possible misuse of the +church fees, had no idea of the schemes which his presence defeated as +he rode on towards the confines of the wood where the high-road passed +which led to the dreary, small, walled place, now scarce more than a +village, although it had been a stronghold of the Popes in the tenth +and eleventh centuries. + +“Would the body not do just as well left to itself in the woods?” +muttered Lucio, as he gave the wooden box a sullen kick. + +“Yes,” replied Cyrille; “and I should like my own body, when I die, +to be laid down under a tree, and left there. But your law and your +religion bid you bury your dead, and bury them as they command. You can +only obey.” + +Lucio grumbled inaudibly. For the law he had contempt and hatred, but +for religion a dull pagan awe; such as in old Etruscan and Latin days, +under these same forest glades, rude men had felt for the terrors of +the gods. + +The little borgo of San Vitale, to which they were bound, stood +aloft, looking to the east to Palestrina and Monte Albano. The soil +immediately beneath was honeycombed by ancient sepulchres and volcanic +fissures; and from a small lake mephitic vapours rose; the hill was +barren of vegetation; the walls looked like worm-eaten wood, its towers +were in dusty ruin; it resembled a seagull’s nest, which, moth-eaten +and cobweb-covered, crumbles away in a naturalist’s closet. + +Clouds hung about its hillsides, and the air was heavy and cold. The +few people in its narrow street were ragged, miserable, lean. Their +black eyes stared at the mule and its burden with apathy. Their +stomachs were empty, their hearts were hard; they were half dead +themselves; some famished sheep snatched at the grass growing between +the stones; a woman plucked a living pigeon for the priest’s dinner; +thirsty dogs lapped foul waters in the gutter, the sacristan came out +of an arched door in a cloister: was he called for baptism or burial? +The latter? Very well. He had put in three dead that morning. There +was room for a fourth a-top of them. How long were the coffins left in +the ditch? Oh, a year or so. Then the wood split; he mixed the bones +together and put them in a heap. A man in Rome came up and bought these +heaps at intervals; he believed they were ground, and used for making +pastes, or paper, or bread; he was not sure; it was no business of his +what they were turned to; he would call the Priore who was acting in +the absence of his Reverence. + +Then he unlocked an iron gate, and showed a dreary enclosed square of +rough brown turf, in which a few iron crosses, and hundreds of sticks +nailed crosswise, were standing in many rows. A tethered kid was trying +to browse, and hurting its tender mouth on the sere stalks. Across the +ground ran two diagonal ditches always marked by freshly-piled lumps of +earth; these were the resting-places of those who were poorest, where +all were poor. + +The figure of a woman was standing there. + +It was that of the dead man’s granddaughter Muriella. + +Muriella Stravolta was a niece of Alcide and Lucio by an older brother, +deceased, who had served in the army, and lived afterwards at Viterbo. +She lived with the family and worked with them, rather because it never +occurred to her that she could go elsewhere than from any welcome she +got from them, or any attachment on either side. She was twenty-two +years old, with one of those faces which have the old Latin beauty, and +one of those fine forms so common in a country where the females walk +barefoot and carry their water vases on their heads, and are erect and +strong and supple as the young pines of the mountain side. She worked +hard, she lived poorly, she seldom heard a kind word; but her uncles +and their wives respected her; she had a strong arm and an eye which +could plunge its rays into a sinful soul and read the secrets thereof. +She always carried a long slim knife in her stays, and she knew how to +use it. + +She wore a rough dark skirt and crimson bodice, and a white cloth +folded on her head in the manner of the Agro Romano; the clothes were +poor and torn in places, and showed her skin, which was of a clear +pale brown; her brows were level and dark, her eyes black as a stormy +night, and her mouth was red as any scarlet berry of the spindle-tree +in October. She had wooers as many as a population scattered far and +wide afforded; but no one of them ever had more from her than a curt +salute or a brisk “begone.” She knew what it was to bear children for +poor men, whether in wedlock or outside it, and she was in no haste to +eat “the sweet fruit with the bitter stone.” + +“How did you come here?” said Lucio angrily, at the sight of her, as he +backed the coffin and cart into the burial-place. + +“You would not bring me, so I walked across by the hill paths,” she +answered. + +“Womenkind have no business at these rites,” said Lucio; and the sexton +added, with a leer: + +“Bridals and baptisms are for handsome wenches, not burials.” + +She did not reply to either; but she took one end of the wooden box and +obliged them to lift it not too roughly to the ground. + +“You did well to come,” said Cyrille to her, with sympathy. + +She said nothing. She was not there for the sake of her dead +grandsire, but to prevent the scheme of thieving the mules which she +had guessed had been planned between her uncles. + +“Meddling, mischievous baggage!” muttered Lucio. What business had +women to cross and mar men’s work? + +When the brief rites were over, and the deal box had been tumbled under +clods of clay, she spoke to no one, but climbed into the cart, taking +the reins of rope. + +“Lie down on the straw and sleep,” she said curtly to her uncle. He was +cowed; he knew that his intentions had been read. He stretched himself +grumbling in the bottom of the cart, and pulled his pipe out of his +breeches pocket. + +“You may ride on,” said the girl to Cyrille. “The mules shall be at +your place before moon-rise, and neither footsore nor wind-blown, I +promise you.” + +Then the reason of her presence in the burial-ground occurred to him. + +“She is a brave woman,” he thought, “and, I fear, the only honest one +of her brood.” + +He saluted her courteously, and rode down the steep street with its +miserably sickly people staring after him, and flocking round his +stirrup leathers with piteous outcries for alms. + +As he turned in his saddle and looked back whilst his horse slackened +pace to pass over a little bridge, the clouds had lifted. + +Above in the distance was the crumbling indented outline of the little +walled hamlet, brown and gray, solitary and drear, and midway on the +slope below it was a dusky moving patch made on the white dust, a patch +which was Muriella and the mules. Above head the sun was breaking +through the clouds in pale faint gold. + +He had been a man of the world, but in his Slav blood romance and +superstition slumbered; he liked to see in that breaking light an +augury of hope; yet what hope could there ever be for him more than for +that old dead body which had been jammed down beneath the clay? + +His spirit was heavy as he rode home, and did not rise with the +exhilarating speed of his young horse. The yawning ditch, the gabbled +prayer, the battering spade, the loneliness, the decay, the sense +of unenjoyed and unpitied lives coming to an end there in the clay, +generation after generation, century after century, with no object, no +hope, no mourner, went with him painfully. Were he to die that evening, +such would be his own end. They would bring him there, and shovel him +in, and go away, glad to be rid of him; and the land of his birth, the +land of his love, would not be with him, even by so much as a handful +of its soil thrown in upon him. + +“I grow nervous; that brave woman shames me,” he thought. + + + + +IV. + + +As the full moon rose over the eastern mountains that evening, coming +from the unseen waves of the Adriatic Sea, the mule-cart was driven +into the courtyard of the hunting-lodge as she had promised. She was +alone in it; Lucio had slipped off when near the gates, and gone +homewards by short cuts known to him across the woods. His heart was +black against her with the rage of a wolf robbed of a fine meal off +fawn or kid; he was thirsty to pour his chagrin into the yet blacker +bosom of his elder brother. + +“Stop here to-night, child,” said old Caterina, coming out into the +courtyard to greet her. “’Tis late, and you must be tired.” + +The girl demurred and resisted, but the old woman, who had known her as +a swaddled baby, would take no denial. Cyrille came out of the great +doorway, the light of the moon shining on his face, which looked to her +so strange, so fair, so angelic, like the St Michael above a side altar +in the Cathedral at her birthplace of Viterbo. + +She thought the stranger of another race, another humanity, to Lucio or +herself. She had never seen a man so fair, so calm, so delicately pale, +and yet so cool in courage as any tusked boar in the woods. + +She had noticed him much oftener and more curiously than he had noticed +her; and she knew, as he did not know, the hate against him which +smouldered in the breasts of all the people scattered through the +solitudes of Le Selve. + +“Yes, rest here to-night,” he said, “we should be churls to let you go. +Take her within, good Caterina.” + +Though her muscles were as steel, and her limbs as untiring as those +of a deer’s, she was fatigued that night, and she did not care to sup +off the black looks and bitter upbraidings of her uncles, who, to her, +would make no secret of their disappointment and their rage. + +The old woman took her to the kitchen, and warmed, and fed, and +welcomed her. + +“You are as strong as a man,” said Caterina enviously, for her own +strength had also once been great. + +“Stronger than many men,” said Muriella with pride. “They know it all +through the Selve.” + +“Strength is a guardian angel,” said the elder woman. “But a woman’s +strength is a devil in disguise sometimes; she trusts to it; and +lo!--it snaps, and she falls.” + +“That may well be,” said Muriella gravely. + +As she bent down over the brazier its red reflection shone on the fine +outline of her brow and cheek, on the thickness of her raven hair, on +the dark line of her up-curling lashes. + +“You are a morsel for a monarch,” thought Caterina, but she did not say +it; it was known that the girl did not like such jokes. + +Instead, she said: + +“I am going to change the mattress in Ser Cirillo’s room. Come and give +me a helping hand.” + +Muriella went without demur. + +When the lifting and changing of the mattress on the great mediæval bed +with its gilded baldachino and crown was done, she stood and looked +around her. + +“What are these?” she said, pointing to the telescope upon its stand +and the celestial globe. + +“Uncanny things that bring no good to anyone,” answered Caterina. “That +big tube lets you get up to the moon quite close; you can hear the +people in it talking.” + +“Saints above us!” said the girl, much astonished; “I always thought +the moon was a lamp.” + +“So do all folks as keep their senses,” said Caterina, with that +contempt of ignorance for knowledge, which is of all scorn the most +derisive. + +The eyes of Muriella surveyed the chamber with awe. It was very large, +with vast windows, a tessellated floor, faded frescoed walls, and the +grand bed with hangings in purple satin, once a cardinal’s. There were +some oaken tables and dressers, and a few huge chairs with leathern +seats, and from the centre of the ceiling hung a bronze Etruscan lamp +found centuries earlier in the forest underground. On one of the tables +stood an earthen jar filled with the autumn colchicum, and there were +many books and many drawings. Bare and plain though the room was, it +had that nobility which comes from ancient usage, and the indefinable +grace in it which is given to their habitations by those whose pursuits +are intellectual and whose tastes are artistic. + +“It feels like a church,” said Muriella to herself: she had always in +her memory the churches of Viterbo, where she had gone with her mother, +and above all of the Duomo of San Lorenzo there, where Guy de Montfort +slew Henry of Cornwall before the high altar, and where an English Pope +forced a German Emperor to hold his stirrup as vassal of the Holy See. +This chamber, with its three great windows facing the west, filled +her with a dim pleasure and veneration as the altars and aisles of San +Lorenzo had done. + +But she looked for one thing which she did not see. + +“There are no arms,” she said to Caterina; “not even a hunting-knife.” + +“He has a revolver,” said the old woman. “But you are right, my dear. +There should be more weapons nigh at hand. The _guardiani_ have all +guns, it is true.” + +Muriella said nothing. She had little faith in the forest guards. Were +they the stranger’s friends or foes? Of one’s own hand one is sure--but +of any other? + +“Tell your master to get more defence for himself,” she said as she +lingered on the threshold. + +“He is not my master,” said Caterina, huffed and on her dignity. “He +is a mere servant of the Gandolfo, like me, like Fausto and Gian, and +Falko, and Dreino, and all the rest.” + +“No; he rules those,” said Muriella quickly. “He is in authority over +them. Perhaps not over you, but over them certainly.” + +“And God and the Gandolfo are over us all,” said Caterina testily. +“Over him as well as the least of us. Come to supper, wench.” + +Supper was eaten in the wide long kitchen, black with smoke and age, +with the sweet herbs and the dried pork hanging from the rafters, and +a great fire burning in a hearth vast enough to hold a dozen men on +its settles. There were more than a dozen men and women seated along +the tables with the light from the brass _lucerne_ shining on their +swarthy faces. The males looked greedily and glowingly at Muriella, +but they did not delay the great business of their hungry jaws and +thirsty throats to pay her compliments. Moreover, Caterina ruled them +with a rod of iron, and tolerated no amorous follies in her presence. +Bean-soup, roast kid, fennel and salsify and macaroni were their fare, +washed down by a rough, stinging red wine. Their strong and comely +women ate and drank as copiously as the men: they had few words to +waste, and their white teeth worked like a mill. Italians have not +always as much as they could eat, but when they get the chance they +can feed like Gargantua’s self. Two Franciscan friars who were passing +through the woods and slept at the fattoria as a matter of course, +were as loudly munching and as thirstily drinking as the others, and +conveying at short intervals remnants of meat and bread into their +wallets, under pretext of feeding the dogs who lay under the table. + +“Trust the holy men to take all they can lay their hands on,” thought +Caterina, noting their adroit manœuvres. Through as many centuries as +the oaks without were old, monks of all orders had come and gone, and +eaten, and drunk, and been feasted, and welcomed at those tables in Le +Selve. The mendicant-friars were now few in number, and poor in worldly +goods, but at all the Gandolfo’s houses they were ever as honoured as +they had been of old, except in the innermost heart of Caterina. + +Cyrille supped later, alone, in a small stone chamber which opened out +of his bedroom. His place at the steward’s table was filled by the +under-steward, Fausto. + +Fausto was a Roman, with the head and face, the throat and shoulders, +of a gladiator in the galleries of the Vatican; thickly-curling locks +encircled his broad low brow, and rich blood mantled in his olive +cheeks. + +He and the Franciscans spoke in cordial amity where they sat together +at his end of his table. + +“You have a stranger here since we passed by this time two years,” said +one of the friars. + +“We have,” said Fausto, and his tone was sullen. + +“A man from the North, a schismatic,” said the friar. + +“Of that I know naught,” replied Fausto. + +“A pagan, one may say,” added the monk. “Why did your good lord place +him here? ’Tis a sin against the Holy Ghost.” + +Fausto shrugged his shoulders; he was no theologian. + +“Does he know aught of forestry?” asked the other Franciscan. + +“Yes,” said Fausto reluctantly. “But all new-fangled northern ways. We +always used to cut wood when we wished, and fell timber when we wanted +a sum of money. But under his rule there is to be none of that. Only +one tree in eight, and never even so much as this save in November and +December, and no pollarding or cropping, and no fuel-making, and even +the furze and heather cut by rule, and rarely.” + +He snorted scornfully like an angry bull, and drank a draught of the +rough red wine. + +He had taken the extreme step of going to solicit audience at the +palace of his employers in Rome, but had not been received by anyone +higher than the house steward, who in answer to his grievances had +declared that he could not place them before their lords, since he knew +well that in regard to Le Selve all the new-comer did was well done--an +unanswerable Italian formula. + +“All the old feudal rights are swept away,” Fausto continued. “Rights +of pasturage, of dead wood, of snaring, of shooting, of barking and +burning, of grazing and broom cutting--all are done away with I tell +you, holy men. ’Tis enough to make the folks of the soil rise and fire +the forests. Maybe they will do it one day.” + +“To be sure, poor souls,” said the friar with compassion, “and the +saints will excuse them.” + +Who would now give a Franciscan, when he passed through the Selve, a +plump quail, or a young hare, or a brace of coots shot on the pond? + +“To be sure, indeed!” echoed Fausto; “whoever saw wild forest land kept +as though it were a Madonna’s garden? No goats must crop, no mules must +browse, no guns go on the marshes, no nests be taken high or low, no +bark be stripped, no undergrowth be cut, no gins be set, nor netting; +the Lord grant me patience! The people look to me for help. They come +to me weeping and groaning; what can I say? What did he do when I had +covered a teal with my gun last June? Struck the barrel up with his +stick; and the bird away over the reeds. ‘It’s close time,’ said he. +‘Close time, close time!’ By the Lord! was ever ‘close time’ heard of +in those woods? Have we not shot when and where as we chose all the +year round? Eh? Many’s the head of game I have got shooting a sitting +hare or nesting plover. ‘Close time!’ Great powers above us! Who ever +heard tell of the like since the hills were piled one a-top of another? +But so it is now, and no redress against it to be got in Rome. ‘All +that he does is well done’--no other answer but that. Damnation! I am +nothing here any more. I am no more than a sere twig, than a strangled +mole. I go to Rome; and what say they to me there? ‘All that he does +is well done.’ They will not even hear or enquire, and even the wild +boar hunting is stopped. He is a second St Francis. He talks with the +pigs and the wolves!” + +“Do not speak the name of a saint of our Church in the same breath with +a vile schismatic outside her pale,” said the elder Franciscan; and he +was so greatly shocked that he drank out of the flask of wine nearest +him instead of out of his glass tumbler, and only set it down when it +was half empty. + +Muriella, where she sat beside the Massaja, was too far off to hear +much that they said, but a little reached her, and she saw the lowering +brows and tempestuous gestures of Fausto. She spoke across the length +of the table to him. + +“Your pardon, Messir Fausto,” she said in a clear, steady voice; “you +forget to add one thing. For all the feudal rights taken up, there +has been paid compensation; it is but the abuse of them which has been +checked and stopped.” + +Fausto looked over the lighted wicks of the brass lamps at the speaker. +He was betrothed to the daughter of a wealthy vintner in Montefiascone, +but that fact had not closed his eyes to the other fact that the niece +of Alcide and Lucio had great and uncommon beauty. + +He had often seen her, for her uncles were favourites with him; men +who understood that he was in his place for his own interests, not for +those of Le Selve, or of the owners of Le Selve. “Between the wise a +wink suffices,” says an Italian proverb; and that wink had been often +exchanged betwixt him and Alcide and Lucio. The coldness with which +she had always treated him, when any other young woman between the +Apennines and the Liris was but too proud of his notice, had attracted +him all the more by its rarity and offence, for _il bel Faustone_ was +accustomed to easy conquests. He was disconcerted now by what she said +to him; for he knew that it was true. He was saved from reply by a +great clamour which uprose from the throats of all the farm servants +and others present; for whenever yet since the world began would people +of their kind admit that any compensation, however generous and just, +could make amends for the loss of old and dear abuses enjoyed with +impunity, and turned to profit unexamined? + +Such abuse is the very marrow of their bones, the supreme joy of their +souls; no bird which is brought has the flavour of the bird which is +poached; no oaken log which is given burns so boisterously and so +warmly as the one which is hewn by stealth and stolen. + +In speaking as she did Muriella aroused against her all the wrath of +her own class; she seemed to them an apostate allied with the enemy. +Time, temperament, inclination, habit, were all arrayed against her; +the dearest privilege of all who heard her was to pilfer and to +plunder, a privilege confirmed by centuries of usage; who was she, +forest bred if not forest born, to take the part of one who suppressed +the time-honoured thefts of foresters? + +_L’uso fa legge_ in this country more than in all others. + +Who was she to set herself up against that time-honoured axiom? + +The hubbub was so great, the roar of crossing voices, and the scream of +angry denunciation, were so loud that Caterina rapped sharply on the +table with her horn-handled carving knife. + +“Silence, children! Who dares speak here? Quiet! Quiet at once, or no +wine will be drunk by anyone to-morrow.” + +Under so dire a threat, which they knew would be inexorably carried out +if they disobeyed her, the men and women held their peace, and hung +their heads sheepishly. Even the mendicant-friars were mute. + +“Come, wenches,” said Caterina, and as she rose all the other women +rose also and left the kitchen in her train, Muriella with them. +Against the will of the Massaja there is no appeal in the household +which she rules. When she had sent the servants to their several +evening tasks, Caterina took the girl to her own room, and showed her a +little closet out of it where she was to sleep. + +“You are plunging your arm into a hornet’s nest,” she said, with +not unkind severity. “The woodlanders will never suffer you to go +preaching against them and their rights.” + +“What they call rights are not rights,” said Muriella. “They are +wicked, thievish, knavish ways. They should be grateful for all your +gentleman does for them. He is merciful and just. They should rejoice.” + +Caterina gave a short gruff laugh like an owl’s hoot. + +“A clear cloudless night is a nice thing,” she answered, “but when a +man is going to tryst with a neighbour’s wife, or waiting with his +knife to avenge an old grudge, he likes a murky night better, doesn’t +he, my dear? Ways are crooked, and plunder has been easy got in Le +Selve. No one of the woodlanders wants to be set straight. Each one +likes to crawl on his belly and go crooked as he chooses. Your uncles +as much as any.” + +“That I know,” said Muriella. “But to crawl on the belly is for +snakes, not men.” + +“Fine words, my dear, but they’ll cost you heavy,” answered the old +woman. “Look after yourself, child; you’ll find that enough to do. I +don’t like Faustone’s hot look at you. He is a lewd fellow, and stands +pledged to wed with a wench in Montefiascone come next Easter.” + +Muriella smiled slightly. “Messir Faustone may look as he likes, and +wed when he wishes. He will not trouble my peace, be sure.” + +“Best that nobody should,” said Caterina. “You should leave those bad +men you belong to, and marry,” she added. + +Muriella shook her head. “Not I.” + +“Why not?” said Caterina. “There are only two things for a woman to +choose between--the nuptial bed or the convent cell; and you are not +one for a convent life, my wench.” + +“Nor yet one to be a man’s beast of burden,” said the girl. “It is a +cow’s life; for ever yoked to the plough, though pregnant and in pain; +for ever toiling over the furrows, though with udders throbbing and +aching in milk. Not for me! Not for me! Death sooner!” + +“There are good men to be had,” said Caterina, not very firmly nor with +much conviction. + +“Not in these woods,” said Muriella; “and even were one of our men +good, what could he do? His woman is his for his pleasure and her pain, +like the cow in the yoke.” + +“’Tis nature,” said Caterina. + +“I do not say otherwise,” replied Muriella, and she leant her arms +on her knees and her cheeks on her hands, and looked into the fire. +Nature was rude and rough, brutal and ugly, in its human shapes; only +beautiful in its trees, in its waters, in its clouds. She did not know +much, she could not read a line, she had never been out of the woods, +but she could read human faces and human hearts, and she generally +found what she read in them to be as foul as the forest swamps, where +the newts and the adders lived, and the night-shade hung over the slime. + +Caterina went on with her spinning by the light of the three-wicked +brass lamps. + +“If you won’t marry, I do not see what can become of you,” she said +with some severity. + +Muriella smiled. “I am a good worker; I can earn my day’s wage any time +anywhere. I would go away to-morrow, but I am loth to leave the woods. +They are like father and mother, child and cradle, to me.” + +“That is rubbish,” said the older woman roughly. “The woods are dumb, +like the beasts they harbour.” + +Muriella did not reply. They were not dumb to her, nor were the beasts +either, but she was shy in speech, and the sympathies which moved +within her were rather instincts than conscious feelings. She was not +often capable of unravelling and explaining them, and the good Caterina +did not invite such confidences. + +“You are a ripe cherry, and Fausto is a wasp,” said Caterina darkly, +clinging to her ideas. + +“I am a cherry that stings like a nettle,” answered the younger woman +with her slow, faint smile. + +“Don’t trust to that,” said the older woman. “Well, it is late; get you +to bed.” + +In a few minutes’ time both she and her guest were sound asleep in the +dreamless slumber of healthy fatigue. + + + + +V. + + +When the morning broke over the Umbrian Mountains on the far east, +the girl was away on foot back to her uncle’s house, before the sun +had risen high enough to be seen over the black ridge of the easterly +woods. Her uncles cast evil looks at her on her arrival, but, to her +surprise, no one said anything in allusion to the incident of the +previous day. They owed her a heavy grudge, but they did not fritter it +out in words. Vengeance would keep in the Selve. It is a good wine; the +best of all wines, to their thinking. + +“I should be wiser to leave them,” she thought often in the day which +followed. “I can get my bread anywhere.” + +But her heart clung to the woods as she had said; they were her +friends: all she had to love. She knew every big tree in them, as a +priest knows each one of his flock. She loved their liberty, their +solitude, their silence, their brown deep pools, their impenetrable +brakes where none but the wild pig could push his way, their green +twilight, dim even in noonday, the profound stillness of their winter +days and summer eves; she clung to these with all her heart, though +without full measure or consciousness of why she did so. + +The hare with its large tender eyes, the bird with its flood of song, +the meadow-sweet with its plume of snow, the birch with its bands of +silver, the oak with its russet-brown trunk--these were all nearer to +her than the family with which she lived. From the silence and shadow +of the woods she derived a pleasure that was inarticulate but keen, and +when she saw the mules straining under a rain of blows, the cows lowing +in vain for their ravished offspring, the troops of weary goats toiling +through the dust of the high-road, the suffering creatures seemed +nearer to her than the men who cut their throats, or stunned their +brains with repeated blows. + +To all those around her such victims were no more than bits of wood, +and the torture of them was the chief pastime of young and old; but she +had been created with a different soul. It was dumb, like that of the +cows and the goats, but it was alive. + +To her own relatives she seemed a fool; only they knew that she was not +a fool, because they could not fool her; and her brown, well-shaped +hand had before now taken a cruel shepherd by the scruff of his neck +and tossed him into a running stream, or on to a bed of nettles. For +she was very strong, with that marvellous strength created by air and +exertion alone in those whose food is but black bread and herbs. + +The work she had to do was of the roughest. The only rest she knew +was when she sat down to the _telaio_, the board at which she weaved +the rude hempen linen in use in the family. But this did not trouble +her; she was young and active, and it would have hurt her more to have +her energies and strength pent up unused than to strain them to the +utmost in the outdoor labours of the croft and wold. The idea of going +elsewhere appalled her, not from any peril which might lie in such +wanderings, but from the force of habit and affection which bound her +to the soil. She knew that in any other place she would feel like the +homeless squirrel whom the forest fire has chased from its familiar +nest in the old chestnut bole, and driven out to wander forlorn over +charred moss and smouldering turf, knowing its homeward path no more. + +A few days later Cyrille saw her as he went on one of his daily rides +through the woods. He stopped his horse and spoke to her. + +“I have not thanked you for what you did at San Vitale the other day,” +he said, as she straightened her back and looked up at him from her +kneeling posture, where she was cutting dead canes. “But I am afraid it +may have made ill-feeling between you and your uncles. Has it done so?” + +“There is little love ever between us,” she answered. “Their thoughts +are not my thoughts, nor their ways mine.” + +“Would it not be better to leave them?” + +“No doubt.” + +“Shall I ask Caterina to find you work with us?” + +“No, sir.” + +“Why not?” + +“It would not suit me.” + +She grew a little red as she answered. Messir Faustone had persecuted +her with coarse courtship. + +“You cannot be happy amongst people whose conduct is alien and +offensive to you,” he said. + +She drew down some more canes thoughtfully, and cut them through, and +cast them on the ground beside others already cut. + +“Happy! what is that?” she said, with a genuine ignorance which had +nothing cynical. “That is the way you talk. We do not.” + +Through Cyrille’s mind there drifted the line of Goethe--“When to +the passing day,” etc.--and that other sentence of Théroigne de +Mericourt--“Doth not the child smile in its mother’s face under +Tiberius as under Trajan?” + +“There are natural joys, surely, given even to the humblest in all +times,” he said, with a little hesitation. + +The beautiful mouth of Muriella curled with a little scorn. + +“Did you ever note the asses that come for the sand which is taken out +of the pits?” she said curtly. “They are put to their work when they +are foals. They never reach their full growth. Their eyes are always +sore. Their coats are always full of dust. No one ever cleans them. +Their hoofs are dry and split. Their bones are through their skin. They +get nothing to eat but mouldy straw and dead leaves. They are beasts of +burden, fed on blows. They have never a minute’s peace. The women of +the poor are like them. They bring forth in hunger and pain, and what +they bring forth is born to their burdens. That is why I will never +marry, if that be what you mean.” + +He was astonished at the reflection and observation conveyed in the +reply. It was like a miracle to hear any one of these people speak with +compassion of an animal, and with any comparison of animal to human +destinies. + +He was surprised also at the directness of the answer, for a direct +answer is seldom given in these lands. + +He pointed to a speck of gold shining far away in the west. + +“Yonder, where you see that spark of light, lies Rome. There, more +than one man who was born of a peasant mother has sat enthroned as a +viceregent of God, and emperors and kings have kneeled to kiss his +foot. What woman can say what she may bring forth? Who can tell what +the fruit of her body may be?” + +She looked where he pointed, but she did not understand. Of Rome she +had heard, but she had no notion of it, other than as a place whither +the _vetturini_ went as the end of their journeys. + +The way is long and the gulf is deep which divides the cultured from +the ignorant mind. Each speaks to the other in an unknown tongue. + +He knew that she had not grasped the vague consolation offered in his +words. Silence fell between them, only filled by the sound of her rusty +sickle hacking at the dry canes. + +“Why do you stay here?” she said suddenly. “Why? It is not your +country?” + +“It is not; no.” + +“Have you no friends?” + +“Yes, many; but not here.” + +“You should go to them.” + +“Would that I could!” + +“Why cannot you?” + +He was silent. How could he make her understand his position? Still +kneeling on the ground with her billhook hacking the canes, she looked +up at him with sudden sympathy. + +“You killed someone?” she said in a whisper. + +That was the cause which made men fugitives here in Le Selve. + +“No,” said Cyrille; “I did worse--I tried to teach men, and they would +not be taught. My rulers thought it a crime. They put me in prison. I +escaped. I am here.” + +Muriella was silent, resting the billhook on the ground. + +“You try to teach men here,” she said after a while; “they will not put +you in any prison, but they will put you in your grave. They are all +against you. They are not worth teaching. You will not alter them if +you try till your hair is white.” + +“I wish to do my duty to my employers and to their people.” + +“You are a just man. But they do not want your justice. They want to +do as they have always done, and be as they have always been. The wild +pigs like the swamp. They do not want to go with you to clean straw in +a stable.” + +Cyrille was silent. + +“I used to believe,” he thought, “I have always believed, that the poor +only needed to be shown the right road to gladly follow it; that they +only wanted to be led to the water-side to willingly wash and be clean. +But I begin to fear that I have deceived myself.” + +Aloud he said: + +“Were I on my own property, I might allow it to be ruined if I chose, +though to do so would be, not benevolence, but weakness. Here, however, +I have no choice. I am but the servant of others. I must enforce what I +know to be right.” + +“They will kill you.” + +“That must be as it will. Threatened men usually live long.” + +“Not always; and not here.” + +Then she resumed her work, and the pallid rustling ribands of the canes +fell beneath her rusty blade. + +“And whoever slays you,” she added as she worked, “will never be +found. Everyone will make common cause with him. Everyone will be for +him, risk all for him, hide him in their beds, swear falsely for him +by the Madonna’s self. He will be beloved of all, and pass safely by +signs from house to house, from village to village, from province to +province. The law will never get hold of his little finger. The hatred +of the stranger is more binding than oaths.” + +“Then why do you not share it?” + +“Why?” + +She did not know why. She had not asked herself. Certainly she ought +to be on the side of her own people, and not his. Why was she not so? + +“You are in the right,” she said simply; “and you are alone against +hundreds. I have never been at one with my father’s people. My mother +was a woman of Viterbo. I lived with her in Viterbo till she died. She +had left my father because he was wicked and cruel. She was good; so +good! She taught me to see that the ways they follow here are evil. +They are bad men, as my father was. And they have no love for the +woods. You have. And now good-day. They had best not see you here. They +will think we plot some mischief against them.” + +She bound all the cut canes together in one bundle, heaved them upward +on to her head, and when loaded went away along the banks of the +stream, walking erect and swiftly, the great sheaf swaying as she +moved. + +So passed the women of Etruria and of Latium before her through +these woods. The work of husbandry is the only work which does not +change with time, but remains, at least in Italy, natural, noble, and +beautiful in its attitudes and its simplicity. + +He looked at her as he might have looked at some statue exhumed from +the soil. She was as sexless as a statue to him; he wore the ice armour +of an absorbing and despairing passion, which left him neither sight +nor sense for any more fugitive feelings. + +But she had shown a comprehension of his position, of his motives, of +his difficulties, which was welcome in the isolation wherein he lived, +and made him grateful to her, as he would have been for the sympathy of +some other man. He discerned the intelligence which shone through the +fog of her ignorance, and he appraised at its due value the courage +which kept her in perpetual opposition to those with whom she lived. + +Her warnings did not influence his conduct, but he knew that they were +founded on a just estimate of those around him. They weighed, however, +but little upon him, because his philosophy was fatalistic, and he +had that apathetic indifference to danger which comes from extreme +unhappiness in life. When you have lost all except actual existence, it +seems to matter little if sheer existence be taken as well. + +He had been now eighteen months in these woods, seeing no faces but +those of peasants hostile to him, and exchanging no single word with +anyone of cultured intelligence. Muriella was ignorant as any one +of the sheep, who only knew their winter and summer tracks; but she +understood with her heart, if not with her mind, and he found relief +in telling her a little of those “old forgotten far-off things,” which +seemed to him so many æons of time away, though they belonged in truth +only to his own life of a year or two earlier. It did him good to call +up that past, these scenes, all those who had been with him in his +daily life; it relieved him of that dazed sense of unreality which came +upon him as on men in the solitude of a condemned cell. + +Once he spoke of the woman he loved: not by name, but as Surrey might +have spoken of Geraldine, with bated breath and unuttered prayer; and +having thus spoken once, he did so again, and yet again, tracing her +portrait in words, pressing the dagger of regret into his heart as +lovers love to do in every age. And Muriella listened, growing pale, +hanging on his words, till in her rude fancy an image shaped itself +from his words clothed in starlight, crowned with the pale hellebore, +fugitive, spiritual, unreachable. Imagination was dormant in her; it +caught light at the flame of his higher intelligence. She could not +see clearly by it, but she saw a ray before her feet--a soft faint +green light like that of the glowworm in the woodland paths, the ray of +awaking comprehension, with its companion pain. + +She did not know why she thought of this unknown lady thus. Perhaps it +was because, when he first spoke of her, the hellebore was in blossom +all over the awakening woods. + +It did not occur to him that he did a cruel thing in interesting thus +in his fate a poor untutored maiden; he scarcely thought of her at +all; he spoke to her because he read loyalty and sympathy in her gaze +as in the eyes of a dog; and because he was weary of the long, dumb, +friendless front in which his mind and memories were imprisoned. + +“You will go back,” she said to him one day when the grief which was in +him broke down his courage and his resignation, and she saw great tears +rise slowly to his eyes. + +He gave a gesture of despair. “Ah, never.” + +“Yes, you will go back.” + +“What should you know, poor child?” + +“I know nothing,” said Muriella. “But I pray for you.” + +He bent his head. + +“I thank you, dear.” + +She looked at him with a wistful, yearning look, which he did not +interpret because his thoughts were elsewhere than with her. + +“I will pray always,” she said briefly. “I am sure you will go back to +your own land one day.” + +“You say so to console me. Those whom I have offended do not pardon.” + +“May it not be put in their hearts to relent?” + +“As soon will yonder oaks rise and walk.” + +Yet, though his reason rejected it, her persistent faith entered into +his heart against his reason, and was sweet to him with the sweetness +of hope. + +After all, save death, nothing was absolutely hopeless. + +He was still young enough to see many changes in the world--wars, +revolutions, dynasties, policies, might all alter the face of Europe, +and with the larger national life, his own obscure individual fate. +It was the wildest and vaguest dream, but it trembled on the edge of +the unknown future, as far away in the west and the night, at times, a +faint spark of light shone, which was the beacon above the sea at Palo; +not a score of times in a year was that far-off speck visible, but to +know that it was there lent a sense of safety and companionship even +in the darkest murk of storm. So to him was precious that sense of hope +in another soul; he could not share its belief, but it saved him from +despair. + +“You will go back to your own land,” said Muriella; and the sound of +the promise was sweet to his ear, though spoken by a poor ignorant girl +who did not even know where his own land lay. + + + + +VI. + + +In her, as in most women of her nation, religious faith was very +strong, but vague. It was an intense force, blind and irrational, which +had no more doubt of itself than she had that her feet were planted on +the solid earth. But it was shapeless and dim as the lineaments of the +Scythian Diana, which lay so long under the waters of the Lake of Nemi. +The early years of her childhood had been happy, for her mother had +been good, and Viterbo remained in her recollection transfigured in the +golden light of a lost joy. It was to her a holy place: her mother lay +there. Slowly there entered into her mind and matured in it the idea of +going on pilgrimage to Viterbo, and there beseeching that the saints +and archangels should grant the stranger his desire. + +It was a generous, an unselfish, almost an heroic thought, and it grew +apace with her, as a sweet herb grows in a good soil, and the very pain +it gave her stung her into pursuance of it. She had never been beyond +the limits of the Gandolfo Woods since she had been brought under their +broad green shadows one burning July day in her tenth year; but she +knew well where her birthplace lay, to the north-east after crossing +the last boundary of Le Selve. + +Pilgrims through many a century had come and gone in one continuous +stream from that little walled city of the Popes to the greater Urbs +on Tiber; but now the Popes go no more to Viterbo, and the sand chokes +its fountains; and the course of life flows away from it, and leaves +it like them dry and silent. This she did not know. It was to her +the city of her childhood; the city of winged angels and clustering +seraphim, and heavenly choirs and miracles and benedictions. She had no +knowledge of its great past; of its fine art, of its sacred memories; +but she loved it because there she had known a mother’s love, there had +made a mother’s grave. + +In her solitary musings, during her long hours of toil, the resolution +matured with her. Viterbo seemed, in her recollection of the long +journey from it, immeasurably far off, far as the very moon itself. But +from shepherds and cattle-drivers she learned the way to take, out of +the woods and northward, to join the great high-road. + +She walked nine miles, over hills and across streams, to meet the +public vehicle as it passed on its way to Ronciglione, and thence went +to Viterbo itself. She had only a few coins in her pocket, for it was +only when she sold a little piece of hempen cloth of her own making +that she got a trifle. But she had some black bread and two onions in a +handkerchief, and she was used to meagre food. + +After the green shade of the forest, the cloud of dust upon the roads +and the grey desolate streets seemed to her very dreary; the city she +remembered with its dancing waters and its glancing spires seemed to +have vanished. Was the Spirit of God here more truly than in the aisles +of pine and ilex? It was twelve years since she had been in these stony +places, and her bare feet, used to the moss and the turf, ached as they +trod the granite of the streets. But the Duomo was there, the temple +dedicated to St Laurence, where she had knelt when a little child +at her mother’s side, whilst the music of the Kyrie Eleison poured +overhead, in sounds, winged like birds, which floated to the roof and +passed out heavenward. + +The great church was silent as she pushed aside the leathern curtain of +a side door. The day was almost done; here and there on the pavement +knelt a lonely figure; a sacristan moved noiselessly, lighting the +lamps in the nave. She went to a side chapel, which she remembered, +whither her mother had always gone; and she knelt there, a tired, +dusty, unnoticeable woman, and she prayed with all the force of her +spirit. It might be no good. There might come no answer. But she would +have done what she could. + +She prayed as women pray for their sick at Loretto and Lourdes. + +There was a silver lamp above the altar; it swayed slowly to and fro. +She bowed her head down upon the stones, and covered her face with her +hands. + +“Holy ones, take the only thing I have,” she murmured. “I am poor and +of no account, but hearken unto me. I give you all I have. Grant him +his heart’s desire.” + +And she loosened from her throat a little agate heart. It had been her +mother’s; it was hung round her neck by a plaited tress of gray hair. +She laid it down under the silver lamp upon the altar; it was her only +treasure. In all the world she had nothing else. It looked very small, +very poor, very valueless, as it lay, dark and worn, in the light of +the lamp. But she thought they would not despise it or reject it. They +would know it was all she had. + +In a little while the church was fully lighted; the service of vespers +began. She got up from her knees and walked away down the side aisle, +leaving the agate heart and the braid of her mother’s hair behind her. +Her throat ached with silent, hidden weeping. + +She slept that night in a poor place in the town that she knew, and +left the gates at daybreak in the public vehicle, packed close between +other women and screeching fowls, and wailing babes, and crowded crates +of ducklings, on her homeward way to the cross-road which led to Le +Selve. + +She felt as if her heart was of lead now that her amulet was no longer +warm against the pulses of it. But she did not regret what she had +done. In a few hours the walls and towers of Viterbo had faded from the +distance, and she saw again the dark waters of the little lake of Vico, +and the chestnuts and oak forests of the Ciminian slopes. + +She left Ronciglione on foot, and on her homeward way met a horseman, +who, passing her, stopped his horse. + +“Have you thought of what I offered to you last week?” he asked. + +“No,” replied Muriella. + +“How long will it be before you do?” + +“As long as the earth is old.” + +“I am a bad foe, Muriella.” + +“Perhaps you are a worse lover.” + +“I would give you a string of pearls and a box of clothes.” + +“Keep the pearls for your betrothed and the clothes for a beggar, and +ride away to your _dama_ at La Storta.” + +“Where have you been?” + +“That is naught to you.” + +“You look jaded and worn.” + +“I am fresh enough to make your ears tingle if you molest me. Get you +gone to your lawful allegiance.” + +Fausto scowled, and dug his heels into the flanks of his good grey +horse. He was not used to be flouted or thwarted. + +She looked at herself in the brown shallow water of the river’s bed, +clear as a mirror, and wondered what Faustone saw that made him so hot +in her pursuit. She did not see any good looks in herself; she only +saw her sun-browned skin, her dark, rough hair, her strong column-like +throat, her brown arms and hands, her bare feet wet with dew and green +with moss; she seemed no more to herself than a rude bit of wood shaped +into human likeness, such as they found sometimes in the Etruscan +tumuli. Fausto might find her handsome, and rest his wicked hot eyes +upon her; but she saw nothing in herself. + +She reached her home, after a long and exhausting walk, and, since the +under-steward had seen her, made no secret of her journey to Viterbo. +They were all angry that she brought them nothing, but otherwise the +matter had no interest for them. + +She shut her hope up in her soul and waited. In the saints’ good time +the saints would set him free. + +“You mope, girl. What is amiss?” said her uncles to her. + +“Do I not do my quota of work?” + +“Nay, we do not say you fail in that.” + +“Then what matter my looks or my ways to you?” + +She would brook no interference. She knew that she was worth much more +than her keep to them, and they knew it too; if the men had shirts to +their backs, and the children had as much bread as they could eat, they +owed it chiefly to her. + +“If she likes to be the light-o’-love of that stranger ’tis no matter +to us,” said the women. + +“She’d do better to be Fausto’s,” replied Alcide. “We’d get a pig out +of him come winter.” + +They would have seen with a favourable eye her welcome of the Roman’s +wooings; he was a man after their own taste, who bought and sold, and +trafficked and lied, and could fake a colt and outwit a dealer with the +best of his time. + +“She may take her _damo_ where she likes best. But if she tell tales +she will be sorry for it,” said Alcide to himself, and set himself to +watch her. + +To do so was easy, for they knew where her day’s work lay every morning +when she went out to it; it was nearly always the same according to +season. Once or twice he saw her speak with Cyrille. But he saw nothing +which looked to him like amorous intercourse. The more sure therefore +was he that she played informer to the foreigner’s command. + +“We have reared a cuckoo,” he said to his wife; but the woman, wiser +and shrewder, answered: + +“We did not rear her. She came full grown or nearly so; and she is not +of the temper that makes spies.” + +Alcide, however, remained of his own opinion, and Lucio shared it. If a +man and a woman, both young in years, did not talk of love, what could +they talk of when they were together if not of others? Once Lucio got +near enough to hear what they said, and to see that there were some +feet of shallow water between them as they spoke, Muriella cutting +reeds, and the steward, dismounted, leaning against a tree. + +“That is a grasshopper warbler,” said the latter, as a small bird flew +up from the pool. “Take care not to cut where they have built.” + +“I see the nest,” she answered. “’Tis like a little basket, and the +stalks run through it. There are many of these birds here.” + +“They must mean other than they say,” thought the eavesdropper; and +he continued to listen, but all he heard was talk of birds and their +haunts, and the like nonsense, until he saw the rider mount and move +away. + +The part of the wood where the pools and marshes were, lay lower and +more level, spreading onward till it reached the Vico lake, and poured +into it its many trickling streams and hidden springs. In the swamps +wild hogs and buffaloes waded, grunted, bathed, and bellowed, and over +many a square league the brown spikes of the bulrush and the purple +plumes of the reeds reigned in undisturbed sovereignty. A raised +causeway of piles and stones ran across it, of which the foundations +were of date remote as the Antonines; and once off that path such +intimate knowledge as the woodlanders possessed was necessary before +venturing amongst the network of _padule_. There was nothing on the +surface of it to mark out the solid land from the bog. + +“I wonder your Northman does not want us to pay for the reeds!” said +Lucio, showing himself a little later over the as yet unblossomed +bulrushes. + +“No one need pay aught for aught,” replied Muriella. “So long as they +take only in season, and do not cut to waste, there is nothing grudged.” + +Lucio snorted with scorn. + +“Whoever cut reeds by rule or asked leave to rake in dead wood? The +marshes are free to us as to that bull-calf.” + +He pointed to a half-grown buffalo turning on its back in a shallow of +sand and water. + +“So you say,” replied Muriella calmly. “The lords of the soil and the +stream do not see it so.” + +“You unnatural wench! Do you go against your own folks and their +rights?” + +“What rights are denied you?” + +“We have the right to take,” said Lucio furiously. “Your upstart +whiteface makes a show of charity in giving us what is our own.” + +“The land is no more our own than it is yon bull-calf’s,” said +Muriella, glancing at the uncouth play of the creature in the shallow +water. + +“You insolent jade!” shouted Lucio. “I will duck you head foremost!” + +“Try,” said his niece, where she stood between the bundles of reeds; +and she folded her hands on her bosom and waited, the edge of the +sickle turned outwards. + +Muttering many oaths, he let her be, and went away, shying a stone at +the poor calf, which stumbled up on its uncertain legs and hobbled +away, splashing awkwardly through the shallows to regain its herd. +He was not as clever and resolute a man as his brother; he fretted +and swore about matters which Alcide settled with a lead pellet or a +stiletto blade. + +“Could you not find some occupation for that poor girl Muriella?” asked +Cyrille of the Massaja some days later. + +“Occupation there is plenty, sir,” said Caterina curtly. “But you know +her folks little if you think we can meddle with them and go scot free.” + +“But she is not their slave?” + +“No; not as one may call a slave; but they have housed and fed her +ever since she was ten, and they have the first right to her. No one +can gainsay that. If she were to come here, and have bed and board and +wage, they would stick a knife in her and in me, most likely. They +would hold she had disgraced them. Folks don’t go out to service here +as they do in the cities. And what would they do without her? Who +ploughs, who sews, who washes, who keeps the soul in all their lazy, +dirty carcasses if not this one poor wench?” + +“I know; but it is unjust.” + +“Most things are, sir, in this world,” replied Caterina; “she was +brought there when she was too small to choose, and now she must stay +where she was put, like the grain in furrow. There is only one thing +that she might do----” + +“What is that?” + +“She might take the veil. If she did that they would not dare to +say aught against it, for they would know they would burn in fire +everlasting if they did.” + +“Why should she not marry?” + +“Nay, sir; she will not marry such as alone would marry her. Only a +_ciociaro_ would take her, and ’twould be but a change of masters.” + +“Poor girl!” said Cyrille, with regret. He knew what to marry a +_ciociaro_ implied. + +“You had better not think about her, sir,” said Caterina, with +significance. “Your thoughts can do her no good.” + +“They shall do her no harm, I promise you.” + +“Fine words! Fine words!” said Caterina, who, though she thought him a +man above others, was doubtful of his regarding a good-looking maiden +in any other manner than as the bee looks at the rose. + + + + +VII. + + +The position of a steward in Italy, if he be an honest man, is +necessarily a position of continual friction in relation to the +tenantry, and above all to those who, as in so many instances, pay in +kind and pay in labour. Their perpetual effort is to cheat, and his to +frustrate their cheating, for even if he be himself a trickster to his +lord, it is not to his interests that their tricks should succeed. + +To Cyrille, with his political views, his poetic communism, and his +genuine tenderness of temper, it was a daily torment to mark, track, +and prevent the continual petty thefts and crooked intrigues of those +forest-squatters. More than once he was on the point of writing to +Adolfo Gandolfo, and begging him to tender his resignation to the old +prince. But many reasons restrained him: in the first place, gratitude; +in the second, that natural reluctance of every high-spirited man to +confess himself beaten; besides this, there was always a feeling which +had entered into him of affection for the trees and for the animals, +and a great sense of repose in the dim green solitudes which closed in +around his refuge. If he went away, in impatience and thanklessness, +what could await him? Only the stifling life of cities, the sordid +struggle of intellect with want. Where again if he left Le Selve would +he see the light of morning on the snows of Soracte? Where again behold +the evening’s gold gleam on the line of the sea by Ostia? Where smell +the bourgeonning blossoms of the lime? Where stroke the velvet antlers +of the deer? Where watch the nightingales pluck the small white moths +off the pale azure discs of the succory? Where see the day decline in +pomp behind the hoary boughs of oaks which as saplings saw the armies +of Theodoric and of Constantine pass beneath their sapling shadows; the +spell of Rome held him and the sorcery of Nature; of that Nature which +is eternally young, yet allied with the greatest ages of the earth. + +The year did not pass without the warning of the women to him being +verified. Once a bullet whistled past him as he rode, and cut off the +oak leaves at his shoulder. But the forest growth hid the would-be +assassin from his sight; and another night, when he rode over the +wooden bridge often used by him in returning homeward, the planks gave +way beneath his horse’s tread, and the animal and he escaped by a +miracle from a bad fall on to jagged rocks and into deep water; and +when he examined it by daylight it seemed to him that the timbers had +been sawn nearly asunder, so as to give way under vibration. But of +the guilty persons there was no trace. What affected him more was when +his dog, a greyhound of large size and great beauty, sent to him by +Gandolfo, was found dead one noonday stretched out on the terrace, with +all the signs of death, by a poison which the woodlanders extracted +from adders which they caught and robbed of their venom, treating it +as they did also the poison of the night-shade, and the hemlock, and +the corn-crowfoot, in a manner learned by oral recipes handed down from +remote Etruscan times. It was only the eldest living son who received +that teaching from the head of the family, and in turn passed it to +his heir, with many another dark secret of subterranean waters, and +buried passages, and rock tombs and hollow ways in which a fugitive +from justice might dwell safely many a year. Muriella had no doubt as +to who had slain the greyhound; for Alcide was so good-natured, so +industrious, so quiet, by comparison with his ordinary habit, that she +felt sure he had done some evil successfully. Cyrille offered rewards +and made investigations as to the dog’s death uselessly. Concerning +his own danger he said nothing; he sent workmen to mend the bridge, +affecting to take for granted that the timber had been rotten and old. +If any were disappointed by his escape, they kept their chagrin to +themselves and bided their time. + +Vengeance is like a good Falernian or Chianti wine; it only mellows +with keeping. + +After the pleasure of trapping and shooting, in and out of season, +the main and favourite diversion of the squatters of Le Selve was +smuggling; the smuggling of all kinds of game netted out of season, +of ingeniously-hidden wines, carried across the woods from the Este +districts to the very gates of Rome, or as far as Nepi and Corneto; +of charcoal burned by themselves from the stolen wood of the violated +groves around them, and taken in sacks under the walls of villages and +little towns; even of the very pips of the pine-cones baked in their +ovens they made traffic, and carried them away and sold them for what +they could get; they took everything across the forest by night, with +their poor starved cows or buffaloes harnessed to the wagons; and it +was not only the small gains which were dear to them but the pleasure +in the contraband-dealing, and the relish of cheating the _gabellotti_ +at the gates of the capital itself. More than one of them had stabbed a +guard and taken to the hills, where such a fugitive could no more be +traced than if he were an adder under a pile of stones. The ground was +honeycombed with subterranean places, in the past Etruscan sepulchres, +now the storehouses of these men, their entrances known to them alone, +and their retreat safe from discovery. + +“Every man may be betrayed, for Christo was,” said Alcide once; “but an +outlaw is almost always safe and welcome.” + +It was quite true. There is an universal feeling amongst the people of +fraternal unison against the law and the fiscal agents; and the little +children will carry bread and wine to such a fugitive from justice and +never speak, or tell where they have found him. Whatever feud there +might be between the families in other matters, they are of one accord, +of strict and mutual support concerning their enterprises in smuggling +and in brigandage. + +“This contraband carrying is an organised conspiracy,” said Cyrille to +the under-steward, when he had become aware of the practice. + +“No doubt,” said Fausto, with a gesture of indifference. + +“And you have never attempted to put it down?” + +“No; before me nobody ever did. Why should I?” + +“Do you think it right?” + +Fausto shrugged his shoulders. “I do not say whether it is right or it +is wrong. It has always been done. The people would not like it meddled +with, be sure. They regard it as one of their rights.” + +“But it is a bad, dangerous, and dishonest life.” + +“They do not see it so. It pleases them.” + +“And you connive at it?” + +“It hurts nobody,” said Fausto sullenly. “There is no thief so big as +the Revenue.” + +Cyrille said no more; but he resolved to make an example of the first +convoy which he could surprise. He saw that Fausto, for some gain of +his own, or out of personal fear, closed his eyes to the practice. He +determined to lie in waiting himself to hear the wagon wheels passing +over the road on the first moonless night after this conversation. He +understood why he had so often heard afar off in the still hours after +midnight the faint grinding of wheels on rutty paths, and the far-off +voices of swearing men. He took up his stand where three woodland paths +met, on the edge of the only road which led across the woods of the +Gandolfo to Montefiascone northwards, and south-westwards to Rome. He +had reason to believe that it was a frequent route with the forest +thieves. + +He was alone, for he trusted no one enough to ask their company. It was +pitch dark; the moving of night birds and beasts was audible as they +stirred in branch or brake; a deep runlet of water fell down through +the undergrowth, rippling and splashing. He had a seven-chambered +revolver in his belt; he hoped not to be forced to use it. It was +extremely cold, as nights in February are even in the south; but he +had known what it was to pace up and down on guard on the terraces +of Gatschina when snow was six feet deep around, and the cold of the +Patrimony of St Peter had small terrors for him. He stood immovable, +his back against the trunk of an ilex tree; his repeating watch told +him that five quarters had passed since he came there. He was not sure +that the smugglers were out this night, though he had reason to believe +so. It might well be that he had come there for nothing; but he was +resolved to wait until the dawn. + +At last, in the darkness and stillness, he heard the distant sound of +cleft hoofs moving through muddy earth, and springless carts groaning +as the rough wooden spokeless discs of the wheels alone can groan on +their rusty axles. All the soldier in him was roused; he had not felt +so much alive since the day that he had passed the frontier of his +country. They were distant perhaps half a mile. By one of these three +paths fronting him they were forced to enter on the high-road; there +was no other. Nearer and nearer came the creaking of the carts, the +crushing of the soil, the low voices of men: he waited until he could +hear the heavy breathing of the cattle, then he flashed a lantern on +them, and levelled his revolver. + +“It is I--halt!” he said in a clear voice. + +They instinctively pulled the buffaloes backward, and fell back +themselves one against another. They thought he had guards with him. +The cattle paused willingly, the gasping of their breath, the blowing +of their nostrils, sounding painfully on the stillness. + +“Stir not a step, or you are dead men,” he said to them. “You are +carrying contraband.” + +He was by no means certain what they had with them, but his venture +sped home. They had crapes over their faces. They had charcoal and +game in their carts. They huddled together in fear, and did not speak +lest he should recognise their voices. There were three carts, yoked +severally to four buffaloes and two cows; the men were but three. They +had no firearms, only their knives. They eyed him evilly, but they were +afraid to strike him. His revolver, they knew, would be quicker than +their steel; and they thought that he had armed force behind him hidden +in the brake. They muttered under their breath dreadful curses against +him, but they did not rebel. + +“Take your carts to the Fattoria,” he said. “Go on before me. If you +stir out of the road a bullet will find you.” + +Sullenly but timidly they pulled their cattle across out of the +high-road, and into the avenue which led to the house. He walked behind +them, his revolver covering them, as they knew and felt in every nerve +of their spines. Cattle move slowly on the best of roads, and this road +was thick with half-frozen mud, and crossed by runlets of water, and +the beasts splashed heavily through the slush on their leaden-footed +way. + +But at last the half-mile of distance was traversed, and the lamp +burning before a shrine on the balustrade before the house shone across +the sward like a beacon. To his infinite surprise, no one of the men +had attempted any rebellion. + +He fired a shot in the air, and all the members of the household +tumbled up from their slumbers and came out, as he had bade them do +when they should hear the signal, with arms and torches. He caused +the cattle to be stabled, the carts with their loads locked up in an +outhouse, and consigned the prisoners to one of the strong-rooms made +for such use in earlier ages. When he saw their faces he recognised in +one the peasant Alcide. He was amazed at the extreme ease of his own +victory; what to do with it was more perplexing. + +“Take them bread and water, Caterina,” he said to her. + +“Not I, sir. Let the rogues fast.” + +“If you will not, I must.” + +She obeyed, with great reluctance. + +“Think of yourself, sir,” she said when she returned. “Get to rest.” + +“No, I shall remain up; I do not altogether trust our household. There +is a great deal of tribal feeling in your woods.” + +“Is that why you went alone, sir?” + +“Yes.” + +Caterina groaned aloud. “’Tis sheer madness. I wonder they did not +knife you like a sheep. You trust too much to that little steel +honeycomb of yours.” + +“One can only die once,” said Cyrille, and thought: “I died when I left +my love and my country.” + +He remained the rest of the night awake and armed; seated by the +kitchen fire, where he could hear the slightest movement which might +take place in any of the long stone passages and basement chambers. + +There was no sound anywhere till the cocks crowed at dawn. An hour +after sunrise he had the men whom he had captured brought before him. +In one he recognised, as he expected to do, the peasant Alcide; the +other two were neighbours of his, young, unintelligent, ill-looking +boors who had followed Alcide’s lead. + +The dark-browed, lean, unwashed man scowled at him as he had done in +the death-chamber of the old Adamo; his eyes were like jewels and +scintillated dangerously. He had been disarmed when brought there, but +his fingers fingered nervously at his hairy breast seeking the poignard +which was always used to lie within his belt. Cyrille cross-questioned +him minutely, but failed to get any confession out of him. + +“You took me in the act,” he said sullenly. “Make what you can of that.” + +In his own mind Alcide was certain that his niece had betrayed him; +but he would let no word escape him which could be construed into +confession or facilitate condemnation. + +The theft of the charcoal and game, and the intent to run them +contraband, were evident, and he did not deny them; but he did not +admit either. He left his accuser to collect evidence as he could. + +There was enough of it to justify Cyrille in sending him and his +companions to the nearest guardhouse, which was a dozen miles on the +other side of the woods. + +It would have been the wisest course to pursue, and Alcide would have +had a year or more of prison; his companions, more excusable, as +tempted by him, perhaps less. + +But his present judge was a man who held the creeds of Tolstoi; +who abhorred the eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth of modern +legislation; who had infinite compassion for the poor and ignorant, and +even for the most vicious. He took a course which he thought would be +just both for his employers and to the thief. + +“I could send you to take your trial,” he said in conclusion, “and your +trial would undoubtedly end in your conviction. I perhaps shall do +wrong if I spare you. But my employers leave me large discretion, and +I shall exercise it in your favour. I confiscate the stolen charcoal; +it is the property of my masters; and the game I shall send to the +hospitals of Rome; but I will restore to you your carts and cattle, and +I will set you free. All I ask of you is to offend no more.” + +Alcide’s face did not change; he shrugged his shoulders slightly; the +other two offenders fell on their knees and blessed the saints, and +swore their willingness to lead a cleanly life. + +“Of what are you thinking, Alcide?” said Cyrille, looking at the dark +savage, sunburnt face of Muriella’s uncle, with its glittering eyes +and its deep lines of dirt and smoke. + +“I was thinking that you have not learned much since you have come +here!” replied the man in tones of rasping contempt. + +“You mean that I am a fool to spare you?” + +Alcide showed his white even teeth flashing in his swarthy face with a +grin of satirical scorn. He did not answer in words. + +“I fear that I am,” said Cyrille. “But I have given you my word. I +cannot withdraw it now. If any hear of this matter it will not be from +me. Go. You are free. Your knife will be given back to you. Treat your +cattle decently if you know how; and if I take you, when engaged in +this work, a second time, I shall not spare you.” + +Alcide turned on his heel, and went out of the chamber without a word +of gratitude. + +“The girl betrayed me to him,” he thought. “Thank him? Not I! What does +he here? Interloper, and spy, and meddler. He drew me before him last +night as if I had been an ox. I will be quits with him before long.” + +“He dealt better with you than you deserve, you gallows-bird,” said +Caterina, as he went across the courtyard. Alcide showed his white even +teeth again like a wolf’s, and grinned in her face. + +No one had betrayed him. Cyrille’s own observations had alone furnished +him with indices which he had followed up to proof. But the Italian +always believes betrayal to be the cause of all disaster, public or +private, and these men were convinced that they had been betrayed; +their suspicions settled, naturally, on Muriella. “She was ever an +unnatural, ill-feeling wench,” said Alcide. “Always caring for birds +and beasts and reptiles, and frowning where we laughed. It is but of a +piece with her to serve the stranger and rob us all.” + +But he did not let her see his suspicions since he had no confirmation +of them; he, indeed, went out of his way to be civil and flatter her. +“If you can make our poor girls like yourself we shall thank you,” he +said more than once. “’Tis those good ways your mother taught you; they +were never in our wild blood.” + +Muriella weighed his compliments at their right worth, and distrusted +all he said; but she did not know how passionately he hated her. He was +a bad man, she knew, but after all he was her father’s brother, and had +given her a home, such as it was. It was miserable in many ways, and +made more so than it need have been by filth and want of thrift; but it +was a home; it saved her from that errant and lonely life which brings +down on any woman so much contempt and derision, and in a rough way +they estimated her use to them and feared to lose her. + + + + +VIII. + + +The winter passed, and no one of the threats against the steward had +been fulfilled. The woods with earliest February were again filled with +the fragrance of the hellebore, earliest and sweetest herald of the +spring. + +“They will do nothing now, the days are lengthening,” thought Muriella, +as her nostrils breathed that pungent perfume of the pale green bells, +which she associated in fancy with that lady of the north whom she +vaguely and wistfully envied. But though she strove to persuade herself +of this she felt no certainty. + +Short days or long, dark nights or fine, are all one and the same to +those who hate another, and the quietude and comparative industry +of her relatives filled her with apprehension as to what evils such +unwonted virtues might pertain. + +Her uncles were certain she was a spy of the steward’s, and said +nothing before her which they would not have had repeated from +the tree-tops. But the wife of Alcide was imprudent, and let dark +innuendoes fall from her. + +“White birds that come from the North do not always live to go back +there,” she said once, and once again said, “Le Selve is full of trees, +but the trees can bear three fruits--fire, and steel, and lead.” + +Muriella knew that they could wait patiently for years when they +meditated a revenge, but that they would strike in the end as +unerringly as the gerfalcon struck the wood-pigeon. + +Meantime the saints were long in answering; perhaps what she had done +had been too insignificant, yet she could not think so; they would be +too generous to despise, too merciful to reject it. + +“Yes,” she repeated to herself again and again that winter-time; “I +will pray always.” + +Weeks and months went by, and she had no sign from heaven. Once she +said to Cyrille: + +“Do they not call you home?” + +“No,” he answered in surprise; “what makes you think of things which +can never be?” + +“You will go home,” she repeated. + +Yet if her prayer were granted, she knew that he would go away from +these woods for ever; that his unknown love, of whom she thought as +crowned with green hellebore and clothed with the stars, would stretch +her arms out from the mists and take him. + +Meantime the beautiful springtime came and went, with the song of +nightingales in the laurel shadows, and the cuckoos calling from the +pines, and the marvellous flora of the Agro Romano in blossom all +through the woods. + +The long hot summer succeeded, with water-lilies, white and gold, on +all the pools. In these woods there is something of a tropical heat; +their deep shade does not bring coolness, for it excludes air; it +is delightful to the eyes, but to the lungs humid and oppressive. +Oftentimes for weeks not a breath stirs the pendant foliage; when +there is fever and ague on the plains around Rome, there is danger +here in the forest in the sultry nights and on the stagnant waters. In +the higher woods there is less danger, but down in the marshes where +the mosquitoes hum in vast clouds, and the swamps dry up and crack, +and the horse-flies swarm in myriads, and the toads and the frogs +die of drought, it were as much as life were worth to sleep there +through a summer night. There was much sickness this year amongst +the woodlanders, and Cyrille supplied as far as he could the place +of medical aid. The remedies for such fevers were simple; and the +greatest obstacle he encountered was in the bodily filth of the people +and their fear of fresh air. They, who in health worked all day long +in the air in all weathers, falling sick huddled together in a foul +corner, and shut their wooden windows close. But though he saved their +lives, they hated him all the more. The report spread amongst them that +he had poisoned the watersprings because he wanted the woods clear of +the squatters; and this preposterous tale found willing and credulous +believers. + +“Truly,” he thought bitterly, “I had better let them drop like +murrained sheep. For what crime does one pay half as dear as for the +madness of trying to serve one’s fellow-men?” + +But he continued to do what he could, by day and by night, in despite +of their evil glances and their muttered curses, and of the fingers +thrust out at him in exorcism. + +Thus in the long course of breathless weeks the summer drew to an end, +and every day the thirsty glades looked for rain, and the parched pools +and dried-up waterways hungered for the first storm in vain. + +It was towards the close of a hot day in September. The air was heavy +and the sky dull. He had been out all day on his usual rounds, and came +in as the sun set to his evening meal. He was thirsty and tired; he had +eaten nothing all day. The colourless leaden heat made him think of +summer on his native plains, and even the distant horizons were veiled +by the gray malarious vapours rising from the soil. The courtyard +seemed to him unusually still as he passed through it. There was no one +about, not even a stable-lad. + +Only a man on a mule, with a horn slung at his shoulder, and some sacks +on his saddle, was riding out of one of the gates he entered. He saw it +was a letter-carrier from Ronciglione. + +The post was a rare thing in these districts; scarcely anyone, in an +area of a hundred miles square, could read, still less write. Once +in half a year Caterina received news from a son who was a trader in +Brazil, and another son who was a soldier in Eritrea, and Fausto had +occasional correspondence concerning stallions or brood mares to be +bought or sold, or bulls and rams to be had for the hiring, but these +were very rarely; business was done on horseback and by word of mouth +in these districts; and to Cyrille himself no single message had ever +come since he had first entered the shadows of Le Selve. Absolute +silence had fallen between him and his own land and his own people; +he hoped that they believed him dead. The Gandolfo had promised him +secrecy as to his existence and employment, and the most that he could +hope for was that he might be allowed to remain in the poor substitute +for resignation which is to be obtained from constant occupation and +undisturbed work. + +His mother had been in her grave some years. There was no one living, +he thought bitterly, who loved him well enough to endeavour to learn +his fate. His family, doubtless, and all those who had once formed his +world, thought him dead, and better dead, in some nameless foreign +grave. + +Therefore his heart stood still with surprise and emotion as he +returned this day from his usual rounds, and was met by Caterina, who +cried to him: + +“The post-boy has been here, sir; the post from Ronciglione; dead beat +he was, and glad enough of bit and sup; he brought a letter for you; +’tis on your table in your chamber.” + +He ascended the staircase with beating pulse, and noticed not that the +curious good-will of Caterina brought her up after him and kept her at +the doorway. + +There was a large square envelope lying on the table, stamped with the +postmarks of his native land, and sealed with a cypher which he knew. + +He tore it open. + +All it contained was a photograph of a woman’s head and shoulders; a +likeness of the face which was always in his dreams by night and by +day. Under the portrait was written: + + “_Je seraià Rome en hiver._ + “_Marie._” + +It was to him as though heaven had opened. His limbs shook as with +palsy, his breath came in deep-drawn sobs; he pressed the portrait to +his lips and to his heart. + +He was no more alone. He was no more without a future. He did not ask +or care how she had found his refuge or learned his fate, how she had +traced him, what she knew, what they could be or could not be to each +other; it was enough that she remembered; that she was faithful; that +in a few months she would be near him there, where the golden rays of +the cross sparkled in the soft azure of summer eves above Rome. It was +an ecstasy so great, so unlooked for, so overwhelming, that it utterly +unmanned him; he fell on his knees and wept. + +Caterina, looking on from the entrance, closed the door softly, and +went down the stairs. + +The sultry day was ended; the sun had set. Far to the west on the +Campagna the fever mists were drifting in pale haze, like the wraiths +of the multitudes of dead whose dust made up the soil. The Anio, +shrunken to a runlet in its bed, was slow and almost stagnant. The +distant Tiber was discernible by the thread of fog which hung over its +course. In the woods themselves the heat was noiseless and dusky and +oppressive; the great ilex avenues looked black as the sacrificial +groves of old. Yet never to him, not in April radiance or autumn glory, +had the scene looked so fair. Evening closed in, an evening hot and +heavy, without any moon or any breath of air, but he sat in a rapture +of memory and of hope beside one of the large windows, of which the +embrasure fronted the north. The light from his own oil lamp within +shone on the marbles of the balustrade outside, and across a few yards +of the rough grassland beyond it. Farther than that was all quite dark, +for the heat-mists made the light of the stars dim. Now and then an owl +flew by hooting; many had their dwelling in the roof; and scores of +large bats rushed to and fro pursuing the invisible insect-life of the +night. + +At any other time it might have struck him that the house was unusually +silent; that there was not the noise of women’s chatter, or of men’s +laughter and altercation, such as usually rose up from court and stable +and outhouse when the day was done. All was so still that the place +might have been a monastery, with every cell closed, and every friar +sleeping. + +But at this moment of supreme happiness, happiness which seemed almost +reunion, with that portrait in his hands, and under his eyes, and that +vague, ineffable promise written for the future beneath it, he would +have scarcely been sensible if the volcanic fires which slept under the +tufa around had burst the soil and thundered through the woods. + +He was happy. Once more he was happy, in despite of exile, of poverty, +of attainder, of ruin. + +Those fair eyes looked at him with the gaze he knew so well, and those +fair lips said to him, “I am faithful.” + + + + +IX. + + +How long he had sat there since he had entered the chamber he did not +know; he had had no consciousness of the old woman having entered the +room with the lamp, and having told him that his dinner awaited him in +the smaller room beyond. + +It was with difficulty that he roused himself to a perception of her +voice, when she stood again at his elbow, and called him thrice in a +low, shrill, startled voice. + +“Let me alone, my friend,” he said to her; “I am occupied--I do not +need to dine.” + +“It is not that. Hearken!” said Caterina, and something in her tone +awakened him to attention. “Sir--sir--there is no one in the house.” + +He turned and looked at her. + +“No one in the house? There must be some of the men--some of the women. +Have they not supped?” + +“That is it, sir,” she answered. “Supper-hour is long past, and never +yet did they fail to get together to fill their bellies. Save old +Matteo, who is daft, and Dreina, who is lame, there is not a soul in +the place. There must be some meaning in it, sir. Never did my folks +dare to cross the threshold without leave.” + +“It is strange,” said Cyrille, as he comprehended the singularity of +her intelligence. “They do indeed obey you usually like children. Where +can they all be gone?” + +“The Lord knows, sir. But I am afraid----” + +Her ruddy face was blanched. + +“Of what are you afraid?” + +“That they have left the house because they know there will be an +attack on it.” + +“Is it possible?” + +“Possible enough. People who are warned and do not wish to take either +side always go away like this. Matteo is daft, but even he knows +something; he laughs, and draws his finger across his throat. Dreina is +crying, but will not speak though I beat her. You had best close the +windows, sir, and fasten up the doors.” + +He still scarcely gathered the full meaning of her words; his brain was +still dizzy with the sweetness of sudden hope, the rush of reviving +memories, and he had never been alive to the true dangers of the life +around him, to its enmities, its risks, its possibilities. He meant +so well by the people, that he could not consent to believe that they +meant less well by him. + +“You must be mistaken,” he said to the old woman. “The household must +be playing you some trick to affright you. Let us go and look over the +outbuildings. The _guardiani_ must at least be about the place.” + +He put the portrait he had received in his breast, and buttoned his +coat over it; then he took his revolver from the table and put it in +his chest-pocket. + +“Do not go out of doors, sir,” said Caterina, as she laid her hand +on his arm. “I do not believe there is one of our men within call +anywhere, and who knows what gang of thieves and ruffians may not be +hid all round already? If you knew the things I have seen in my youth +and my womanhood! I fear me you will meet your God to-night, for there +is no hand but your own to defend you!” + +This time he believed her; he saw that whether she deceived herself or +not, she thought some deadly peril awaited himself. + +“What will they do?” he asked, “and why should they seek to kill me?” + +She answered almost sullenly: + +“I have told you a score of times, and so has the girl Muriella, that +you are hated because you are a stranger, a meddler, as folks think, +a reformer as you call it. You would never believe us because we were +women. Well, this night I fear you will find we said truth. But let us +waste no time in talk. Let us fasten up the doors. They are strong; +they have stood a siege before now.” + +“I shall look a poor cowardly fool if the household return.” + +“They will not return, sir, till they see the house ablaze.” + +“Good heavens! Do you _know_ this?” + +“I do not know it, for if I had heard tell of it, I should have told +you, and you could have got the carabineers or the soldiery here; but +I know what an empty house like this means, when there are forty folks +all gone out of it at the same time on the same errand, and I know that +the woodlanders of Le Selve are no lambs.” + +He was silent a moment; then he said: + +“I will sell my life dearly, Caterina. As for you, slip out while you +can, and hide in the outhouses or the underwood till morning. You +cannot alter my fate. Do not stay to share it.” + +“I am no poltroon, sir, and my years anyhow cannot be many. Come to +work.” + +She led the way carrying the lamp, and held the light up whilst +he put up the enormous bars and turned the gigantic keys of the +iron-barred doors, and shut and bolted the shutters. There was no sound +without. The imbecile Matteo and the lame woman Dreina he drove, +as a precaution, into a little room off the kitchen, which had no +communication with the outer court, and locked them in there. The woman +would not speak. + +He caused Caterina to light as many lamps as there were in the +building, and placed them in various corridors and chambers; he looked +for the guns belonging to the men, but they were gone, and those of the +under-steward likewise. + +“Fausto must be in this matter,” he said to Caterina. + +“He is probably the mainspring of it, sir,” she answered. “But no one +will ever prove it on him. He went away yesterday eve to go to shoot in +the macchia over by Ostia; there is no close time there. You recollect +he asked your leave to go and buy cattle; but he told several of the +men he was going shooting. If this plan succeed, he will come back and +act innocence. If it fail, he will take ship to one of the Americas. +He has feathered his nest.” + +“He did ask leave--yes,” replied Cyrille, still incredulous. “But after +all, there may be nothing of what you think; your lads and lasses may +only have taken holiday.” + +“They have taken holiday, sir, indeed,” said Caterina grimly. She was +angered against him for his incredulity. To her the conspiracy was +clear as crystal. + +He was still very doubtful of the truth of her suspicions, but he +thought it well to take such measures for protection as he could. He +made the basement as safe from attack as he could with the means at his +disposal, and no man’s strength to aid him, and closed all passages +which led outward; there were some subterranean passages, of the +existence even of which he had possessed no previous knowledge. + +Caterina showed him an iron door in the side of a well. The door was +just above the level of the water, which glimmered far down below; +steps in the stonework descended to it. + +“It goes out to the woods under the long avenue, and opens up under +that great ilex which they call Pope Paul’s,” she said. “You might get +away so if you would. The passage is low and narrow, but it has been +kept clear. You know the woods well enough to find your way at daybreak +to the guardhouse.” + +“I could not hide and fly like that,” answered Cyrille. “I am placed in +charge here. I can only lay down my charge with my life.” + +Caterina nodded in approval, but sighed. + +“If you will not fly, they will have you before the night is passed. +’Tis a conspiracy of the whole Selve folk.” + +She knew nothing, but she had many memories, and she was a native of +the woods. + +“Did they not poison your dog?” she added. + +When he had made all as secure as it was possible to make it (and he +thought, except against explosives or petroleum, the doors would stand +all night), he went up to an open loggia at the top of the building, +with a dark lanthorn, and thence looked to all points of the compass. +On a clear night he could see from the light at Palo on the west to +the Sabine Hills and to Soracte on the east. Many a night in the full +moonlight he had traced the profiles of the beautiful mountains lying +like the silver waves of a phosphorescent sea. Now they were all hidden +under a haze of heat and vapour; he could scarcely distinguish farther +than the stone benches and balustrades immediately below, and the +outlines of the nearest trees. + +The stillness was intense. Leaning against one of the columns of the +loggia, invisible to anyone who might be below, he waited and listened. +But the sense of the possible peril near was less realised by him +than the knowledge of the happiness which had come across steppe and +mountain, and plain and forest, to bring him its blessing. + +With all the tide of recovered hope coursing like warm wine through +his veins, he could not believe that he was about to be besieged like +a rat in his hole, hunted out like a fox from his earth. The man whom +Princess Marie loved, whom she remembered, whom she smiled on in +banishment, disgrace, and poverty, must wear an amulet too potent, he +thought, to be done to death by a tribe of ingrate peasants. There +could not be such devilish derision in fate, that at the very moment +when his barren life blossomed like the rose, it was to be cut down by +a yelling rabble against whom he had no sin but to have served them in +sickness and to his own peril. + +He leaned against the marble pilaster, and let his thoughts drift away +from the present hour to the past, which was so dear; to the future, +which was still dearer. Come what may, be what might, nothing save +death itself could slay that ecstasy which sang like a bird in his +breast. + +The clock tolled at the stables more than once the passing hours, and +the stillness was broken by no other sound. It was midnight; he thought +the old woman had been misled by her fears: the men and women would no +doubt return at sunrise from revel at some distant town to which they +had known it would be useless to ask the Massaja to grant leave of +absence. + +Suddenly he heard a sound, distant, slight, such a sound as the passing +of goats or sheep over grass produces; scarcely perceptible by day, but +audible in the deep hush of night. + +“That is the movement of men,” thought Cyrille, with a sick sense of +certainty. He listened a moment longer to make sure that it was not +a breeze rising which stirred the foliage; then, with his impression +confirmed, he left the loggia, and descended the stairway to where old +Caterina sat in his chamber telling her beads. + +“There are persons approaching,” he said to her; “and they can come for +no good.” + +“They come, thinking you are asleep, and that one of the doors has been +left open for them. How many are there?” + +“I cannot tell. But several.” + +Caterina shook her head. + +“If help could come--but how should any help come? We are cut off from +all.” + +“Hark! they are crossing the grass. In a moment they will be at the +great doors.” + +“They expect Dreina will open for them, the wretched baggage!” + +For a moment or two there was silence, then a crossing of confused +voices became audible through the heavy timber of the closed doors. + +“Let them think me asleep,” murmured Cyrille, and he covered the +entrance with his revolver. He could not tell who were there without, +nor in what numbers; their purpose it was easy to imagine. It was also +probable that they were for the instant nonplussed finding no one there +ready to admit them. But he knew that they would not long let this +baffle them. + +“Go and hide somewhere, good Caterina,” he murmured to her. “It +unnerves me to know you are here.” + +“Do not think of me, sir,” said the stout old woman. “I am of no use, +but I will be of no hindrance. It is strange to me that the girl +Muriella did not hear of this and warn us. When did you see her last?” + +“Three days ago, I think.” + +His voice was drowned in the sound of iron striking wood as the blow of +hatchets fell on the oak of the great doors. But every inch of the wood +was studded with great nails in front and plated with iron behind, and +the axes made but little progress. + +“Try the side doors,” said a voice in which he recognised Alcide’s. +“The strumpet Dreina has played us false.” + +The feet of a score of men trampled on the marble of the terrace +running round the buildings. But the side doors were armoured in the +same way, and had been all bolted and barred. The assailants realised +that they would not enter by those means; they began to swear savagely +amongst each other. + +They had not crossed the turf as yet. + +“Poor Caterina!” said Cyrille; “would to heaven you were in safety.” + +“It is not me whom they come after. Forgive me, sir; but is there much +money in the strong-box?” + +“Happily not. I sent an express with the proceeds of three months’ +sales to Rome last week.” + +“That will make them mad.” + +“If they get in. I hope to keep them out. I shall not open to them--of +that you may be sure.” + +She was a stout-hearted old woman; she laughed a little grimly. + +In the centre of the great doors, as in most old Italian entrances, +there was a small barred square panel, the width of a man’s hand which +could be slid back, leaving the grating open, and thus a parley could +be effected without danger. + +Cyrille drew back the panel, and standing on one side of the grating, +where none could see or touch him, said in a clear voice: + +“Why come you here armed?” + +“Open, and you will know,” answered the voice of Alcide, and they +cursed him. + +“I do not open to threats. Say your errand, or depart.” + +They cursed him again. + +“We shall have your blood,” said their spokesman. “We come for that. We +shall not be balked. We will burn you out like a live hog smoked from +his lair.” + +Cyrille closed the panel. + +The group without roared with fury like wild boars, and threw +themselves with all their weight against the doors. + +“You could have shot him through the grating,” said Caterina, with her +face gray and stern. “Why did you not? It was Alcide who spoke.” + +“I know it was,” replied Cyrille. + +“Why did you not shoot him?” + +He was silent. He could not have made her understand the reluctance to +shed blood which had held his hand. + +The hideous uproars of a ravenous pack was now let loose upon the +stillness of the summer midnight. They fired at the doors. The shots +recoiled harmlessly. They were all armed merely in the rude manner +of the woods. They had expected to be admitted from within, and the +disappointment baffled and drove them mad. + +“Burn him out!” cried their ringleader. “There is brushwood in the +sheds.” + +By the sound of the trampling feet and lessening shouts he could tell +that they were gone where the firewood used by the household was +stored in sheds beside the stackyard and stables. + +“They will try to burn us out,” said Cyrille. “But the house is like a +rock.” + +The old woman shrugged her shoulders. + +“You could have shot the worst of them and you did not. He will roast +you, as he says, like a spitted hog.” + +“I cannot kill a man in cold blood,” he replied, and he pressed the +portrait in his breast closer to him. + +But he knew that they would doubtless do what they threatened. + +The solid house would resist long, but it could not resist all night. +If they brought wood enough and fired it, sooner or later those within +would perforce fall a prey to the smoke and the flames. + +Rather than perish so, he thought he would open and go out, and fall +fighting. But to do so would be to expose the whole place to certain +pillage; and he was there as the representative and trustee of the +owners. + +In a few minutes there was no doubt as to the intentions of the +marauders. They returned dragging with them quantities of brushwood +and faggots, and by the sound he could tell that they were piling them +up before the principal entrance; the voice of Alcide was loudest in +command and objurgation. + +“Fire you through the peephole, sir,” said Caterina. She was gray with +horror, but she did not cry out, or give any sign of cowardice. + +“Not yet,” said Cyrille. “These wretched people were confided to my +care. If I have missed the way to their souls it is my fault.” + +Caterina gave a snort of scorn. + +“They will not miss the way to your vitals, be sure! Much good will +your fine thoughts do you when the scoundrels shall haul you out +through the smoke, and hack you to pieces as they would hack a wild +boar’s limbs off his trunk.” + +Despite his courage and composure a shudder ran through him at the +horrible words. But he did not open the panel and fire. + +The men without were mad with rage because they had not found the house +opened to them as arranged with the absent household. + +They had planned an easy entrance, unmolested pillage, and the +slaughter of the foreigner in his bed. They could not tell why they +found him up and armed; and all the entrances of the house closed. + +“’Tis that traitress Muriella,” muttered Lucio; “she warned him, be +sure,” and as he spoke the other men screamed in chorus with rage and +hate. Let them find her! let them only find her! She should rue the day +that her mother, the cursed woman of Viterbo, bore her! + +They heaped the dry heather and pine branches up in a great pile before +the doorway; they lighted matches and resinous cones, and tried to set +fire to the pile. They had not brought petroleum, because of its name +and use they were all ignorant. The wood failed to catch alight; the +air was heavy, and there was no wind to stir a flame. + +Cyrille debated whether it would not be best for the place and for the +woman to give himself up to the will of the assailants, on condition +that she and it should be spared. But he knew that he could not trust +them to fulfil any conditions, and the soldier and the noble in him +loathed the thought of surrender to this rabble, and at last he fired +through one of the inch-wide squares of the grating. His shot broke the +wrist of the man lighting the heather. + +They all for a moment fell back demoralised; Alcide was safe out +of reach, for he had expected shots from within, and had given his +comrades the posts of danger. + +“I would willingly spare you,” said Cyrille, and his voice came clearly +to them through the little aperture. “But you shall not fire the house +whilst I live; I will break the bone of every man’s arm used to set +light to this wood.” + +There was a brief pause. They were cunning, vindictive, merciless, but +they were not brave, and they could not be certain that he was alone. +They drew back from the doorway, and took counsel amongst themselves. +No one of them cared to be the second to have his wrist snapped in two; +the first man who had met this fate was howling like a wounded wolf, +calling curses down on the head of Alcide. It was one thing to enter a +defenceless and open house, and pillage all it contained, and kill a +stranger in his sleep, and another to force entrance under the deadly +fire of a revolver whose owner was masked and protected by iron-plated +doors. + +They had unlit torches with them, brought to light their way about +the cellars and store-rooms when they should enter the house. Alcide +lighted one, and standing where Cyrille could not see him, hurled its +blazing mass on to the piled brushwood, and three other men did the +same. But the torches fell short and dropped on the marble pavement +before the door; as they flared there harmlessly their red glare glowed +on the black figures of the woodlanders, which looked like the forms of +demons as they danced and yelled with rage and thirst for blood, hidden +by the darkness of the night, save where the fitful glimmer of the +torches touched them. + +Owing to the narrowness of the slit through which he fired, Cyrille +could only aim at those immediately before the door or on the grass in +front of him. + +The peasants could, without going far, keep out of range, and from +their station beyond the balustrade they flung two other torches; +these fell full on the piled heather, which caught alight, and sent +a rolling, stifling cloud of smoke up through the grating. As they +saw the success of their effort they lost caution, they shouted with +rapture, and crowded nearer to enjoy the sport; the fire ran from +heather to bramble and branch; the cones caught alight with jets of +flame; the dry faggots cracked and flared, the volumes of smoke rolled +up to the sculptured arms and crown about the doorways. + +“Their blood be on their own heads,” said Cyrille, and he fired--once, +twice, thrice. Each time a man fell. But Alcide still kept out of +range. The fire was fierce, and its red waves licked hungrily the old +oak and iron which opposed their entrance. + +Resistance could be but a question of time. + +“If I could believe they would keep faith with me, I would let them +torture me to death, to save the house and the woman. But they do not +know what faith means. Were I once dead, they would sack the place from +loggia to cellar, and get drunk on wine and blood.” + +Suddenly there came to his ears a sound of galloping horses. The sound +came from the long avenue in front of the house to the north. The men +did not heed it; they were leaping and shouting and bellowing with +triumph as the fire waxed higher and fiercer, and the smoke ran up +amongst the bronze scroll-work of the balconies above. + +He could now see nothing, for the burning wood hid all save itself, +but he could hear, and the gallop of the horses grew nearer, and there +blent with it the jingling of chains and of scabbards, and a shrill +yell of terror rose from the grassland beyond the balustrade. + +“The saints be praised!” cried Caterina, and she fell on her knees and +burst into tears. “’Tis the carabineers of Ronciglione!” + +Cyrille went to a side door which the fire had not reached, unfastened +its bolts and bars, and went out on to the grass. + +The gendarmes had slid from their saddles, had surrounded and seized +the woodlanders, who made a fierce but short resistance. Against +a horse from which she had dismounted there leaned a woman--pale, +dishevelled, exhausted, staring with dilated eyes at the burning pile. +She was drenched with sweat; discoloured with heat and dust; her mouth +was wide open with parching thirst; her bare feet were bleeding. + +It was Muriella. + +Great tears were falling down her cheeks, for she had delivered her +own kinsmen over to justice, and she was ashamed of the guilt of her +father’s people. + +“You brought the guards?” cried Cyrille, as he recognised her. + +“I overheard--this afternoon--late,” she said, her breath deep drawn +and laboured, like a worn-out steer’s; “it would have done no good to +come here, and I knew the men at the picquet were absent. I ran to +Ronciglione in four hours for the soldiery. There was no other way. I +could trust no one.” + +Alcide was standing, pinioned by a gendarme, his gun having been taken +from him; his eyes were red with a wicked, furious flame. There was +little light, except such as was shed by the glare of the burning wood; +but that was enough to enable him to see who it was who had been his +undoing. + +With a sudden movement, lithe and quick and unexpected as a snake’s, +he twisted himself from the hold of the carabineer who was about to +manacle him, and with one leap like a deer’s he sprang to the side of +his niece. + +“Traitress!” he hissed in her ear, as he snatched a knife hidden in his +waistbelt, and stabbed her full in the breast. + +They seized him instantly again, but he had aimed too well not to have +slain. + +“It does not matter,” she said, as she pressed the haft of the knife to +her bosom. “I was in time--it was that which mattered.” + +The blood from her pierced lungs choked her. + +“You will go home,” she murmured feebly. “The saints did hear!” + +A moment later she was dead. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: + + + Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. + + Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=. + + Perceived typographical errors have been corrected. + + Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. + + Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77040 *** diff --git a/77040-h/77040-h.htm b/77040-h/77040-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b4170b --- /dev/null +++ b/77040-h/77040-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5569 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Le Selve | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +.pagenum { + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} + +.bbox {border: 2px solid; padding: 1em;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.ph1 {text-align: center; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;} +.ph2 {text-align: center; font-size: xx-large; font-weight: bold;} + +div.titlepage {text-align: center; page-break-before: always; page-break-after: always;} +div.titlepage p {text-align: center; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: 2em;} + +.xxlarge {font-size: 175%;} +.large {font-size: 125%;} + +.x-ebookmaker .hide {display: none; visibility: hidden;} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {display: inline-block; text-align: left;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -2.5em; padding-left: 3em;} +.poetry .indent11 {text-indent: 8.5em;} + +@media print { .poetry {display: block;} } +.x-ebookmaker .poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} + +p.drop-cap { + text-indent: -0.35em; +} +p.drop-cap2 { + text-indent: -0.75em; +} +p.drop-cap:first-letter, p.drop-cap2:first-letter +{ + float: left; + margin: 0em 0.15em 0em 0em; + font-size: 250%; + line-height:0.85em; + text-indent: 0em; +} +.x-ebookmaker p.drop-cap, .x-ebookmaker p.drop-cap2 { + text-indent: 0em; +} +.x-ebookmaker p.drop-cap:first-letter, .x-ebookmaker p.drop-cap2:first-letter +{ + float: none; + margin: 0; + font-size: 100%; +} + +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:smaller; + margin-left: 17.5%; + margin-right: 17.5%; + padding: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; } + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77040 ***</div> + +<div class="figcenter hide"><img src="images/coversmall.jpg" width="450" alt=""></div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_colophon.jpg" alt=""></div> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h1><i>LE SELVE</i></h1> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="bbox"> +<p class="ph1"><i>UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME.</i></p> + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_009.jpg" alt=""></div> + +<p><b>A Gender in Satin.</b> By <span class="smcap">Rita</span>.</p> + +<p><b>The Making of Mary.</b> By <span class="smcap">Jean +Forsyth</span>.</p> + +<p><b>Diana’s Hunting.</b> By <span class="smcap">R. Buchanan</span>.</p> + +<p><b>Sir Quixote of the Moors.</b> By <span class="smcap">John +Buchan</span>.</p> + +<p><b>Dreams.</b> By <span class="smcap">Olive Schreiner</span>. <i>6th +Edition.</i></p> + +<p><b>The Honour of the Flag and other +Stories.</b> By <span class="smcap">W. Clark Russell</span>.</p> +</div></div></div></div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="title page"></div> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="titlepage"> +<p><span class="xxlarge">Le Selve</span></p> + +<p>BY<br> +<span class="large">OUIDA</span></p> + +<p>LONDON<br> +<span class="large">T. FISHER UNWIN</span><br> +1896</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center"> <span class="smcap">Copyright by</span> T. FISHER UNWIN, 1896<br> + (<i>for Great Britain</i>).<br> + <br> + <span class="smcap">Copyright by</span><br> + BACHELLER, JOHNSON & BACHELLER<br> + (<i>for the United States of America</i>).</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span> +<p class="ph2"><i>Le Selve.</i></p> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_009.jpg" alt=""></div> + +<h2 class="nobreak">I.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">IT was a cold black night, +with neither moon or stars, +and an old peasant lay dying. +He was all alone. No one +thought it worth while to waste time +beside him. He was eighty-three +years old, and, according to his +sons, ought to have been dead long +before this autumn.</p> + +<p>They and their families sat round +a fire of logs and chips, and talked +amongst themselves; not of him, +he was no more of any account. On +the morrow, or at farthest the day +after, he would be carried to the +ditch in the burial-ground at the +nearest village and tumbled into it; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>and so—<i>Addio per sempre</i>. It would +be trouble enough to take him +there; the graveyard was fifteen +miles and more away.</p> + +<p>The big room, which was kitchen, +eating-place, and cellar in one, was +reeking with filth; cobwebs years +old hung black and gray from the +rafters; the floor of beaten earth +was deep with the dust and mud +brought by scores of dirty feet; the +smoke from the yawning chimney +hung in dark mist about the walls. +Upstairs there was no fire. Why +waste good fuel in warming cold +limbs, cold from age and death?</p> + +<p>“I am cold, I am cold!” muttered +the old man; but no one heeded. +Of course he was cold; people who +were dying always were so. He +shivered and shook under his cotton +coverlet; and it was dark, so dark, +they had left him no light; light +burns oil, and what could he see or +hope to see? His eyes were already +glazing.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>“Lazzaro got a whole crown for +those turkeys which died of the +pip,” said his elder son in the kitchen +below, stretching his hands towards +the blaze. Lazzaro was a neighbour +who dwelt on a clearing, and +made cask-hoops and wooden shoes.</p> + +<p>“Some folks have luck,” said his +son’s wife as she gave her left breast +to her youngest child who stood at +her knee. Then they were silent, +and the man cracked a nut with +his teeth. The wood crackled, the +child sucked, some big boys gambled +with plum-stones for counters on +the dirty bricks, a girl of twelve +years old caught a cricket amongst +the ashes, and pulled it in a leisurely +way to pieces; two smaller children, +twins, watching enviously and with +deep interest.</p> + +<p>“The northern birds went overhead +at noon,” said the younger +brother Lucio after a time.</p> + +<p>“Damn them! they fly too high +to be shot,” said the elder, Alcide.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>“They were all in a black three-sided +mass,” said the younger.</p> + +<p>“They always fly like that,” said +the elder. “They’re a shrewd lot, +those big birds.”</p> + +<p>“How they keep time! ’tis amazing,” +said Lucio. “Come regular +with the first frost and go regular +when the catkins peer out on the +sallows.”</p> + +<p>Then silence fell again between +them.</p> + +<p>The fire burnt more silently and +more hotly; the woman put her +child away from her, and thrust her +breast back behind the iron busk of +her stays; the twins fell asleep leaning +against each other. The boys +gambling with the plum-stones +swore and struck at each other. +From between the rafters overhead +the sound of a low groan was heard +now and then, and the elder son +muttered, with many an oath, +“Can’t ye be quiet, old one?”</p> + +<p>Time went on. They had no watch +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>or clock, but they could tell that an +hour had passed by the look of the +burning wood. There was a louder +sound as of lamentation from the +room above. Alcide got up and +went to the foot of the wooden stair.</p> + +<p>“Hold your jaw, old one!” he +shouted. “Can’t you die in a quiet +way? You’ve lived a deal too long +as it is.”</p> + +<p>One small boy nudged his twin +brother. “Grandfather’s dying,” +he whispered with glee, and the +two little creatures chuckled together. +There would be one mouth +the less for the polenta, one throat +the less for the rare thin wine; the tic-tac +of his stick on the stones would +no longer come after them when +they were truant, the stroke of his +crutch would no longer make their +shoulder-blades tingle when he +caught them stealing, the sound +of his voice on the stairs would +no longer wake them up out of +warm slumber amongst the straw +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>and lumber on black winter mornings +when the cows were lowing to +be milked.</p> + +<p>Grandfather had been so long +to be feared, it was delightful to +them to hear him soundly rated, +now that he could not get up +and come down with his ash-stick +raised.</p> + +<p>“Grandfather’s dying,” they said +to each other for the twentieth time +with glee, as the ruddy lights +from the blazing billets shone on +their little unwashed brown faces.</p> + +<p>“’Tis time we ate something,” +said the woman, and she unhooked +the pot hanging on a chain over the +fire, and poured the contents out +into an earthenware bowl. It was +bean-soup, strongly flavoured with +lentils and fennel; it was turned +into pewter plates and supped up +noisily with wooden spoons; pieces +of black bread were wrenched off a +loaf and eaten with it. They fed +as ravenously as pigs, and with less +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>cleanliness. Just as they finished a +sound of knocking was heard at the +door of the house, which was bolted +and barred.</p> + +<p>“Who’s there?” shouted Alcide.</p> + +<p>“It is I,” answered a voice with +a foreign accent.</p> + +<p>“’Tis the new steward, perdition +seize him!” said Alcide, and he +strode across the bricks and drew +back the bolts. “What’s amiss that +you honour us at this time of night, +sir?” he said sullenly to the person +who stood on the step holding a +horse’s bridle.</p> + +<p>“There is much amiss here, they +say,” replied the new-comer. “Is +it true that your father, Adamo, is +dying?”</p> + +<p>“What’s that to anyone?” said +Alcide, unwillingly. “Folk usually +die when they get nigh ninety.”</p> + +<p>The tone was half jocose, half +sullen. The visitor in silence led his +horse over the step into the entrance, +hung the bridle on a nail in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>wall, closed the door and said to +Alcide:</p> + +<p>“Take me to him.”</p> + +<p>He was a fair man, tall, slender +and young.</p> + +<p>All the family gathered near to +stare at him.</p> + +<p>“There is nothing to see, sir,” +muttered Alcide. “He’s as good as +dead.”</p> + +<p>“What doctor have you?”</p> + +<p>“There is no such thing in these +parts for forty miles or more.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean the Commune +has no medical aid?”</p> + +<p>“Safe and sure, it hasn’t.”</p> + +<p>“Take me to him; I know something +of medicine.”</p> + +<p>They were all silent, vaguely +frightened and ashamed. The +woman nudged Alcide.</p> + +<p>“Best take the gentleman upstairs +to poor Nonno, though he’s +past all help.”</p> + +<p>And she forced a little water into +her eyes and gave a little sob.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>Alcide took the one light off the +table and tramped up the steep +rotten stair.</p> + +<p>“What a piece of work about +a dead greybeard!” he muttered. +“When they’re past labour they’re +best gone. You don’t leave a sere +tree standing to cumber the ground.”</p> + +<p>He pushed open a ricketty, +worm-eaten door, and the feeble oil +wick shed a dim flickering light on +the miserable room, where all was +silence. The steward took the +lamp from him, and went up to the +bed of sacking and dry leaves, of +which the odours were foul as a +dung-heap. On it lay a gaunt old +man’s lifeless body. The old tree +was down; it cumbered the soil no +more.</p> + +<p>The steward examined the body. +It was still warm, but life was +extinct; the jaw had dropped; one +clenched lean hand was knotted in +the white beard.</p> + +<p>“You have let him die alone!” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>said the young man with indignation +and horror.</p> + +<p>Alcide grinned, showing his +strong white teeth.</p> + +<p>“Dying’s the only thing nobody +grudges our doing,” he said with +unabashed indifference. “What +would you, sir? We work all day. +We can’t wait on sick souls all +night.”</p> + +<p>“May the measure you have +served to your father be served to +you by your sons!”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, sir. Thank you +kindly,” answered Alcide, which is +the peasant’s synonym for “I will +pay you out for that before long.”</p> + +<p>“It is frightful! Incredible!” +murmured the young man. “You +knew he was dying, and you left +him alone, without even a drop of +water by his side!”</p> + +<p>“He had his coffin to keep him +company,” said Alcide, with a gruesome +grin. “Some have to go +naked into the earth.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>He pointed to a corner in which +a box, roughly made from unplaned +planks, was leaning against the wall.</p> + +<p>“Hush!” said the steward with +authority. “Have you no sense of +shame?—no feeling?—no remorse?”</p> + +<p>“I have done nothing wrong, sir,” +said Alcide sullenly. “I didn’t +kill him. Old age killed him.”</p> + +<p>“And neglect!”</p> + +<p>Alcide shrugged his shoulders. +Whether you hindered or hastened +the death of a man so aged and so +useless could not matter much, he +thought; the deceased was eighty-three +years of age, and had long +been a burden to everybody.</p> + +<p>“It’s more than ten years that +he’s not done a stroke of work,” +he replied sullenly, “and yet he +expected his share in the polenta +and the broth, just for all the world +as if he’d earned it. When they +get childish, they get unreasonable +like children. Many’s the time I’ve +said to him, ‘Why aren’t you underground, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>father?’ We ought to be +allowed to put them there when +their time’s come, and they won’t +go in the course of nature.”</p> + +<p>The steward turned from him in +disgust and pain, and rested his +gaze on the old, worn, rugged form +lying on its bed of sacking.</p> + +<p>About the doorway, peeping and +curious, the children were gathered.</p> + +<p>“Is it all over?” said their +mother with a whine.</p> + +<p>“It is all over indeed!” said +the steward gravely, and with a +flash of loathing in his blue eyes. +“You will learn what he suffered +when you lie on your own death-bed. +I came as soon as I heard +of it. Why could you not even +let me know?”</p> + +<p>They tittered in concert: men, +women, boys, and girls. What a fuss +about old Nonno! But, of course, +this young man was a foreigner, and +that was as good as saying he was +a fool. Did he not want dogs fed, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>and cows kept clean? Did he not +say men should wash their bodies +and women should not swaddle +their children? Was he not a new-comer, +an interloper, a meddler, a +stranger from nobody knew where?</p> + +<p>Alcide’s wife, however, had the +wit to see that they were on the +wrong tack.</p> + +<p>“Good sir,” she said, with tears +in her voice, “we have done what +we could, but you know we are +poor, poor, poor; and now there +will be no end of money to find for +the burial, and we ought to be +allowed to scratch a hole and put +him in the woods, but you know +the powers that be won’t let us, and +we have to carry him all the way to +San Vitale, and we must borrow a +neighbour’s mule, and when we get +there pay all the church and graveyard +dues, and sacristans and sextons—they +live like carrion flies getting +fat on corpses——”</p> + +<p>“Hold your tongue, you idiot!” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>said her husband. “For sure the +Ministro here will help us through +all these troubles. He knows how +poor we are. Not a bit of bread +sometimes all the twenty-four hours +through.”</p> + +<p>“I will send here early in the +forenoon, and will do all that is +necessary,” said the steward. “Let +your women folk cleanse and clothe +the body, and watch by it through +the night. You may be poor, but +poverty need not be brutality, and +you—you would make the wolves +of the steppes seem beside you +like angels of mercy.”</p> + +<p>His words were unintelligible to +his auditors; but they understood +that he was offended and disgusted +with them. They did not care a +jot for his opinion, but they cared +much for his purse. Without even +a glance at them, he made the sign +of the cross reverently on the brow +and breast of the corpse, and in +silence went out of the garret; took +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>the bridle from the nail on the wall, +led his horse out over the doorstep, +and vaulted into the saddle.</p> + +<p>“Not even a copper piece has +he left behind him!” moaned the +woman.</p> + +<p>Alcide stood on the threshold, and +watched the form of the horseman +vanishing into the blackness under +the trees. He made a gesture as +of lifting an imaginary gun to his +shoulder and pointing it. “Eh?” +he said to his brother Lucio.</p> + +<p>Lucio, who was of a slower and +weaker temperament, scratched his +head.</p> + +<p>“I don’t say no,” he answered; +“but it’s always a dangerous game +to play at, ’Cide.”</p> + +<p>“Pooh!” said Alcide. “The +woods are good friends; they never +prate. But one can wait. Perhaps +we shall get something out of him +to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“Anyhow, he is gone now,” said +Lucio, as the sound of the horse’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>hoofs grew faint on the wet moss of +the forest road.</p> + +<p>The young steward rode through +them this dark night very slowly, +for the road was bad, and his horse, +though well used to such work, felt +each step carefully, and sometimes +whinnied with fear as an owl flew past +or a pole-cat rushed across the path.</p> + +<p>But even in this cautious passage +through the almost impenetrable +gloom he nearly trampled on a +woman who stood in his way and +cried to him to stop. He checked +his horse, just in time to avoid +collision, and the animal’s nostrils +brushed the woman’s head.</p> + +<p>He could see nothing of her except +the shine of two great eyes +as he struck a match in front of her.</p> + +<p>“It is I, Muriella!” she said +quickly. “Is he dead, sir?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; your grandfather is dead,” +he answered gravely, “and he died +alone and unaided as I would not +let a sick steer die.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>“Gone without the holy oil? +Gone without shrive?—O Christ, +help us!” she said in a voice of +awe.</p> + +<p>“He died as I would not let a +sick steer die,” repeated the rider.</p> + +<p>“I had been to fetch the vicar +of San Vitale,” she added; “’twas +the nearest; but he was away, and +the sacristan said he would not be +back for two days.”</p> + +<p>“Could you not have gone by +preference for a doctor?”</p> + +<p>“No; there is nobody who +would pay, and, besides, one must +go to Ronciglione, twenty-five +miles away, and the doctor there +would refuse, for he has nought to +do with us. To be sure, there is an +apothecary at San Vitale, but he +would have to be paid, and who +amongst us could pay him?”</p> + +<p>“This is shocking! A whole +commune without medical aid!”</p> + +<p>“I am more sorry he is gone +unshriven,” she said with regret. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>“But perhaps—up yonder—somebody +will see to it, and say a good +word for him. I did what I could, +sir; those above must see to the +rest.”</p> + +<p>The young man sighed: the +nothingness, the blankness, the +horror of death weighed on him. +He saw that she had some vague, +shapeless hope which solaced her; +and he forbore to disturb it.</p> + +<p>She put her hand on the saddle-bow +and reached up nearer to him.</p> + +<p>“Don’t ride alone at night like +this,” she whispered. “Knives +are sharp amongst us if guns be +rusty.”</p> + +<p>“I am armed,” he answered +briefly.</p> + +<p>He felt rather than saw that she +gave an impatient gesture.</p> + +<p>“What serves it to be armed?” +she answered. “They know the +lay of the lands and the ways of the +woods better than you, and they +will follow you some night when it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>is dark like this, and you will know +nothing till you fall on your beast’s +neck, or back on his crupper, as it +may be.”</p> + +<p>“I do my best by the people. +If they please to pay me so, they +must,” he replied. “Good-night. +You mean well. Thanks.”</p> + +<p>She drew back in silence, discouraged, +to let the impatient horse +and his rider go onward.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">II.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">THESE estates, known +generally as Le Selve, +were vast tracts of forest +and pasture land lying +along and beyond the Mons Ciminius, +between the lakes of Bracciano +and of Vico. They were of immeasurable +antiquity, but had for more +than a century been ill preserved, +and much robbed and desecrated. +Their timber was chiefly oak, ilex, +and pine, with occasional groups of +silver birch; their undergrowth +was of arbutus, myrtle, bay, privet, +and box, with much broom and +heather. They covered many +miles, and were the property of a +Roman nobleman, and had within +them oaks which might have seen +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>the litters of Poppea and Faustina +pass. In later times they had +belonged to the Countess Matilda, +and had been given by her to the +Popes with the rest of her superb +bequest. Here and there in them +was a farm, a water-mill, a charcoal +burner’s hut, patches of semi-cultivation +due to squatters; but these +were very few and isolated. For the +most part the woods were little +altered since the days of the +Cæsars; wholly unaltered since the +days of the Farnese and the +Borgia.</p> + +<p>An old hunting-palace, which +was now given up to the use of +underlings, stood in the centre of +the woods, the only large house in +them, a gray stone building of the +fifteenth century, which had once +been a favourite retreat of the +sporting cardinal from whom the +Gandolfo had inherited this property. +Around it were level grasslands, +bordered by low granite +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>balustrades, with colossal stone +hounds seated on the coping; and, +immediately beyond, the great +woods began, enclosing the grassy +squares with walls of foliage which +were pierced at intervals by narrow +avenues or drives; in full view of +the front terraces rose the peaks of +the Sabine mountains; from the +back were visible very far off Monte +Amiata and the Cetona range.</p> + +<p>It was a distance of five miles +and more to this dwelling, and it +was long past midnight when the +young steward rode in at the +gates. The stablemen and guards +of the place ran to take his horse. +But he followed the animal, and +saw it safe in stall before he +himself entered the house, and felt +the warmth of the oak logs burning +on an open hearth in the great +vaulted hall of which he made +his chief sitting-room.</p> + +<p>“Sir, why will you be out so +late?” said an old woman, who was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>the <i>Massajà</i> or housekeeper of the +place, omnipotent over its womenkind +and its stores. “The woods +are not as safe as a city street, +and even in the towns it’s ill +being out alone after midnight. +Daggers are quickly whipped out; +and pistols bark and bite both.”</p> + +<p>“My good Caterina,” he answered +wearily, “what have I done +that anyone should want my life? +Money, as they know, I never +carry.”</p> + +<p>“So best,” said the old woman. +“As for what you’ve done, sir, +you’re put in power here, and +you’re a stranger. That’s crime +enough.”</p> + +<p>He did not answer, but stood a +moment or two in silence in the +warmth of the hearth.</p> + +<p>“You are from the North,” she +added. “That’s bad enough.”</p> + +<p>“North or South, what matter. +Have we not a common humanity?”</p> + +<p>Caterina shook her head.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>“You mean well; but you are +from the North.”</p> + +<p>The argument seemed to her +unanswerable. To him it seemed +ridiculous; but he saw that it was +one of these ideas based on prejudice, +ignorance, and superstition, +which are infinitely more tenacious +and hard to uproot than the +strongest opinions founded on +reason.</p> + +<p>“Your woodlanders are great +ruffians, I fear, Caterina,” he said +after a pause.</p> + +<p>“They are not lambs, sir,” said +the old woman curtly.</p> + +<p>“The old man was dead when +I reached the place, and they had +let him die all alone.”</p> + +<p>“They don’t waste their time on +sick folks, sir; and old ones, when +they have naught to leave, have +no friends. Won’t you come to +table?”</p> + +<p>“Is it true that there is no +doctor in the whole district?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>“I never heard of one, sir.”</p> + +<p>“What do the people do when +they are ill?”</p> + +<p>“Well, sir, they die or get well, +as Heaven pleases. But there are +wise women who know a good deal +of herbs and magic, and there is a +hermit who sells charms up by the +Sasso Scritto, that bald peak which +you see from the back door here. +I bought a ring of him to keep my +blood flowing straight; here it is; +look; I have never ailed a minute +since I wore it!”</p> + +<p>“Are we in the last years of the +nineteenth century?”</p> + +<p>Caterina did not reply. She +knew nothing about centuries, their +numeration or civilization.</p> + +<p>She drew his attention to the +supper-table, which she had laden +with good things, or what she thought +were good. But he had no appetite. +He drank a cup of coffee, and told +her to go to bed. He said he felt +no desire to sleep. His heart was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>heavy with its own sorrows, and his +mind was oppressed by a fear that +he had undertaken a task which +was beyond his strength. “You +cannot wash a blackamoor white,” +says a homely proverb; and he +began to perceive that those whom +he desired to cleanse were very +black indeed. He knew that all +the acts which in moral codes are +called thefts, arson, contraband, +fraud, were merely sport in their +eyes, and that even murder +appeared to almost all of them a +wholly natural and legitimate way +of settling old scores and redressing +uneven balances, whilst to +cheat the revenue, to defraud the +landlord, to weave a dramatic coil +of lies, and to poach, purloin, and +plunder as occasion served, seemed +to them all the mere playful +pastime of summer eve and winter +dawn, simple as the frisking of +young leverets on a sward.</p> + +<p>He was a Russian of Esthonia, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>a noble, and an officer of the Imperial +Guard; he had been merely +a man of pleasure, until he had +been impressed and converted by +Tolstoi and other humanitarians. +Then the zeal of his reformation +as shown in his acts and his words +had led to condemnation by his +military superiors; he had been +cashiered, arrested, and accused of +Nihilism; he had been found guilty +of subversive doctrines and collectivist +opinions; the influence of his +own powerful family, and others +with which he was connected had +been of no avail to save him; he +had been condemned to the mines +of Siberia for life, and his estates +confiscated by the court-martial +before which he had been brought +up for judgment; he had escaped +from the fortress in which he was +confined before he was taken to the +mines, and in disguise, and by +the help of some of his late comrades, +had got across the frontier +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>and across Germany. When, +penniless and famished, he had +chanced to meet in Brussels a +friend of earlier years, Alfonso +Gandolfo, that gay and generous +prince could induce him to accept +nothing, not even a dinner or +a cigar, but at length offered +him the stewardship of the estates +of Le Selve, and succeeded with +difficulty in persuading him that +in this homely and obscure post he +could do good, and more than earn +his maintenance.</p> + +<p>“We have been ill served,” said +the Roman gentleman; “we have +been the prey of a series of +scoundrels; if you can put down +the perpetual thefts, and protect the +timber in some degree, my father +and I shall be infinitely grateful.”</p> + +<p>He was not deceived by the +kindly courtesy of the terms in +which the offer was made, but at +last was induced to yield to it; +he saw that in the seclusion of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>these great neglected forests he +would be able to hide his own +identity in safety from the world; +and he had been now eighteen +months in the woodlands, regarded +by the country people as a mere +agent of their lords, and known only +by his baptismal name of Cyrille, +called by the forest-folks Cirillo.</p> + +<p>Fortunately for himself, he had +learned the language when a youth +from a tutor, who had translated +the “Divina Commedia” into +German, and wide as is the gulf +between the Italian of scholars and +the dialects of the provinces, he +had the facility of his nation in +acquiring foreign tongues, and +quickly adapted himself to the +idiom of the people of the forest.</p> + +<p>He was intensely unhappy; he +was separated from all he had known +and loved from birth; he had lost +everything he had possessed and +cherished, and brave men have +killed themselves for sorrows less +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>than his; but the active and open-air +life saved him from falling into +despondency or ill health, and he +earnestly occupied himself with the +condition of the peasants and the +interest of the proprietors. He +had received unlimited powers from +the Gandolfo princes, in whose vast +estates these woods in all their +antiquity and extent were but a +mere patch of verdure never visited. +To a man, exiled, ruined, with a +price set on his head in his own +country, and with his heart aching +ceaselessly for all he had left for +ever, it was a welcome solitude, a +blessed, a thrice-blessed sanctuary. +Sometimes he thought he was +already dead and in the Elysian +fields, so profound was the silence, +so sweet the air, so spiritual the +green light under the trees.</p> + +<p>When the woodlanders climbed +the summits of the colossal pines +to gather the ripe cones, they could +see if they cared to look, and if the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>day were clear, a glistening ray of +gold, a shining band of silver, and +the one was the cross of St Peter’s +and the other was the Tyrhemian +Sea. To them these said nothing; +vaguely they knew that Rome was +the throne of the Viceroy of God, +whence sins were remitted and life +eternal was given, but of the sea +they had never heard, though the +light of the Pharos of Palo was +visible on clear nights from the +higher ground of their forest. But +to Cyrille, when he mounted into +the high pine-tops or climbed the +crumbling stair of an old watch-tower, +to gaze from its roof over +the vast verdure of these woods +westward that speck of sunlit gold, +that streak of sparkling light spoke, +as they must ever speak so long +as earth and sea shall last, to the +scholar and the student.</p> + +<p>Only one highway traversed Le +Selve, one which ran crosswise, and +met the old coaching road which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>goes still, although scarcely ever +used except by muleteers and peasantry, +from Viterbo by Ronciglione, +and Sutri to La Storta, and on to +Rome itself; a road once the great +artery of life between the Patrimonium +Petri and the cities of +Umbria, of Tuscany, and of Lombardy, +a road once crowded by +pilgrims of all nations; by the +pomp of travelling cardinals, by the +litter and lacqueys of regal women, +by the strings of sumpter mules, +the massed multitudes of armed +horsemen, the straggling hordes of +camp followers, the splendid retinue +of Prince and Nuncio. Now, some +dusty public vehicle, painfully drawn +by blown and raw-boned horses, +some string of charcoal-bearing +asses, some long line of timber-wagons +drawn by great white +oxen, red-eyed, yoke-burdened, +with heavy flanks and parching +tongues, are all that the once great +highway sees.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>But a past of more than two +thousand years is touched at every +step in these heather-covered lands, +a past which makes the Borgia, the +Farnese, the Medici, seem but as +mere parvenues of a near hour. +In the rocks are the sculptured +tombs of a perished race; and the +faithful soil holds the vanished +nation’s arts and letters, and keeps +their secrets which no living man +can read. When he reached those +loftiest summits where the wild +doves and their foes the falcons +made their nests, the whole panorama +of what had once been +Etruria and Latium was outstretched +beneath him, and in the +deep green light of the thick-woven +branches he could read his Horace, +his Strabo, his Marcus Aurelius, +while, from far down below, the +humble music of the belled flocks +rose faintly to his ear in a gentle +rhythm which has never ceased +there through thrice a thousand +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>years. And that resigned sadness +which succeeds despair came to +him in that sense of unceasing +sorrow, of endless succession of +creation and annihilation of which +such a scene must ever speak to +those who look upon it with the +eyes which see, and with the ears +which hear. He realised his own +infinitesimal nothingness, the infinite +beauty and the infinite ruthlessness +of nature, and he seemed to hear, +not the passing of the browsing +flocks over the grass below, but the +passage of the multitudes hurrying +on their course from the womb to +the grave, each runner passing the +torch from his dying hand to the +living hand of the runner who +follows him in that fine figure which +Lucretius has made immortal.</p> + +<p>But in these Elysian Fields +there were rude realities, and his +conscience, which was sensitive, +never allowed him to evade them. +He was there, not to steep his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>soul in poppied rest, but to serve +the interests of his employers and +of the lands and people committed +to his charge.</p> + +<p>Within the forest there were +remains of rock-dwellings and of +Etruscan tombs; he would willingly +have consecrated his years to their +exploration, and led such a life +here as Avvolto of Corneto and the +Campanari of Toscanelli had led +amidst the sepulchres of a vanished +race.</p> + +<p>He would willingly have spent +all his time searching in the soil for +relics such as were at times found +by the peasantry, but his duties +allowed him no such leisure. He +took those duties to heart with the +conscientious seriousness of temper +which had changed him from an +officer of the palace guard to a +political reformer, and had exiled +him from all which he held dear.</p> + +<p>The Gandolfo princes would +have been the first to smile at such +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>a view of a steward’s duties; but to +Cyrille the obligation was a law of +honour. They gave him shelter, +food, and wage; he laboured unremittingly +in their service. If none +were grateful to him he did not +complain; greater than he had +served mankind, and only been +beaten with the rods of the world’s +ingratitude in return.</p> + +<p>There were small, very poor, +holdings here and there, scattered +many miles one from another on +patches of more or less cultivated +ground. And in earlier times some +wanderer turned adrift by fire or +sword, some criminal fleeing from +pursuit, or some nomad tired of +roaming had made a hut of boughs, +and called the spot their own; and +in the peasantry living on and by +these clearings, the new-comer found +his greatest enemies and his greatest +anxieties. Long years of license +and centuries of occupation had +made these sons of the soil look +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>on it as their own; indeed, in a +manner, the Latin law confirmed +their title, and plunder had become +with them a right divine. All his +natural sympathies were with the +poor, and the creeds of his teacher +held them excusable in all errors, +and these people were very poor +indeed, but their cynical dishonesty +revolted him, and their habitual +insubordination met and thwarted +him at every turn. They cringed +to him to his face, but cheated him +and mocked at him behind his +back. He was sensible of it, and +it strained his patience sorely.</p> + +<p>The ancestors of Alcide and +Lucio had been squatters in these +solitudes for centuries. They paid a +nominal rental in kind and in labour, +and did what they liked on their bit +of clearing. This labour had been +but seldom required, and their payment +generally excused; generation +after generation had lived in +this way, and in earlier times the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>men of the family had gone with +their lord to battle, and the blood +which they had shed had been +esteemed rent enough for their +land.</p> + +<p>But now that times had changed, +and there was no war service +except conscription, they had become +averse to paying any rental +at all, and looked not only on their +holding as their own, but on the +timber, the grass, the heather, the +rushes, and all that was around +them as their own. When they +tilled their small croft, they worked +for their own benefit, but grumbled +even at doing that. They were +brigands in blood and instinct. The +first of their forefathers who had +settled there had been a refugee +from justice for the robbing and +murder of a priest in Rome; and +they were never at ease save when +thieving.</p> + +<p>They had no notion of time or of +its reckonings; but they declared +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>that their family was as old as the +woods themselves, and there was +nothing to disprove their assertions. +They were, in reality, not more than +squatters, as their forefathers had +been; but they thought themselves +the lawful lords of the soil. They +would cringe and beg, and even +work when it suited them, but they +had the old scornful Roman pride +in their veins, and vowed vengeance +on any who offended it. The +woods might be the Gandolfo’s or +the Pope’s for aught they cared; +they laid their hands on everything +they wanted.</p> + +<p>There were not more than a +dozen such families scattered over +the fifty miles of forest; but every +one of these was against the +foreigner; would have been equally +against him whatever he might +have done, if he had been St +Michael’s self, as Caterina and +Muriella sometimes thought that he +was. They had always been poor, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>but they had enjoyed thieving, +drinking, reiving, sinning as they +chose. He wished to make them +less poor, but he strove also to make +them more honest. They did not +want to learn thrift, or cleanliness, or +common sense. They only wanted +to be filthy, and lazy, and corrupt, +and thievish, in the immemorial +way transmitted from their fathers. +They wanted no new-fangled +virtues. Any wrong they did, such +as kniving a neighbour or lifting a +calf, was put up in a bundle, as +they put up weeds to burn, and was +thrust away till Easter, when the +priest washed it clean, as once a +year their women washed their +shirts in running water. That was +the use of priests and women.</p> + +<p>To the people of this volcanic +and historic soil the new-comer, Il +Ministro as he was called, was +accursed as ‘the northerner’: a +northerner whether from Bologna or +Milano, whether from Russia or +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>Poland, made no difference to them; +they did not know one of those +names from another; everybody +at the back of their mountains +beyond the barrier of Monte Amiata +sent the snow, and the bad winds, +and meant the North to them. He +was like a bad wind to them. The +very good-will which he bore them +was more offence than would have +seemed to them his enmity, since +the latter they would have understood; +the former seemed to them +only a deep-laid duplicity to entrap +them to their ruin.</p> + +<p>There had been various agents +of the Gandolfi there since that +memorable day a hundred years +before when the cavalry of Murat +had encamped in Le Selve; a day +that was still talked of over the oak +logs in winter evenings as freshly +as though it had been last winter. +They had been men who had cheated +their lords and wrung blood out of +a post, but just because they had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>been thieves and hypocrites, they +had winked at many evil deeds, and +had never interfered with the ways +and beliefs, the robberies and stabbings, +the family feuds and drunken +brawls of the country people. It +had been their interest to shut their +eyes to all which did not concern +the fillings of their own leathern +money-bags, and nod in mute condonation; +and they had done so.</p> + +<p>One of them, indeed, had been +shot dead as he stood at his bedroom +window with the moonlight +full upon him; and another had +been knived as he had ridden home +from a fair; but on the whole they +had been let alone and not disliked. +They had been men of the province, +<i>dei nostri</i>; and that fact covers a +multitude of sins.</p> + +<p>No one of these stewards would +have gone to see the old peasant +on his death-bed, and made a fuss +about his being left alone, and have +accompanied his corpse to its burial. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>They would have sent a barrel of +good wine to the survivors to make +merry with after the funeral, and +would never have asked where the +body was buried or what respect +had been shown to it.</p> + +<p>Moreover, they had been men of +the people, who had known at most +bookkeeping by double entry, and +something of cattle and forestry; +this northerner talked of trees and +plants as though they were living +creatures with wills of their own; +pretended that the roots of an oak +corresponded in size and shape with +its branches, that its leaves were its +lungs, and all sorts of similar trash; +he was never drunk, he never swore, +he kissed his horse on the forehead, +he bathed in running streams, he +never made love to their daughters, +he wanted to open a school for the +woodlanders’ children, and he had +heathenish books and devilish instruments +in his rooms of which they +caught appalling glimpses. His +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>employers had sent him a compass, +a chronometer, an aneroid, and a +telescope with some globes and +atlases from Rome, and even +his friend Caterina, who in a +year and a half had grown to +believe him a harmless and even +lovable person, could not see these +objects without horror, and she +had begged to be allowed to bring +over the vicar from San Vitale to +exorcise them.</p> + +<p>She was a stout, good-natured, +handsome, old woman, who had +been born on the Gandolfo lands, +and had lived on them all her life; +a good cook in her own limited, +coarse fashion, and a bustling, +spirited directress of the lads and +lasses about the house.</p> + +<p>“You fash yourself for nought, +sir,” she said often to Cyrille. “Our +folks are as Nature made them: you +will never alter them. They think +their own ways best, and they see no +harm in a knife or a musket-shot +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>when there is any score to be wiped +out. They will never listen to you, +not if you’re here fifty years.”</p> + +<p>“They will come to understand +me in time,” he said to himself; but +there are some things which even +time cannot touch, and amongst +these things are many human hearts. +In appealing to their indulgence or +to their gratitude, or to their intelligence, +he appealed to qualities which +did not exist.</p> + +<p>When he had taken his coffee he +sat on, beside the fire, instead of +going to bed, a bad habit as he +knew; but he had been a <i>viveur</i> in +the fashionable clubs of S. Petersburg, +and used to turn night into +day; he seldom did so now, for his +days were laborious, and he kept +labourer’s hours usually. He looked +into the wide hearth and on to the +red-hot oak logs and the crimson +ashes, and in them he saw faces +dear to him, on which his eyes +would probably never look again—one +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>face most often of all, fair, pale, +proud, tender, with the gleam of +diamonds in the hair and at the +throat; a woman who loved him +and whom he loved—a woman who +was not his. Where was she this +night? It was past midnight now +in Russia as here in Latium. Was +she, as he had so often seen her, +the sought of all courtiers at some +imperial ball? Was she present at +some ice fête on some frozen arm +of the Neva, in the light of a million +torches, with the waltz music of +Strauss throbbing on her ear?</p> + +<p>Anyhow, everywhere, forever, he +felt that she was dead to him.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">III.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">THE old man was buried +next day, the steward +lending the mules and +the cart; Lucio alone +accompanied the coffin, grumbling +at the injustice of his brother in +putting every disagreeable task upon +his shoulders. Why trouble about +a dead man more than about a dead +fox? Why not tumble out the deal +box into the nearest ditch?</p> + +<p>At a turn in the road a horse +crossed their path. The rider was +Cyrille.</p> + +<p>“I will come with you,” he said, +“and discharge the fees.” He knew +that if left to himself, Lucio, were +he trusted with the money, would +probably toss the coffin into the first +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>ravine which was deep enough to +tell no tales.</p> + +<p>“No need to fatigue yourself so, +sir,” said Lucio, greatly disconcerted. +“If you be good enough to wish to +pay the burying you can give me +the money. There is no need for +you to fag yourself coming to the +town.”</p> + +<p>“I will go with you,” said Cyrille, +knowing that the money, if it left +his hands, would never reach the +graveyard.</p> + +<p>Lucio cursed him silently for +a suspicious, obstinate, niggardly, +foreign brute. “Spies on us even +when we are nought but a carcass,” +he thought, where he sat at +the coffin head, cracking nuts to +beguile the way. Did no one +else pitch their dead into ditches? +What matter was it to this white-faced +stranger if the old worn-out +body were tumbled amongst the +weeds and toads at the bottom of +a gully? And how did the stranger +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>know that it had been in Lucio’s +mind to do away with it so, and to +sell the cart and mules somewhere +far away, and come back on foot, +all tattered and torn, with a well-told +tale of robbery and a bare +escape with life?</p> + +<p>“Damn him! he sees through the +bones of one’s head what one is +thinking,” said the man to himself. +The scheme had been ingenious and +feasible; it had been planned by +Alcide; and now in addition to the +disappointment of not carrying it +out, Lucio had the dread of his +elder’s fury when he should return +home, having done nothing better +than to really bury the coffin, and +return the mules to their stables.</p> + +<p>Cyrille, who suspected nothing +worse than a possible misuse of the +church fees, had no idea of the +schemes which his presence defeated +as he rode on towards the confines +of the wood where the high-road +passed which led to the dreary, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>small, walled place, now scarce more +than a village, although it had been +a stronghold of the Popes in the +tenth and eleventh centuries.</p> + +<p>“Would the body not do just as +well left to itself in the woods?” +muttered Lucio, as he gave the +wooden box a sullen kick.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” replied Cyrille; “and I +should like my own body, when I +die, to be laid down under a tree, +and left there. But your law and +your religion bid you bury your +dead, and bury them as they +command. You can only obey.”</p> + +<p>Lucio grumbled inaudibly. For +the law he had contempt and hatred, +but for religion a dull pagan awe; +such as in old Etruscan and Latin +days, under these same forest glades, +rude men had felt for the terrors +of the gods.</p> + +<p>The little borgo of San Vitale, +to which they were bound, stood +aloft, looking to the east to Palestrina +and Monte Albano. The soil +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>immediately beneath was honeycombed +by ancient sepulchres and +volcanic fissures; and from a small +lake mephitic vapours rose; the hill +was barren of vegetation; the walls +looked like worm-eaten wood, its +towers were in dusty ruin; it +resembled a seagull’s nest, which, +moth-eaten and cobweb-covered, +crumbles away in a naturalist’s +closet.</p> + +<p>Clouds hung about its hillsides, +and the air was heavy and cold. +The few people in its narrow street +were ragged, miserable, lean. +Their black eyes stared at the mule +and its burden with apathy. Their +stomachs were empty, their hearts +were hard; they were half dead +themselves; some famished sheep +snatched at the grass growing +between the stones; a woman +plucked a living pigeon for the +priest’s dinner; thirsty dogs lapped +foul waters in the gutter, the sacristan +came out of an arched door in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>a cloister: was he called for baptism +or burial? The latter? Very well. +He had put in three dead that +morning. There was room for a +fourth a-top of them. How long +were the coffins left in the ditch? +Oh, a year or so. Then the wood +split; he mixed the bones together +and put them in a heap. A man in +Rome came up and bought these +heaps at intervals; he believed they +were ground, and used for making +pastes, or paper, or bread; he was +not sure; it was no business of his +what they were turned to; he +would call the Priore who was +acting in the absence of his +Reverence.</p> + +<p>Then he unlocked an iron gate, +and showed a dreary enclosed square +of rough brown turf, in which a +few iron crosses, and hundreds of +sticks nailed crosswise, were standing +in many rows. A tethered kid +was trying to browse, and hurting +its tender mouth on the sere stalks. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>Across the ground ran two diagonal +ditches always marked by freshly-piled +lumps of earth; these were +the resting-places of those who +were poorest, where all were +poor.</p> + +<p>The figure of a woman was standing +there.</p> + +<p>It was that of the dead man’s +granddaughter Muriella.</p> + +<p>Muriella Stravolta was a niece of +Alcide and Lucio by an older +brother, deceased, who had served +in the army, and lived afterwards +at Viterbo. She lived with the +family and worked with them, +rather because it never occurred to +her that she could go elsewhere +than from any welcome she got from +them, or any attachment on either +side. She was twenty-two years +old, with one of those faces which +have the old Latin beauty, and one +of those fine forms so common in +a country where the females walk +barefoot and carry their water vases +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>on their heads, and are erect and +strong and supple as the young +pines of the mountain side. She +worked hard, she lived poorly, she +seldom heard a kind word; but her +uncles and their wives respected +her; she had a strong arm and an +eye which could plunge its rays into +a sinful soul and read the secrets +thereof. She always carried a long +slim knife in her stays, and she +knew how to use it.</p> + +<p>She wore a rough dark skirt and +crimson bodice, and a white cloth +folded on her head in the manner of +the Agro Romano; the clothes were +poor and torn in places, and showed +her skin, which was of a clear pale +brown; her brows were level and +dark, her eyes black as a stormy +night, and her mouth was red as +any scarlet berry of the spindle-tree +in October. She had wooers as +many as a population scattered far +and wide afforded; but no one of +them ever had more from her than +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>a curt salute or a brisk “begone.” +She knew what it was to bear +children for poor men, whether in +wedlock or outside it, and she was +in no haste to eat “the sweet fruit +with the bitter stone.”</p> + +<p>“How did you come here?” said +Lucio angrily, at the sight of her, +as he backed the coffin and cart +into the burial-place.</p> + +<p>“You would not bring me, so I +walked across by the hill paths,” she +answered.</p> + +<p>“Womenkind have no business +at these rites,” said Lucio; and the +sexton added, with a leer:</p> + +<p>“Bridals and baptisms are for +handsome wenches, not burials.”</p> + +<p>She did not reply to either; but +she took one end of the wooden +box and obliged them to lift it not +too roughly to the ground.</p> + +<p>“You did well to come,” said +Cyrille to her, with sympathy.</p> + +<p>She said nothing. She was not +there for the sake of her dead +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>grandsire, but to prevent the scheme +of thieving the mules which she had +guessed had been planned between +her uncles.</p> + +<p>“Meddling, mischievous baggage!” +muttered Lucio. What +business had women to cross and +mar men’s work?</p> + +<p>When the brief rites were over, +and the deal box had been tumbled +under clods of clay, she spoke to no +one, but climbed into the cart, taking +the reins of rope.</p> + +<p>“Lie down on the straw and +sleep,” she said curtly to her uncle. +He was cowed; he knew that his intentions +had been read. He stretched +himself grumbling in the bottom of +the cart, and pulled his pipe out of +his breeches pocket.</p> + +<p>“You may ride on,” said the girl +to Cyrille. “The mules shall be +at your place before moon-rise, and +neither footsore nor wind-blown, I +promise you.”</p> + +<p>Then the reason of her presence +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>in the burial-ground occurred to +him.</p> + +<p>“She is a brave woman,” he +thought, “and, I fear, the only +honest one of her brood.”</p> + +<p>He saluted her courteously, and +rode down the steep street with its +miserably sickly people staring after +him, and flocking round his stirrup +leathers with piteous outcries for +alms.</p> + +<p>As he turned in his saddle +and looked back whilst his horse +slackened pace to pass over a +little bridge, the clouds had +lifted.</p> + +<p>Above in the distance was the +crumbling indented outline of the +little walled hamlet, brown and gray, +solitary and drear, and midway on +the slope below it was a dusky +moving patch made on the white +dust, a patch which was Muriella +and the mules. Above head the +sun was breaking through the +clouds in pale faint gold.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>He had been a man of the world, +but in his Slav blood romance and +superstition slumbered; he liked +to see in that breaking light an +augury of hope; yet what hope +could there ever be for him more +than for that old dead body which +had been jammed down beneath +the clay?</p> + +<p>His spirit was heavy as he rode +home, and did not rise with the +exhilarating speed of his young +horse. The yawning ditch, the +gabbled prayer, the battering spade, +the loneliness, the decay, the sense +of unenjoyed and unpitied lives +coming to an end there in the clay, +generation after generation, century +after century, with no object, no +hope, no mourner, went with him +painfully. Were he to die that evening, +such would be his own end. +They would bring him there, and +shovel him in, and go away, glad to +be rid of him; and the land of his +birth, the land of his love, would +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>not be with him, even by so much +as a handful of its soil thrown in +upon him.</p> + +<p>“I grow nervous; that brave +woman shames me,” he thought.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">IV.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap2">AS the full moon rose over +the eastern mountains +that evening, coming +from the unseen waves +of the Adriatic Sea, the mule-cart +was driven into the courtyard of the +hunting-lodge as she had promised. +She was alone in it; Lucio had +slipped off when near the gates, +and gone homewards by short cuts +known to him across the woods. +His heart was black against her +with the rage of a wolf robbed of a +fine meal off fawn or kid; he was +thirsty to pour his chagrin into the +yet blacker bosom of his elder +brother.</p> + +<p>“Stop here to-night, child,” said +old Caterina, coming out into the +courtyard to greet her. “’Tis late, +and you must be tired.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>The girl demurred and resisted, +but the old woman, who had +known her as a swaddled baby, +would take no denial. Cyrille +came out of the great doorway, the +light of the moon shining on his +face, which looked to her so strange, +so fair, so angelic, like the St +Michael above a side altar in the +Cathedral at her birthplace of +Viterbo.</p> + +<p>She thought the stranger of +another race, another humanity, to +Lucio or herself. She had never +seen a man so fair, so calm, so +delicately pale, and yet so cool in +courage as any tusked boar in the +woods.</p> + +<p>She had noticed him much +oftener and more curiously than +he had noticed her; and she +knew, as he did not know, the +hate against him which smouldered +in the breasts of all the +people scattered through the solitudes +of Le Selve.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>“Yes, rest here to-night,” he +said, “we should be churls to let +you go. Take her within, good +Caterina.”</p> + +<p>Though her muscles were as +steel, and her limbs as untiring as +those of a deer’s, she was fatigued +that night, and she did not care to +sup off the black looks and bitter +upbraidings of her uncles, who, to +her, would make no secret of their +disappointment and their rage.</p> + +<p>The old woman took her to the +kitchen, and warmed, and fed, and +welcomed her.</p> + +<p>“You are as strong as a man,” +said Caterina enviously, for her +own strength had also once been +great.</p> + +<p>“Stronger than many men,” said +Muriella with pride. “They know +it all through the Selve.”</p> + +<p>“Strength is a guardian angel,” +said the elder woman. “But a +woman’s strength is a devil in +disguise sometimes; she trusts to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>it; and lo!—it snaps, and she +falls.”</p> + +<p>“That may well be,” said +Muriella gravely.</p> + +<p>As she bent down over the +brazier its red reflection shone on +the fine outline of her brow and +cheek, on the thickness of her +raven hair, on the dark line of her +up-curling lashes.</p> + +<p>“You are a morsel for a +monarch,” thought Caterina, but +she did not say it; it was known +that the girl did not like such +jokes.</p> + +<p>Instead, she said:</p> + +<p>“I am going to change the +mattress in Ser Cirillo’s room. +Come and give me a helping +hand.”</p> + +<p>Muriella went without demur.</p> + +<p>When the lifting and changing +of the mattress on the great +mediæval bed with its gilded +baldachino and crown was done, she +stood and looked around her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>“What are these?” she said, +pointing to the telescope upon its +stand and the celestial globe.</p> + +<p>“Uncanny things that bring no +good to anyone,” answered +Caterina. “That big tube lets you +get up to the moon quite close; +you can hear the people in it talking.”</p> + +<p>“Saints above us!” said the girl, +much astonished; “I always +thought the moon was a lamp.”</p> + +<p>“So do all folks as keep their +senses,” said Caterina, with that +contempt of ignorance for knowledge, +which is of all scorn the most +derisive.</p> + +<p>The eyes of Muriella surveyed +the chamber with awe. It was +very large, with vast windows, a +tessellated floor, faded frescoed +walls, and the grand bed with +hangings in purple satin, once a +cardinal’s. There were some +oaken tables and dressers, and a +few huge chairs with leathern seats, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>and from the centre of the ceiling +hung a bronze Etruscan lamp found +centuries earlier in the forest underground. +On one of the tables stood +an earthen jar filled with the autumn +colchicum, and there were many +books and many drawings. Bare +and plain though the room was, +it had that nobility which comes +from ancient usage, and the indefinable +grace in it which is given to +their habitations by those whose +pursuits are intellectual and whose +tastes are artistic.</p> + +<p>“It feels like a church,” said +Muriella to herself: she had always +in her memory the churches of +Viterbo, where she had gone with +her mother, and above all of the +Duomo of San Lorenzo there, +where Guy de Montfort slew +Henry of Cornwall before the high +altar, and where an English Pope +forced a German Emperor to hold +his stirrup as vassal of the Holy +See. This chamber, with its three +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>great windows facing the west, +filled her with a dim pleasure and +veneration as the altars and aisles +of San Lorenzo had done.</p> + +<p>But she looked for one thing +which she did not see.</p> + +<p>“There are no arms,” she said +to Caterina; “not even a hunting-knife.”</p> + +<p>“He has a revolver,” said the +old woman. “But you are right, +my dear. There should be more +weapons nigh at hand. The +<i>guardiani</i> have all guns, it is +true.”</p> + +<p>Muriella said nothing. She had +little faith in the forest guards. +Were they the stranger’s friends or +foes? Of one’s own hand one is +sure—but of any other?</p> + +<p>“Tell your master to get more +defence for himself,” she said as +she lingered on the threshold.</p> + +<p>“He is not my master,” said +Caterina, huffed and on her dignity. +“He is a mere servant of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>Gandolfo, like me, like Fausto and +Gian, and Falko, and Dreino, and +all the rest.”</p> + +<p>“No; he rules those,” said +Muriella quickly. “He is in +authority over them. Perhaps not +over you, but over them certainly.”</p> + +<p>“And God and the Gandolfo +are over us all,” said Caterina +testily. “Over him as well as +the least of us. Come to supper, +wench.”</p> + +<p>Supper was eaten in the wide +long kitchen, black with smoke and +age, with the sweet herbs and the +dried pork hanging from the rafters, +and a great fire burning in a hearth +vast enough to hold a dozen men +on its settles. There were more +than a dozen men and women +seated along the tables with the +light from the brass <i>lucerne</i> shining +on their swarthy faces. The males +looked greedily and glowingly at +Muriella, but they did not delay +the great business of their hungry +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>jaws and thirsty throats to pay her +compliments. Moreover, Caterina +ruled them with a rod of iron, and +tolerated no amorous follies in her +presence. Bean-soup, roast kid, +fennel and salsify and macaroni were +their fare, washed down by a rough, +stinging red wine. Their strong +and comely women ate and drank +as copiously as the men: they had +few words to waste, and their white +teeth worked like a mill. Italians +have not always as much as they +could eat, but when they get the +chance they can feed like Gargantua’s +self. Two Franciscan friars +who were passing through the +woods and slept at the fattoria as +a matter of course, were as loudly +munching and as thirstily drinking +as the others, and conveying at +short intervals remnants of meat +and bread into their wallets, under +pretext of feeding the dogs who lay +under the table.</p> + +<p>“Trust the holy men to take all +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>they can lay their hands on,” thought +Caterina, noting their adroit manœuvres. +Through as many centuries +as the oaks without were old, +monks of all orders had come and +gone, and eaten, and drunk, and +been feasted, and welcomed at +those tables in Le Selve. The +mendicant-friars were now few in +number, and poor in worldly goods, +but at all the Gandolfo’s houses they +were ever as honoured as they had +been of old, except in the innermost +heart of Caterina.</p> + +<p>Cyrille supped later, alone, in a +small stone chamber which opened +out of his bedroom. His place at +the steward’s table was filled by the +under-steward, Fausto.</p> + +<p>Fausto was a Roman, with the +head and face, the throat and +shoulders, of a gladiator in the +galleries of the Vatican; thickly-curling +locks encircled his broad +low brow, and rich blood mantled +in his olive cheeks.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>He and the Franciscans spoke +in cordial amity where they sat +together at his end of his table.</p> + +<p>“You have a stranger here since +we passed by this time two years,” +said one of the friars.</p> + +<p>“We have,” said Fausto, and his +tone was sullen.</p> + +<p>“A man from the North, a schismatic,” +said the friar.</p> + +<p>“Of that I know naught,” replied +Fausto.</p> + +<p>“A pagan, one may say,” added +the monk. “Why did your good +lord place him here? ’Tis a sin +against the Holy Ghost.”</p> + +<p>Fausto shrugged his shoulders; +he was no theologian.</p> + +<p>“Does he know aught of +forestry?” asked the other Franciscan.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Fausto reluctantly. +“But all new-fangled northern +ways. We always used to cut +wood when we wished, and fell +timber when we wanted a sum of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>money. But under his rule there +is to be none of that. Only one +tree in eight, and never even so +much as this save in November +and December, and no pollarding +or cropping, and no fuel-making, +and even the furze and heather cut +by rule, and rarely.”</p> + +<p>He snorted scornfully like an +angry bull, and drank a draught of +the rough red wine.</p> + +<p>He had taken the extreme step +of going to solicit audience at the +palace of his employers in Rome, +but had not been received by anyone +higher than the house steward, +who in answer to his grievances +had declared that he could not place +them before their lords, since he +knew well that in regard to Le +Selve all the new-comer did was +well done—an unanswerable Italian +formula.</p> + +<p>“All the old feudal rights are +swept away,” Fausto continued. +“Rights of pasturage, of dead +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>wood, of snaring, of shooting, of +barking and burning, of grazing +and broom cutting—all are done +away with I tell you, holy men. +’Tis enough to make the folks of the +soil rise and fire the forests. Maybe +they will do it one day.”</p> + +<p>“To be sure, poor souls,” said +the friar with compassion, “and +the saints will excuse them.”</p> + +<p>Who would now give a Franciscan, +when he passed through the +Selve, a plump quail, or a young +hare, or a brace of coots shot on +the pond?</p> + +<p>“To be sure, indeed!” echoed +Fausto; “whoever saw wild forest +land kept as though it were a +Madonna’s garden? No goats +must crop, no mules must browse, +no guns go on the marshes, no +nests be taken high or low, no +bark be stripped, no undergrowth +be cut, no gins be set, nor netting; +the Lord grant me patience! The +people look to me for help. They +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>come to me weeping and groaning; +what can I say? What did he do +when I had covered a teal with +my gun last June? Struck the +barrel up with his stick; and the +bird away over the reeds. ‘It’s +close time,’ said he. ‘Close time, +close time!’ By the Lord! was +ever ‘close time’ heard of in those +woods? Have we not shot when +and where as we chose all the +year round? Eh? Many’s the +head of game I have got shooting +a sitting hare or nesting plover. +‘Close time!’ Great powers above +us! Who ever heard tell of the +like since the hills were piled one +a-top of another? But so it is now, +and no redress against it to be +got in Rome. ‘All that he does +is well done’—no other answer but +that. Damnation! I am nothing +here any more. I am no more +than a sere twig, than a strangled +mole. I go to Rome; and what +say they to me there? ‘All that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>he does is well done.’ They will +not even hear or enquire, and even +the wild boar hunting is stopped. +He is a second St Francis. He +talks with the pigs and the +wolves!”</p> + +<p>“Do not speak the name of a +saint of our Church in the same +breath with a vile schismatic outside +her pale,” said the elder Franciscan; +and he was so greatly +shocked that he drank out of the +flask of wine nearest him instead +of out of his glass tumbler, and +only set it down when it was half +empty.</p> + +<p>Muriella, where she sat beside +the Massaja, was too far off to +hear much that they said, but a +little reached her, and she saw the +lowering brows and tempestuous +gestures of Fausto. She spoke +across the length of the table to him.</p> + +<p>“Your pardon, Messir Fausto,” +she said in a clear, steady voice; +“you forget to add one thing. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>For all the feudal rights taken up, +there has been paid compensation; +it is but the abuse of them which +has been checked and stopped.”</p> + +<p>Fausto looked over the lighted +wicks of the brass lamps at the +speaker. He was betrothed to the +daughter of a wealthy vintner in +Montefiascone, but that fact had +not closed his eyes to the other +fact that the niece of Alcide and +Lucio had great and uncommon +beauty.</p> + +<p>He had often seen her, for her +uncles were favourites with him; +men who understood that he was in +his place for his own interests, not +for those of Le Selve, or of the +owners of Le Selve. “Between +the wise a wink suffices,” says an +Italian proverb; and that wink had +been often exchanged betwixt him +and Alcide and Lucio. The coldness +with which she had always +treated him, when any other young +woman between the Apennines and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>the Liris was but too proud of his +notice, had attracted him all the +more by its rarity and offence, for +<i>il bel Faustone</i> was accustomed to +easy conquests. He was disconcerted +now by what she said to +him; for he knew that it was true. +He was saved from reply by a great +clamour which uprose from the +throats of all the farm servants and +others present; for whenever yet +since the world began would people +of their kind admit that any compensation, +however generous and +just, could make amends for the loss +of old and dear abuses enjoyed with +impunity, and turned to profit unexamined?</p> + +<p>Such abuse is the very marrow of +their bones, the supreme joy of their +souls; no bird which is brought has +the flavour of the bird which is +poached; no oaken log which is +given burns so boisterously and so +warmly as the one which is hewn +by stealth and stolen.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>In speaking as she did Muriella +aroused against her all the wrath of +her own class; she seemed to them +an apostate allied with the enemy. +Time, temperament, inclination, +habit, were all arrayed against her; +the dearest privilege of all who +heard her was to pilfer and to +plunder, a privilege confirmed by +centuries of usage; who was she, +forest bred if not forest born, to +take the part of one who suppressed +the time-honoured thefts of +foresters?</p> + +<p><i>L’uso fa legge</i> in this country +more than in all others.</p> + +<p>Who was she to set herself +up against that time-honoured +axiom?</p> + +<p>The hubbub was so great, the roar +of crossing voices, and the scream +of angry denunciation, were so loud +that Caterina rapped sharply on the +table with her horn-handled carving +knife.</p> + +<p>“Silence, children! Who dares +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>speak here? Quiet! Quiet at once, +or no wine will be drunk by anyone +to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>Under so dire a threat, which +they knew would be inexorably +carried out if they disobeyed her, +the men and women held their +peace, and hung their heads +sheepishly. Even the mendicant-friars +were mute.</p> + +<p>“Come, wenches,” said Caterina, +and as she rose all the other women +rose also and left the kitchen +in her train, Muriella with them. +Against the will of the Massaja +there is no appeal in the household +which she rules. When she had +sent the servants to their several +evening tasks, Caterina took the +girl to her own room, and showed +her a little closet out of it where +she was to sleep.</p> + +<p>“You are plunging your arm +into a hornet’s nest,” she said, with +not unkind severity. “The woodlanders +will never suffer you to go +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>preaching against them and their +rights.”</p> + +<p>“What they call rights are not +rights,” said Muriella. “They are +wicked, thievish, knavish ways. +They should be grateful for all +your gentleman does for them. +He is merciful and just. They +should rejoice.”</p> + +<p>Caterina gave a short gruff laugh +like an owl’s hoot.</p> + +<p>“A clear cloudless night is a nice +thing,” she answered, “but when +a man is going to tryst with a +neighbour’s wife, or waiting with +his knife to avenge an old grudge, +he likes a murky night better, +doesn’t he, my dear? Ways are +crooked, and plunder has been +easy got in Le Selve. No one of +the woodlanders wants to be set +straight. Each one likes to crawl +on his belly and go crooked as he +chooses. Your uncles as much as +any.”</p> + +<p>“That I know,” said Muriella. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>“But to crawl on the belly is for +snakes, not men.”</p> + +<p>“Fine words, my dear, but they’ll +cost you heavy,” answered the old +woman. “Look after yourself, +child; you’ll find that enough to do. +I don’t like Faustone’s hot look at +you. He is a lewd fellow, and +stands pledged to wed with a +wench in Montefiascone come next +Easter.”</p> + +<p>Muriella smiled slightly. “Messir +Faustone may look as he likes, and +wed when he wishes. He will not +trouble my peace, be sure.”</p> + +<p>“Best that nobody should,” said +Caterina. “You should leave +those bad men you belong to, and +marry,” she added.</p> + +<p>Muriella shook her head. “Not I.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?” said Caterina. +“There are only two things for +a woman to choose between—the +nuptial bed or the convent cell; and +you are not one for a convent life, +my wench.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>“Nor yet one to be a man’s +beast of burden,” said the girl. “It +is a cow’s life; for ever yoked to the +plough, though pregnant and in +pain; for ever toiling over the +furrows, though with udders throbbing +and aching in milk. Not for +me! Not for me! Death sooner!”</p> + +<p>“There are good men to be +had,” said Caterina, not very firmly +nor with much conviction.</p> + +<p>“Not in these woods,” said +Muriella; “and even were one of +our men good, what could he do? +His woman is his for his pleasure +and her pain, like the cow in the +yoke.”</p> + +<p>“’Tis nature,” said Caterina.</p> + +<p>“I do not say otherwise,” replied +Muriella, and she leant her arms on +her knees and her cheeks on her +hands, and looked into the fire. +Nature was rude and rough, brutal +and ugly, in its human shapes; only +beautiful in its trees, in its waters, +in its clouds. She did not know +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>much, she could not read a line, she +had never been out of the woods, +but she could read human faces and +human hearts, and she generally +found what she read in them to be +as foul as the forest swamps, where +the newts and the adders lived, and +the night-shade hung over the slime.</p> + +<p>Caterina went on with her spinning +by the light of the three-wicked +brass lamps.</p> + +<p>“If you won’t marry, I do not +see what can become of you,” she +said with some severity.</p> + +<p>Muriella smiled. “I am a good +worker; I can earn my day’s wage +any time anywhere. I would go +away to-morrow, but I am loth to +leave the woods. They are like +father and mother, child and cradle, +to me.”</p> + +<p>“That is rubbish,” said the older +woman roughly. “The woods are +dumb, like the beasts they harbour.”</p> + +<p>Muriella did not reply. They +were not dumb to her, nor were the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>beasts either, but she was shy in +speech, and the sympathies which +moved within her were rather +instincts than conscious feelings. +She was not often capable of unravelling +and explaining them, and +the good Caterina did not invite +such confidences.</p> + +<p>“You are a ripe cherry, and +Fausto is a wasp,” said Caterina +darkly, clinging to her ideas.</p> + +<p>“I am a cherry that stings like +a nettle,” answered the younger +woman with her slow, faint smile.</p> + +<p>“Don’t trust to that,” said the +older woman. “Well, it is late; +get you to bed.”</p> + +<p>In a few minutes’ time both she +and her guest were sound asleep in +the dreamless slumber of healthy +fatigue.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">V.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">WHEN the morning +broke over the Umbrian +Mountains on +the far east, the girl +was away on foot back to her uncle’s +house, before the sun had risen +high enough to be seen over the +black ridge of the easterly woods. +Her uncles cast evil looks at her on +her arrival, but, to her surprise, no +one said anything in allusion to the +incident of the previous day. They +owed her a heavy grudge, but they +did not fritter it out in words. +Vengeance would keep in the Selve. +It is a good wine; the best of all +wines, to their thinking.</p> + +<p>“I should be wiser to leave +them,” she thought often in the day +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>which followed. “I can get my +bread anywhere.”</p> + +<p>But her heart clung to the +woods as she had said; they were +her friends: all she had to love. +She knew every big tree in them, +as a priest knows each one of his +flock. She loved their liberty, +their solitude, their silence, their +brown deep pools, their impenetrable +brakes where none but the +wild pig could push his way, their +green twilight, dim even in noonday, +the profound stillness of their +winter days and summer eves; she +clung to these with all her heart, +though without full measure or +consciousness of why she did so.</p> + +<p>The hare with its large tender +eyes, the bird with its flood of song, +the meadow-sweet with its plume +of snow, the birch with its bands of +silver, the oak with its russet-brown +trunk—these were all nearer to her +than the family with which she +lived. From the silence and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>shadow of the woods she derived +a pleasure that was inarticulate but +keen, and when she saw the mules +straining under a rain of blows, the +cows lowing in vain for their +ravished offspring, the troops of +weary goats toiling through the +dust of the high-road, the suffering +creatures seemed nearer to her than +the men who cut their throats, or +stunned their brains with repeated +blows.</p> + +<p>To all those around her such +victims were no more than bits of +wood, and the torture of them was +the chief pastime of young and old; +but she had been created with a +different soul. It was dumb, like +that of the cows and the goats, but +it was alive.</p> + +<p>To her own relatives she seemed +a fool; only they knew that she +was not a fool, because they could +not fool her; and her brown, well-shaped +hand had before now taken +a cruel shepherd by the scruff of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>his neck and tossed him into a +running stream, or on to a bed of +nettles. For she was very strong, +with that marvellous strength +created by air and exertion alone in +those whose food is but black bread +and herbs.</p> + +<p>The work she had to do was of +the roughest. The only rest she +knew was when she sat down to +the <i>telaio</i>, the board at which she +weaved the rude hempen linen in +use in the family. But this did not +trouble her; she was young and +active, and it would have hurt her +more to have her energies and +strength pent up unused than to +strain them to the utmost in the +outdoor labours of the croft and +wold. The idea of going elsewhere +appalled her, not from any +peril which might lie in such +wanderings, but from the force of +habit and affection which bound +her to the soil. She knew that +in any other place she would feel +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>like the homeless squirrel whom +the forest fire has chased from its +familiar nest in the old chestnut +bole, and driven out to wander +forlorn over charred moss and +smouldering turf, knowing its homeward +path no more.</p> + +<p>A few days later Cyrille saw her +as he went on one of his daily rides +through the woods. He stopped +his horse and spoke to her.</p> + +<p>“I have not thanked you for +what you did at San Vitale the +other day,” he said, as she straightened +her back and looked up at +him from her kneeling posture, +where she was cutting dead canes. +“But I am afraid it may have +made ill-feeling between you and +your uncles. Has it done so?”</p> + +<p>“There is little love ever between +us,” she answered. “Their thoughts +are not my thoughts, nor their ways +mine.”</p> + +<p>“Would it not be better to leave +them?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>“No doubt.”</p> + +<p>“Shall I ask Caterina to find you +work with us?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“It would not suit me.”</p> + +<p>She grew a little red as she +answered. Messir Faustone had +persecuted her with coarse courtship.</p> + +<p>“You cannot be happy amongst +people whose conduct is alien and +offensive to you,” he said.</p> + +<p>She drew down some more canes +thoughtfully, and cut them through, +and cast them on the ground beside +others already cut.</p> + +<p>“Happy! what is that?” she +said, with a genuine ignorance +which had nothing cynical. “That +is the way you talk. We do not.”</p> + +<p>Through Cyrille’s mind there +drifted the line of Goethe—“When +to the passing day,” etc.—and that +other sentence of Théroigne de +Mericourt—“Doth not the child +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>smile in its mother’s face under +Tiberius as under Trajan?”</p> + +<p>“There are natural joys, surely, +given even to the humblest in all +times,” he said, with a little hesitation.</p> + +<p>The beautiful mouth of Muriella +curled with a little scorn.</p> + +<p>“Did you ever note the asses +that come for the sand which is taken +out of the pits?” she said curtly. +“They are put to their work when +they are foals. They never reach +their full growth. Their eyes are +always sore. Their coats are always +full of dust. No one ever cleans +them. Their hoofs are dry and +split. Their bones are through +their skin. They get nothing to +eat but mouldy straw and dead +leaves. They are beasts of burden, +fed on blows. They have never a +minute’s peace. The women of the +poor are like them. They bring +forth in hunger and pain, and what +they bring forth is born to their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>burdens. That is why I will never +marry, if that be what you mean.”</p> + +<p>He was astonished at the reflection +and observation conveyed in +the reply. It was like a miracle to +hear any one of these people speak +with compassion of an animal, and +with any comparison of animal to +human destinies.</p> + +<p>He was surprised also at the +directness of the answer, for a direct +answer is seldom given in these +lands.</p> + +<p>He pointed to a speck of gold +shining far away in the west.</p> + +<p>“Yonder, where you see that +spark of light, lies Rome. There, +more than one man who was born of +a peasant mother has sat enthroned +as a viceregent of God, and +emperors and kings have kneeled +to kiss his foot. What woman can +say what she may bring forth? +Who can tell what the fruit of her +body may be?”</p> + +<p>She looked where he pointed, but +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>she did not understand. Of Rome +she had heard, but she had no +notion of it, other than as a place +whither the <i>vetturini</i> went as the +end of their journeys.</p> + +<p>The way is long and the gulf is +deep which divides the cultured +from the ignorant mind. Each +speaks to the other in an unknown +tongue.</p> + +<p>He knew that she had not +grasped the vague consolation +offered in his words. Silence fell +between them, only filled by the +sound of her rusty sickle hacking +at the dry canes.</p> + +<p>“Why do you stay here?” she +said suddenly. “Why? It is not +your country?”</p> + +<p>“It is not; no.”</p> + +<p>“Have you no friends?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, many; but not here.”</p> + +<p>“You should go to them.”</p> + +<p>“Would that I could!”</p> + +<p>“Why cannot you?”</p> + +<p>He was silent. How could he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span>make her understand his position? +Still kneeling on the ground with +her billhook hacking the canes, she +looked up at him with sudden sympathy.</p> + +<p>“You killed someone?” she +said in a whisper.</p> + +<p>That was the cause which made +men fugitives here in Le Selve.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Cyrille; “I did worse—I +tried to teach men, and they +would not be taught. My rulers +thought it a crime. They put me +in prison. I escaped. I am here.”</p> + +<p>Muriella was silent, resting the +billhook on the ground.</p> + +<p>“You try to teach men here,” +she said after a while; “they will +not put you in any prison, but they +will put you in your grave. They +are all against you. They are not +worth teaching. You will not alter +them if you try till your hair is +white.”</p> + +<p>“I wish to do my duty to my +employers and to their people.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>“You are a just man. But they +do not want your justice. They +want to do as they have always +done, and be as they have always +been. The wild pigs like the +swamp. They do not want to go +with you to clean straw in a +stable.”</p> + +<p>Cyrille was silent.</p> + +<p>“I used to believe,” he thought, +“I have always believed, that the +poor only needed to be shown the +right road to gladly follow it; that +they only wanted to be led to the +water-side to willingly wash and be +clean. But I begin to fear that I +have deceived myself.”</p> + +<p>Aloud he said:</p> + +<p>“Were I on my own property, I +might allow it to be ruined if I +chose, though to do so would be, +not benevolence, but weakness. +Here, however, I have no choice. +I am but the servant of others. I +must enforce what I know to be +right.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>“They will kill you.”</p> + +<p>“That must be as it will. +Threatened men usually live long.”</p> + +<p>“Not always; and not here.”</p> + +<p>Then she resumed her work, +and the pallid rustling ribands of +the canes fell beneath her rusty +blade.</p> + +<p>“And whoever slays you,” she +added as she worked, “will never +be found. Everyone will make +common cause with him. Everyone +will be for him, risk all for him, +hide him in their beds, swear falsely +for him by the Madonna’s self. He +will be beloved of all, and pass safely +by signs from house to house, from +village to village, from province to +province. The law will never get +hold of his little finger. The hatred +of the stranger is more binding than +oaths.”</p> + +<p>“Then why do you not share +it?”</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>She did not know why. She had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>not asked herself. Certainly she +ought to be on the side of her +own people, and not his. Why was +she not so?</p> + +<p>“You are in the right,” she said +simply; “and you are alone against +hundreds. I have never been at +one with my father’s people. My +mother was a woman of Viterbo. +I lived with her in Viterbo till she +died. She had left my father +because he was wicked and cruel. +She was good; so good! She +taught me to see that the ways +they follow here are evil. They +are bad men, as my father was. And +they have no love for the woods. +You have. And now good-day. +They had best not see you here. +They will think we plot some mischief +against them.”</p> + +<p>She bound all the cut canes together +in one bundle, heaved them +upward on to her head, and when +loaded went away along the banks +of the stream, walking erect and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>swiftly, the great sheaf swaying as +she moved.</p> + +<p>So passed the women of Etruria +and of Latium before her through +these woods. The work of husbandry +is the only work which does +not change with time, but remains, +at least in Italy, natural, noble, and +beautiful in its attitudes and its +simplicity.</p> + +<p>He looked at her as he might +have looked at some statue exhumed +from the soil. She was as sexless as +a statue to him; he wore the ice +armour of an absorbing and despairing +passion, which left him neither +sight nor sense for any more fugitive +feelings.</p> + +<p>But she had shown a comprehension +of his position, of his motives, +of his difficulties, which was welcome +in the isolation wherein he lived, +and made him grateful to her, as he +would have been for the sympathy +of some other man. He discerned +the intelligence which shone through +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>the fog of her ignorance, and he +appraised at its due value the +courage which kept her in perpetual +opposition to those with whom she +lived.</p> + +<p>Her warnings did not influence his +conduct, but he knew that they +were founded on a just estimate of +those around him. They weighed, +however, but little upon him, because +his philosophy was fatalistic, +and he had that apathetic indifference +to danger which comes +from extreme unhappiness in life. +When you have lost all except +actual existence, it seems to matter +little if sheer existence be taken +as well.</p> + +<p>He had been now eighteen months +in these woods, seeing no faces but +those of peasants hostile to him, +and exchanging no single word with +anyone of cultured intelligence. +Muriella was ignorant as any one +of the sheep, who only knew their +winter and summer tracks; but she +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>understood with her heart, if not +with her mind, and he found relief +in telling her a little of those “old +forgotten far-off things,” which +seemed to him so many æons of +time away, though they belonged in +truth only to his own life of a year +or two earlier. It did him good to +call up that past, these scenes, all +those who had been with him in his +daily life; it relieved him of that +dazed sense of unreality which came +upon him as on men in the solitude +of a condemned cell.</p> + +<p>Once he spoke of the woman he +loved: not by name, but as Surrey +might have spoken of Geraldine, +with bated breath and unuttered +prayer; and having thus spoken +once, he did so again, and yet again, +tracing her portrait in words, pressing +the dagger of regret into his +heart as lovers love to do in every +age. And Muriella listened, growing +pale, hanging on his words, till +in her rude fancy an image shaped +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>itself from his words clothed in starlight, +crowned with the pale hellebore, +fugitive, spiritual, unreachable. +Imagination was dormant in her; it +caught light at the flame of his +higher intelligence. She could not +see clearly by it, but she saw a ray +before her feet—a soft faint green +light like that of the glowworm in +the woodland paths, the ray of awaking +comprehension, with its companion +pain.</p> + +<p>She did not know why she +thought of this unknown lady thus. +Perhaps it was because, when he +first spoke of her, the hellebore was +in blossom all over the awakening +woods.</p> + +<p>It did not occur to him that he +did a cruel thing in interesting thus +in his fate a poor untutored maiden; +he scarcely thought of her at all; he +spoke to her because he read loyalty +and sympathy in her gaze as in the +eyes of a dog; and because he was +weary of the long, dumb, friendless +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>front in which his mind and memories +were imprisoned.</p> + +<p>“You will go back,” she said to +him one day when the grief which +was in him broke down his courage +and his resignation, and she saw +great tears rise slowly to his eyes.</p> + +<p>He gave a gesture of despair. +“Ah, never.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you will go back.”</p> + +<p>“What should you know, poor +child?”</p> + +<p>“I know nothing,” said Muriella. +“But I pray for you.”</p> + +<p>He bent his head.</p> + +<p>“I thank you, dear.”</p> + +<p>She looked at him with a wistful, +yearning look, which he did not +interpret because his thoughts were +elsewhere than with her.</p> + +<p>“I will pray always,” she said +briefly. “I am sure you will go +back to your own land one day.”</p> + +<p>“You say so to console me. +Those whom I have offended do +not pardon.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>“May it not be put in their +hearts to relent?”</p> + +<p>“As soon will yonder oaks rise +and walk.”</p> + +<p>Yet, though his reason rejected +it, her persistent faith entered into +his heart against his reason, and +was sweet to him with the sweetness +of hope.</p> + +<p>After all, save death, nothing +was absolutely hopeless.</p> + +<p>He was still young enough to see +many changes in the world—wars, +revolutions, dynasties, policies, +might all alter the face of Europe, +and with the larger national life, +his own obscure individual fate. It +was the wildest and vaguest dream, +but it trembled on the edge of the +unknown future, as far away in the +west and the night, at times, a faint +spark of light shone, which was the +beacon above the sea at Palo; not +a score of times in a year was that +far-off speck visible, but to know +that it was there lent a sense of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>safety and companionship even in +the darkest murk of storm. So to +him was precious that sense of hope +in another soul; he could not share +its belief, but it saved him from +despair.</p> + +<p>“You will go back to your own +land,” said Muriella; and the sound +of the promise was sweet to his ear, +though spoken by a poor ignorant +girl who did not even know where +his own land lay.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">VI.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">IN her, as in most women of +her nation, religious faith +was very strong, but vague. +It was an intense force, blind +and irrational, which had no more +doubt of itself than she had that +her feet were planted on the solid +earth. But it was shapeless and dim +as the lineaments of the Scythian +Diana, which lay so long under the +waters of the Lake of Nemi. The +early years of her childhood had +been happy, for her mother had +been good, and Viterbo remained +in her recollection transfigured in +the golden light of a lost joy. It +was to her a holy place: her mother +lay there. Slowly there entered +into her mind and matured in it +the idea of going on pilgrimage to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>Viterbo, and there beseeching that +the saints and archangels should +grant the stranger his desire.</p> + +<p>It was a generous, an unselfish, +almost an heroic thought, and it +grew apace with her, as a sweet +herb grows in a good soil, and the +very pain it gave her stung her +into pursuance of it. She had +never been beyond the limits of +the Gandolfo Woods since she had +been brought under their broad +green shadows one burning July +day in her tenth year; but she +knew well where her birthplace lay, +to the north-east after crossing the +last boundary of Le Selve.</p> + +<p>Pilgrims through many a century +had come and gone in one continuous +stream from that little +walled city of the Popes to the +greater Urbs on Tiber; but now +the Popes go no more to Viterbo, +and the sand chokes its fountains; +and the course of life flows away +from it, and leaves it like them dry +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>and silent. This she did not know. +It was to her the city of her childhood; +the city of winged angels +and clustering seraphim, and +heavenly choirs and miracles and +benedictions. She had no knowledge +of its great past; of its fine +art, of its sacred memories; but she +loved it because there she had +known a mother’s love, there had +made a mother’s grave.</p> + +<p>In her solitary musings, during +her long hours of toil, the resolution +matured with her. Viterbo +seemed, in her recollection of the +long journey from it, immeasurably +far off, far as the very moon itself. +But from shepherds and cattle-drivers +she learned the way to take, +out of the woods and northward, +to join the great high-road.</p> + +<p>She walked nine miles, over hills +and across streams, to meet the +public vehicle as it passed on its +way to Ronciglione, and thence +went to Viterbo itself. She had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>only a few coins in her pocket, +for it was only when she sold a +little piece of hempen cloth of her +own making that she got a trifle. +But she had some black bread +and two onions in a handkerchief, +and she was used to meagre food.</p> + +<p>After the green shade of the +forest, the cloud of dust upon the +roads and the grey desolate streets +seemed to her very dreary; the +city she remembered with its dancing +waters and its glancing spires +seemed to have vanished. Was +the Spirit of God here more truly +than in the aisles of pine and ilex? +It was twelve years since she had +been in these stony places, and her +bare feet, used to the moss and the +turf, ached as they trod the granite +of the streets. But the Duomo was +there, the temple dedicated to St +Laurence, where she had knelt when +a little child at her mother’s side, +whilst the music of the Kyrie +Eleison poured overhead, in sounds, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span>winged like birds, which floated to the +roof and passed out heavenward.</p> + +<p>The great church was silent as +she pushed aside the leathern curtain +of a side door. The day was +almost done; here and there on +the pavement knelt a lonely figure; +a sacristan moved noiselessly, lighting +the lamps in the nave. She +went to a side chapel, which she +remembered, whither her mother +had always gone; and she knelt +there, a tired, dusty, unnoticeable +woman, and she prayed with all +the force of her spirit. It might +be no good. There might come no +answer. But she would have done +what she could.</p> + +<p>She prayed as women pray for +their sick at Loretto and Lourdes.</p> + +<p>There was a silver lamp above +the altar; it swayed slowly to and +fro. She bowed her head down +upon the stones, and covered her +face with her hands.</p> + +<p>“Holy ones, take the only thing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>I have,” she murmured. “I am +poor and of no account, but hearken +unto me. I give you all I have. +Grant him his heart’s desire.”</p> + +<p>And she loosened from her throat +a little agate heart. It had been +her mother’s; it was hung round +her neck by a plaited tress of gray +hair. She laid it down under the +silver lamp upon the altar; it was +her only treasure. In all the world +she had nothing else. It looked +very small, very poor, very valueless, +as it lay, dark and worn, in +the light of the lamp. But she +thought they would not despise it +or reject it. They would know it +was all she had.</p> + +<p>In a little while the church was +fully lighted; the service of vespers +began. She got up from her knees +and walked away down the side +aisle, leaving the agate heart and +the braid of her mother’s hair behind +her. Her throat ached with +silent, hidden weeping.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>She slept that night in a poor +place in the town that she knew, +and left the gates at daybreak in +the public vehicle, packed close +between other women and screeching +fowls, and wailing babes, and +crowded crates of ducklings, on her +homeward way to the cross-road +which led to Le Selve.</p> + +<p>She felt as if her heart was of lead +now that her amulet was no longer +warm against the pulses of it. But +she did not regret what she had +done. In a few hours the walls +and towers of Viterbo had faded +from the distance, and she saw again +the dark waters of the little lake +of Vico, and the chestnuts and oak +forests of the Ciminian slopes.</p> + +<p>She left Ronciglione on foot, +and on her homeward way met +a horseman, who, passing her, +stopped his horse.</p> + +<p>“Have you thought of what I +offered to you last week?” he +asked.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>“No,” replied Muriella.</p> + +<p>“How long will it be before you +do?”</p> + +<p>“As long as the earth is old.”</p> + +<p>“I am a bad foe, Muriella.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you are a worse lover.”</p> + +<p>“I would give you a string of +pearls and a box of clothes.”</p> + +<p>“Keep the pearls for your betrothed +and the clothes for a +beggar, and ride away to your +<i>dama</i> at La Storta.”</p> + +<p>“Where have you been?”</p> + +<p>“That is naught to you.”</p> + +<p>“You look jaded and worn.”</p> + +<p>“I am fresh enough to make +your ears tingle if you molest me. +Get you gone to your lawful +allegiance.”</p> + +<p>Fausto scowled, and dug his +heels into the flanks of his good +grey horse. He was not used to +be flouted or thwarted.</p> + +<p>She looked at herself in the +brown shallow water of the river’s +bed, clear as a mirror, and wondered +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span>what Faustone saw that made him +so hot in her pursuit. She did +not see any good looks in herself; +she only saw her sun-browned skin, +her dark, rough hair, her strong +column-like throat, her brown arms +and hands, her bare feet wet with +dew and green with moss; she +seemed no more to herself than a +rude bit of wood shaped into +human likeness, such as they found +sometimes in the Etruscan tumuli. +Fausto might find her handsome, +and rest his wicked hot eyes upon +her; but she saw nothing in herself.</p> + +<p>She reached her home, after a +long and exhausting walk, and, +since the under-steward had seen +her, made no secret of her journey +to Viterbo. They were all angry +that she brought them nothing, +but otherwise the matter had no +interest for them.</p> + +<p>She shut her hope up in her +soul and waited. In the saints’ +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>good time the saints would set +him free.</p> + +<p>“You mope, girl. What is +amiss?” said her uncles to her.</p> + +<p>“Do I not do my quota of +work?”</p> + +<p>“Nay, we do not say you fail +in that.”</p> + +<p>“Then what matter my looks or +my ways to you?”</p> + +<p>She would brook no interference. +She knew that she was worth much +more than her keep to them, and +they knew it too; if the men had +shirts to their backs, and the +children had as much bread as +they could eat, they owed it chiefly +to her.</p> + +<p>“If she likes to be the light-o’-love +of that stranger ’tis no matter +to us,” said the women.</p> + +<p>“She’d do better to be Fausto’s,” +replied Alcide. “We’d get a pig +out of him come winter.”</p> + +<p>They would have seen with a +favourable eye her welcome of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>Roman’s wooings; he was a man +after their own taste, who bought +and sold, and trafficked and lied, +and could fake a colt and outwit +a dealer with the best of his +time.</p> + +<p>“She may take her <i>damo</i> where +she likes best. But if she tell +tales she will be sorry for it,” said +Alcide to himself, and set himself +to watch her.</p> + +<p>To do so was easy, for they knew +where her day’s work lay every +morning when she went out to it; +it was nearly always the same +according to season. Once or twice +he saw her speak with Cyrille. +But he saw nothing which looked +to him like amorous intercourse. +The more sure therefore was he +that she played informer to the +foreigner’s command.</p> + +<p>“We have reared a cuckoo,” he +said to his wife; but the woman, +wiser and shrewder, answered:</p> + +<p>“We did not rear her. She came +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>full grown or nearly so; and she +is not of the temper that makes +spies.”</p> + +<p>Alcide, however, remained of his +own opinion, and Lucio shared it. +If a man and a woman, both young +in years, did not talk of love, what +could they talk of when they were +together if not of others? Once +Lucio got near enough to hear +what they said, and to see that +there were some feet of shallow +water between them as they spoke, +Muriella cutting reeds, and the +steward, dismounted, leaning +against a tree.</p> + +<p>“That is a grasshopper warbler,” +said the latter, as a small bird flew +up from the pool. “Take care not +to cut where they have built.”</p> + +<p>“I see the nest,” she answered. +“’Tis like a little basket, and the +stalks run through it. There are +many of these birds here.”</p> + +<p>“They must mean other than +they say,” thought the eavesdropper; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>and he continued to listen, +but all he heard was talk of birds +and their haunts, and the like +nonsense, until he saw the rider +mount and move away.</p> + +<p>The part of the wood where the +pools and marshes were, lay lower +and more level, spreading onward +till it reached the Vico lake, and +poured into it its many trickling +streams and hidden springs. In +the swamps wild hogs and buffaloes +waded, grunted, bathed, and +bellowed, and over many a square +league the brown spikes of the +bulrush and the purple plumes of +the reeds reigned in undisturbed +sovereignty. A raised causeway +of piles and stones ran across it, of +which the foundations were of date +remote as the Antonines; and once +off that path such intimate knowledge +as the woodlanders possessed +was necessary before venturing +amongst the network of <i>padule</i>. +There was nothing on the surface +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>of it to mark out the solid land +from the bog.</p> + +<p>“I wonder your Northman does +not want us to pay for the reeds!” +said Lucio, showing himself a little +later over the as yet unblossomed +bulrushes.</p> + +<p>“No one need pay aught for +aught,” replied Muriella. “So long +as they take only in season, and do +not cut to waste, there is nothing +grudged.”</p> + +<p>Lucio snorted with scorn.</p> + +<p>“Whoever cut reeds by rule or +asked leave to rake in dead wood? +The marshes are free to us as +to that bull-calf.”</p> + +<p>He pointed to a half-grown buffalo +turning on its back in a shallow +of sand and water.</p> + +<p>“So you say,” replied Muriella +calmly. “The lords of the soil +and the stream do not see it so.”</p> + +<p>“You unnatural wench! Do +you go against your own folks and +their rights?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>“What rights are denied you?”</p> + +<p>“We have the right to take,” +said Lucio furiously. “Your upstart +whiteface makes a show of +charity in giving us what is our +own.”</p> + +<p>“The land is no more our own +than it is yon bull-calf’s,” said +Muriella, glancing at the uncouth +play of the creature in the shallow +water.</p> + +<p>“You insolent jade!” shouted +Lucio. “I will duck you head +foremost!”</p> + +<p>“Try,” said his niece, where she +stood between the bundles of reeds; +and she folded her hands on her +bosom and waited, the edge of the +sickle turned outwards.</p> + +<p>Muttering many oaths, he let her +be, and went away, shying a stone +at the poor calf, which stumbled up +on its uncertain legs and hobbled +away, splashing awkwardly through +the shallows to regain its herd. +He was not as clever and resolute +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>a man as his brother; he fretted +and swore about matters which +Alcide settled with a lead pellet or +a stiletto blade.</p> + +<p>“Could you not find some occupation +for that poor girl Muriella?” +asked Cyrille of the Massaja some +days later.</p> + +<p>“Occupation there is plenty, sir,” +said Caterina curtly. “But you know +her folks little if you think we can +meddle with them and go scot free.”</p> + +<p>“But she is not their slave?”</p> + +<p>“No; not as one may call a +slave; but they have housed and +fed her ever since she was ten, and +they have the first right to her. No +one can gainsay that. If she were +to come here, and have bed and +board and wage, they would stick +a knife in her and in me, most +likely. They would hold she had +disgraced them. Folks don’t go +out to service here as they do in +the cities. And what would they +do without her? Who ploughs, who +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>sews, who washes, who keeps the +soul in all their lazy, dirty carcasses +if not this one poor wench?”</p> + +<p>“I know; but it is unjust.”</p> + +<p>“Most things are, sir, in this +world,” replied Caterina; “she was +brought there when she was too +small to choose, and now she must +stay where she was put, like the +grain in furrow. There is only one +thing that she might do——”</p> + +<p>“What is that?”</p> + +<p>“She might take the veil. If +she did that they would not dare +to say aught against it, for they +would know they would burn in fire +everlasting if they did.”</p> + +<p>“Why should she not marry?”</p> + +<p>“Nay, sir; she will not marry such +as alone would marry her. Only +a <i>ciociaro</i> would take her, and +’twould be but a change of +masters.”</p> + +<p>“Poor girl!” said Cyrille, with +regret. He knew what to marry +a <i>ciociaro</i> implied.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>“You had better not think about +her, sir,” said Caterina, with significance. +“Your thoughts can do +her no good.”</p> + +<p>“They shall do her no harm, I +promise you.”</p> + +<p>“Fine words! Fine words!” +said Caterina, who, though she +thought him a man above others, +was doubtful of his regarding a +good-looking maiden in any other +manner than as the bee looks at +the rose.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">VII.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">THE position of a steward +in Italy, if he be an honest +man, is necessarily a +position of continual +friction in relation to the tenantry, +and above all to those who, as in +so many instances, pay in kind and +pay in labour. Their perpetual +effort is to cheat, and his to frustrate +their cheating, for even if he be +himself a trickster to his lord, it is +not to his interests that their tricks +should succeed.</p> + +<p>To Cyrille, with his political +views, his poetic communism, and +his genuine tenderness of temper, +it was a daily torment to mark, +track, and prevent the continual +petty thefts and crooked intrigues +of those forest-squatters. More +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span>than once he was on the point of +writing to Adolfo Gandolfo, and +begging him to tender his resignation +to the old prince. But many +reasons restrained him: in the first +place, gratitude; in the second, +that natural reluctance of every +high-spirited man to confess himself +beaten; besides this, there was +always a feeling which had entered +into him of affection for the trees +and for the animals, and a great +sense of repose in the dim green +solitudes which closed in around his +refuge. If he went away, in impatience +and thanklessness, what could +await him? Only the stifling life +of cities, the sordid struggle of +intellect with want. Where again +if he left Le Selve would he see +the light of morning on the snows +of Soracte? Where again behold +the evening’s gold gleam on the +line of the sea by Ostia? Where +smell the bourgeonning blossoms of +the lime? Where stroke the velvet +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>antlers of the deer? Where watch +the nightingales pluck the small +white moths off the pale azure discs +of the succory? Where see the day +decline in pomp behind the hoary +boughs of oaks which as saplings +saw the armies of Theodoric and +of Constantine pass beneath their +sapling shadows; the spell of +Rome held him and the sorcery +of Nature; of that Nature which +is eternally young, yet allied with +the greatest ages of the earth.</p> + +<p>The year did not pass without +the warning of the women to +him being verified. Once a bullet +whistled past him as he rode, and +cut off the oak leaves at his +shoulder. But the forest growth +hid the would-be assassin from +his sight; and another night, when +he rode over the wooden bridge +often used by him in returning +homeward, the planks gave way +beneath his horse’s tread, and the +animal and he escaped by a miracle +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span>from a bad fall on to jagged rocks +and into deep water; and when he +examined it by daylight it seemed +to him that the timbers had been +sawn nearly asunder, so as to +give way under vibration. But of +the guilty persons there was no +trace. What affected him more +was when his dog, a greyhound of +large size and great beauty, sent to +him by Gandolfo, was found dead +one noonday stretched out on the +terrace, with all the signs of death, +by a poison which the woodlanders +extracted from adders which they +caught and robbed of their venom, +treating it as they did also the poison +of the night-shade, and the hemlock, +and the corn-crowfoot, in a +manner learned by oral recipes +handed down from remote Etruscan +times. It was only the eldest living +son who received that teaching from +the head of the family, and in turn +passed it to his heir, with many +another dark secret of subterranean +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>waters, and buried passages, and +rock tombs and hollow ways in +which a fugitive from justice might +dwell safely many a year. Muriella +had no doubt as to who had slain +the greyhound; for Alcide was so +good-natured, so industrious, so +quiet, by comparison with his +ordinary habit, that she felt sure he +had done some evil successfully. +Cyrille offered rewards and made +investigations as to the dog’s death +uselessly. Concerning his own +danger he said nothing; he sent +workmen to mend the bridge, affecting +to take for granted that the +timber had been rotten and old. If +any were disappointed by his escape, +they kept their chagrin to themselves +and bided their time.</p> + +<p>Vengeance is like a good Falernian +or Chianti wine; it only +mellows with keeping.</p> + +<p>After the pleasure of trapping and +shooting, in and out of season, the +main and favourite diversion of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>squatters of Le Selve was smuggling; +the smuggling of all kinds of +game netted out of season, of ingeniously-hidden +wines, carried +across the woods from the Este +districts to the very gates of Rome, +or as far as Nepi and Corneto; of +charcoal burned by themselves from +the stolen wood of the violated +groves around them, and taken in +sacks under the walls of villages +and little towns; even of the very +pips of the pine-cones baked in their +ovens they made traffic, and carried +them away and sold them for what +they could get; they took everything +across the forest by night, with +their poor starved cows or buffaloes +harnessed to the wagons; and it was +not only the small gains which were +dear to them but the pleasure in +the contraband-dealing, and the +relish of cheating the <i>gabellotti</i> at +the gates of the capital itself. More +than one of them had stabbed a +guard and taken to the hills, where +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>such a fugitive could no more be +traced than if he were an adder +under a pile of stones. The ground +was honeycombed with subterranean +places, in the past Etruscan sepulchres, +now the storehouses of these +men, their entrances known to them +alone, and their retreat safe from +discovery.</p> + +<p>“Every man may be betrayed, for +Christo was,” said Alcide once; “but +an outlaw is almost always safe +and welcome.”</p> + +<p>It was quite true. There is an +universal feeling amongst the +people of fraternal unison against +the law and the fiscal agents; and +the little children will carry bread +and wine to such a fugitive from +justice and never speak, or tell +where they have found him. Whatever +feud there might be between +the families in other matters, they are +of one accord, of strict and mutual +support concerning their enterprises +in smuggling and in brigandage.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span>“This contraband carrying is an +organised conspiracy,” said Cyrille +to the under-steward, when he had +become aware of the practice.</p> + +<p>“No doubt,” said Fausto, with a +gesture of indifference.</p> + +<p>“And you have never attempted +to put it down?”</p> + +<p>“No; before me nobody ever +did. Why should I?”</p> + +<p>“Do you think it right?”</p> + +<p>Fausto shrugged his shoulders. +“I do not say whether it is right or it +is wrong. It has always been done. +The people would not like it +meddled with, be sure. They regard +it as one of their rights.”</p> + +<p>“But it is a bad, dangerous, and +dishonest life.”</p> + +<p>“They do not see it so. It +pleases them.”</p> + +<p>“And you connive at it?”</p> + +<p>“It hurts nobody,” said Fausto +sullenly. “There is no thief so big +as the Revenue.”</p> + +<p>Cyrille said no more; but he resolved +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>to make an example of the +first convoy which he could surprise. +He saw that Fausto, for some gain +of his own, or out of personal fear, +closed his eyes to the practice. He +determined to lie in waiting himself +to hear the wagon wheels passing +over the road on the first moonless +night after this conversation. He +understood why he had so often +heard afar off in the still hours +after midnight the faint grinding +of wheels on rutty paths, and the +far-off voices of swearing men. He +took up his stand where three woodland +paths met, on the edge of the +only road which led across the +woods of the Gandolfo to Montefiascone +northwards, and south-westwards +to Rome. He had reason +to believe that it was a frequent +route with the forest thieves.</p> + +<p>He was alone, for he trusted no +one enough to ask their company. +It was pitch dark; the moving of +night birds and beasts was audible +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span>as they stirred in branch or brake; +a deep runlet of water fell down +through the undergrowth, rippling +and splashing. He had a seven-chambered +revolver in his belt; he +hoped not to be forced to use it. It +was extremely cold, as nights in +February are even in the south; but +he had known what it was to pace +up and down on guard on the terraces +of Gatschina when snow was +six feet deep around, and the cold of +the Patrimony of St Peter had small +terrors for him. He stood immovable, +his back against the trunk of an +ilex tree; his repeating watch told +him that five quarters had passed +since he came there. He was not +sure that the smugglers were out this +night, though he had reason to believe +so. It might well be that he +had come there for nothing; but +he was resolved to wait until the +dawn.</p> + +<p>At last, in the darkness and stillness, +he heard the distant sound of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>cleft hoofs moving through muddy +earth, and springless carts groaning +as the rough wooden spokeless discs +of the wheels alone can groan on +their rusty axles. All the soldier in +him was roused; he had not felt so +much alive since the day that he +had passed the frontier of his +country. They were distant perhaps +half a mile. By one of these +three paths fronting him they were +forced to enter on the high-road; +there was no other. Nearer and +nearer came the creaking of the +carts, the crushing of the soil, the +low voices of men: he waited until +he could hear the heavy breathing +of the cattle, then he flashed a +lantern on them, and levelled his +revolver.</p> + +<p>“It is I—halt!” he said in a +clear voice.</p> + +<p>They instinctively pulled the +buffaloes backward, and fell back +themselves one against another. +They thought he had guards with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>him. The cattle paused willingly, +the gasping of their breath, the +blowing of their nostrils, sounding +painfully on the stillness.</p> + +<p>“Stir not a step, or you are dead +men,” he said to them. “You are +carrying contraband.”</p> + +<p>He was by no means certain +what they had with them, but his +venture sped home. They had +crapes over their faces. They had +charcoal and game in their carts. +They huddled together in fear, and +did not speak lest he should recognise +their voices. There were three +carts, yoked severally to four +buffaloes and two cows; the men +were but three. They had no +firearms, only their knives. They +eyed him evilly, but they were +afraid to strike him. His revolver, +they knew, would be +quicker than their steel; and they +thought that he had armed force +behind him hidden in the brake. +They muttered under their breath +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>dreadful curses against him, but +they did not rebel.</p> + +<p>“Take your carts to the Fattoria,” +he said. “Go on before me. If +you stir out of the road a bullet will +find you.”</p> + +<p>Sullenly but timidly they pulled +their cattle across out of the high-road, +and into the avenue which +led to the house. He walked +behind them, his revolver covering +them, as they knew and felt in +every nerve of their spines. Cattle +move slowly on the best of roads, +and this road was thick with half-frozen +mud, and crossed by runlets +of water, and the beasts splashed +heavily through the slush on their +leaden-footed way.</p> + +<p>But at last the half-mile of distance +was traversed, and the lamp +burning before a shrine on the +balustrade before the house shone +across the sward like a beacon. To +his infinite surprise, no one of the +men had attempted any rebellion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span>He fired a shot in the air, and all +the members of the household +tumbled up from their slumbers and +came out, as he had bade them do +when they should hear the signal, +with arms and torches. He caused +the cattle to be stabled, the carts +with their loads locked up in an outhouse, +and consigned the prisoners +to one of the strong-rooms made for +such use in earlier ages. When he +saw their faces he recognised in +one the peasant Alcide. He was +amazed at the extreme ease of +his own victory; what to do with +it was more perplexing.</p> + +<p>“Take them bread and water, +Caterina,” he said to her.</p> + +<p>“Not I, sir. Let the rogues +fast.”</p> + +<p>“If you will not, I must.”</p> + +<p>She obeyed, with great reluctance.</p> + +<p>“Think of yourself, sir,” she +said when she returned. “Get to +rest.”</p> + +<p>“No, I shall remain up; I do +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span>not altogether trust our household. +There is a great deal of tribal feeling +in your woods.”</p> + +<p>“Is that why you went alone, +sir?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Caterina groaned aloud. “’Tis +sheer madness. I wonder they did +not knife you like a sheep. You +trust too much to that little steel +honeycomb of yours.”</p> + +<p>“One can only die once,” said +Cyrille, and thought: “I died when +I left my love and my country.”</p> + +<p>He remained the rest of the night +awake and armed; seated by the +kitchen fire, where he could hear the +slightest movement which might +take place in any of the long stone +passages and basement chambers.</p> + +<p>There was no sound anywhere +till the cocks crowed at dawn. An +hour after sunrise he had the men +whom he had captured brought +before him. In one he recognised, +as he expected to do, the peasant +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>Alcide; the other two were neighbours +of his, young, unintelligent, +ill-looking boors who had followed +Alcide’s lead.</p> + +<p>The dark-browed, lean, unwashed +man scowled at him as he had done +in the death-chamber of the old +Adamo; his eyes were like jewels +and scintillated dangerously. He +had been disarmed when brought +there, but his fingers fingered +nervously at his hairy breast seeking +the poignard which was always +used to lie within his belt. Cyrille +cross-questioned him minutely, but +failed to get any confession out of +him.</p> + +<p>“You took me in the act,” he +said sullenly. “Make what you +can of that.”</p> + +<p>In his own mind Alcide was +certain that his niece had betrayed +him; but he would let no word +escape him which could be construed +into confession or facilitate condemnation.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span>The theft of the charcoal and +game, and the intent to run them +contraband, were evident, and he +did not deny them; but he did +not admit either. He left his +accuser to collect evidence as he +could.</p> + +<p>There was enough of it to justify +Cyrille in sending him and his companions +to the nearest guardhouse, +which was a dozen miles on the +other side of the woods.</p> + +<p>It would have been the wisest +course to pursue, and Alcide +would have had a year or more of +prison; his companions, more excusable, +as tempted by him, perhaps +less.</p> + +<p>But his present judge was a man +who held the creeds of Tolstoi; +who abhorred the eye for an eye +and tooth for a tooth of modern +legislation; who had infinite compassion +for the poor and ignorant, +and even for the most vicious. He +took a course which he thought +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>would be just both for his employers +and to the thief.</p> + +<p>“I could send you to take your +trial,” he said in conclusion, “and +your trial would undoubtedly end in +your conviction. I perhaps shall +do wrong if I spare you. But my +employers leave me large discretion, +and I shall exercise it in your favour. +I confiscate the stolen charcoal; it +is the property of my masters; and +the game I shall send to the hospitals +of Rome; but I will restore to +you your carts and cattle, and I will +set you free. All I ask of you is to +offend no more.”</p> + +<p>Alcide’s face did not change; +he shrugged his shoulders slightly; +the other two offenders fell on their +knees and blessed the saints, and +swore their willingness to lead a +cleanly life.</p> + +<p>“Of what are you thinking, +Alcide?” said Cyrille, looking at +the dark savage, sunburnt face of +Muriella’s uncle, with its glittering +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>eyes and its deep lines of dirt and +smoke.</p> + +<p>“I was thinking that you have +not learned much since you have +come here!” replied the man in +tones of rasping contempt.</p> + +<p>“You mean that I am a fool to +spare you?”</p> + +<p>Alcide showed his white even +teeth flashing in his swarthy face +with a grin of satirical scorn. He +did not answer in words.</p> + +<p>“I fear that I am,” said Cyrille. +“But I have given you my word. +I cannot withdraw it now. If any +hear of this matter it will not be +from me. Go. You are free. +Your knife will be given back to +you. Treat your cattle decently +if you know how; and if I take +you, when engaged in this work, a +second time, I shall not spare +you.”</p> + +<p>Alcide turned on his heel, and +went out of the chamber without a +word of gratitude.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>“The girl betrayed me to him,” +he thought. “Thank him? Not +I! What does he here? Interloper, +and spy, and meddler. He +drew me before him last night as +if I had been an ox. I will be +quits with him before long.”</p> + +<p>“He dealt better with you than +you deserve, you gallows-bird,” said +Caterina, as he went across the +courtyard. Alcide showed his +white even teeth again like a +wolf’s, and grinned in her face.</p> + +<p>No one had betrayed him. +Cyrille’s own observations had alone +furnished him with indices which +he had followed up to proof. But +the Italian always believes betrayal +to be the cause of all disaster, public +or private, and these men were +convinced that they had been betrayed; +their suspicions settled, +naturally, on Muriella. “She was +ever an unnatural, ill-feeling wench,” +said Alcide. “Always caring for +birds and beasts and reptiles, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span>frowning where we laughed. It is +but of a piece with her to serve +the stranger and rob us all.”</p> + +<p>But he did not let her see his +suspicions since he had no confirmation +of them; he, indeed, went +out of his way to be civil and flatter +her. “If you can make our poor +girls like yourself we shall thank +you,” he said more than once. +“’Tis those good ways your +mother taught you; they were +never in our wild blood.”</p> + +<p>Muriella weighed his compliments +at their right worth, and +distrusted all he said; but she did +not know how passionately he +hated her. He was a bad man, +she knew, but after all he was +her father’s brother, and had given +her a home, such as it was. It was +miserable in many ways, and made +more so than it need have been by +filth and want of thrift; but it was +a home; it saved her from that +errant and lonely life which brings +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>down on any woman so much +contempt and derision, and in a +rough way they estimated her use +to them and feared to lose her.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">VIII.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">THE winter passed, and +no one of the threats +against the steward had +been fulfilled. The +woods with earliest February were +again filled with the fragrance of +the hellebore, earliest and sweetest +herald of the spring.</p> + +<p>“They will do nothing now, the +days are lengthening,” thought +Muriella, as her nostrils breathed +that pungent perfume of the pale +green bells, which she associated in +fancy with that lady of the north +whom she vaguely and wistfully +envied. But though she strove to +persuade herself of this she felt no +certainty.</p> + +<p>Short days or long, dark nights +or fine, are all one and the same +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>to those who hate another, and the +quietude and comparative industry +of her relatives filled her with apprehension +as to what evils such +unwonted virtues might pertain.</p> + +<p>Her uncles were certain she +was a spy of the steward’s, and said +nothing before her which they +would not have had repeated +from the tree-tops. But the wife +of Alcide was imprudent, and let +dark innuendoes fall from her.</p> + +<p>“White birds that come from +the North do not always live to go +back there,” she said once, and +once again said, “Le Selve is full +of trees, but the trees can bear +three fruits—fire, and steel, and +lead.”</p> + +<p>Muriella knew that they could +wait patiently for years when they +meditated a revenge, but that they +would strike in the end as unerringly +as the gerfalcon struck the +wood-pigeon.</p> + +<p>Meantime the saints were long +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>in answering; perhaps what she +had done had been too insignificant, +yet she could not think so; +they would be too generous to +despise, too merciful to reject it.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she repeated to herself +again and again that winter-time; +“I will pray always.”</p> + +<p>Weeks and months went by, and +she had no sign from heaven. Once +she said to Cyrille:</p> + +<p>“Do they not call you home?”</p> + +<p>“No,” he answered in surprise; +“what makes you think of things +which can never be?”</p> + +<p>“You will go home,” she repeated.</p> + +<p>Yet if her prayer were granted, +she knew that he would go away +from these woods for ever; that his +unknown love, of whom she thought +as crowned with green hellebore +and clothed with the stars, would +stretch her arms out from the mists +and take him.</p> + +<p>Meantime the beautiful springtime +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>came and went, with the song of +nightingales in the laurel shadows, +and the cuckoos calling from the +pines, and the marvellous flora of +the Agro Romano in blossom all +through the woods.</p> + +<p>The long hot summer succeeded, +with water-lilies, white and gold, +on all the pools. In these woods +there is something of a tropical +heat; their deep shade does not +bring coolness, for it excludes air; +it is delightful to the eyes, but to +the lungs humid and oppressive. +Oftentimes for weeks not a breath +stirs the pendant foliage; when +there is fever and ague on the +plains around Rome, there is +danger here in the forest in the +sultry nights and on the stagnant +waters. In the higher woods there +is less danger, but down in the +marshes where the mosquitoes hum +in vast clouds, and the swamps dry +up and crack, and the horse-flies +swarm in myriads, and the toads +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span>and the frogs die of drought, it +were as much as life were worth +to sleep there through a summer +night. There was much sickness +this year amongst the woodlanders, +and Cyrille supplied as far as he +could the place of medical aid. +The remedies for such fevers were +simple; and the greatest obstacle +he encountered was in the bodily +filth of the people and their fear of +fresh air. They, who in health +worked all day long in the air in +all weathers, falling sick huddled +together in a foul corner, and shut +their wooden windows close. But +though he saved their lives, they +hated him all the more. The +report spread amongst them that +he had poisoned the watersprings +because he wanted the woods clear +of the squatters; and this preposterous +tale found willing and credulous +believers.</p> + +<p>“Truly,” he thought bitterly, “I +had better let them drop like murrained +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span>sheep. For what crime +does one pay half as dear as for +the madness of trying to serve one’s +fellow-men?”</p> + +<p>But he continued to do what +he could, by day and by night, +in despite of their evil glances +and their muttered curses, and of +the fingers thrust out at him in +exorcism.</p> + +<p>Thus in the long course of breathless +weeks the summer drew to an +end, and every day the thirsty +glades looked for rain, and the +parched pools and dried-up waterways +hungered for the first storm +in vain.</p> + +<p>It was towards the close of a hot +day in September. The air was +heavy and the sky dull. He had +been out all day on his usual rounds, +and came in as the sun set to his +evening meal. He was thirsty +and tired; he had eaten nothing +all day. The colourless leaden +heat made him think of summer +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>on his native plains, and even the +distant horizons were veiled by +the gray malarious vapours rising +from the soil. The courtyard +seemed to him unusually still as +he passed through it. There was +no one about, not even a stable-lad.</p> + +<p>Only a man on a mule, with a +horn slung at his shoulder, and +some sacks on his saddle, was riding +out of one of the gates he entered. +He saw it was a letter-carrier from +Ronciglione.</p> + +<p>The post was a rare thing in these +districts; scarcely anyone, in an +area of a hundred miles square, could +read, still less write. Once in half +a year Caterina received news from +a son who was a trader in Brazil, +and another son who was a soldier in +Eritrea, and Fausto had occasional +correspondence concerning stallions +or brood mares to be bought or sold, +or bulls and rams to be had for the +hiring, but these were very rarely; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span>business was done on horseback +and by word of mouth in these +districts; and to Cyrille himself no +single message had ever come since +he had first entered the shadows of +Le Selve. Absolute silence had +fallen between him and his own +land and his own people; he hoped +that they believed him dead. The +Gandolfo had promised him secrecy +as to his existence and employment, +and the most that he could hope for +was that he might be allowed to +remain in the poor substitute for +resignation which is to be obtained +from constant occupation and undisturbed +work.</p> + +<p>His mother had been in her +grave some years. There was no +one living, he thought bitterly, +who loved him well enough to endeavour +to learn his fate. His +family, doubtless, and all those who +had once formed his world, thought +him dead, and better dead, in some +nameless foreign grave.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span>Therefore his heart stood still +with surprise and emotion as he +returned this day from his usual +rounds, and was met by Caterina, +who cried to him:</p> + +<p>“The post-boy has been here, +sir; the post from Ronciglione; +dead beat he was, and glad enough +of bit and sup; he brought a letter +for you; ’tis on your table in your +chamber.”</p> + +<p>He ascended the staircase with +beating pulse, and noticed not that +the curious good-will of Caterina +brought her up after him and kept +her at the doorway.</p> + +<p>There was a large square envelope +lying on the table, stamped +with the postmarks of his native +land, and sealed with a cypher +which he knew.</p> + +<p>He tore it open.</p> + +<p>All it contained was a photograph +of a woman’s head and shoulders; +a likeness of the face which was +always in his dreams by night and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>by day. Under the portrait was +written:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="verse"> “<i>Je seraià Rome en hiver.</i></div> +<div class="indent11">“<i>Marie.</i>”</div> +</div></div> + +<p>It was to him as though heaven +had opened. His limbs shook +as with palsy, his breath came +in deep-drawn sobs; he pressed +the portrait to his lips and to his +heart.</p> + +<p>He was no more alone. He was +no more without a future. He did +not ask or care how she had found +his refuge or learned his fate, how +she had traced him, what she knew, +what they could be or could not be +to each other; it was enough that +she remembered; that she was +faithful; that in a few months she +would be near him there, where +the golden rays of the cross sparkled +in the soft azure of summer eves +above Rome. It was an ecstasy +so great, so unlooked for, so overwhelming, +that it utterly unmanned +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>him; he fell on his knees and +wept.</p> + +<p>Caterina, looking on from the +entrance, closed the door softly, and +went down the stairs.</p> + +<p>The sultry day was ended; the +sun had set. Far to the west on +the Campagna the fever mists were +drifting in pale haze, like the wraiths +of the multitudes of dead whose +dust made up the soil. The Anio, +shrunken to a runlet in its bed, was +slow and almost stagnant. The +distant Tiber was discernible by the +thread of fog which hung over its +course. In the woods themselves +the heat was noiseless and dusky +and oppressive; the great ilex +avenues looked black as the sacrificial +groves of old. Yet never to +him, not in April radiance or +autumn glory, had the scene looked +so fair. Evening closed in, an evening +hot and heavy, without any +moon or any breath of air, but he +sat in a rapture of memory and of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>hope beside one of the large windows, +of which the embrasure fronted +the north. The light from his own +oil lamp within shone on the marbles +of the balustrade outside, and across +a few yards of the rough grassland +beyond it. Farther than that was +all quite dark, for the heat-mists +made the light of the stars dim. +Now and then an owl flew by +hooting; many had their dwelling +in the roof; and scores of large +bats rushed to and fro pursuing +the invisible insect-life of the +night.</p> + +<p>At any other time it might have +struck him that the house was unusually +silent; that there was not +the noise of women’s chatter, or of +men’s laughter and altercation, such +as usually rose up from court and +stable and outhouse when the day +was done. All was so still that +the place might have been a +monastery, with every cell closed, +and every friar sleeping.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>But at this moment of supreme +happiness, happiness which seemed +almost reunion, with that portrait in +his hands, and under his eyes, and +that vague, ineffable promise written +for the future beneath it, he would +have scarcely been sensible if the +volcanic fires which slept under the +tufa around had burst the soil and +thundered through the woods.</p> + +<p>He was happy. Once more he +was happy, in despite of exile, of +poverty, of attainder, of ruin.</p> + +<p>Those fair eyes looked at him +with the gaze he knew so well, and +those fair lips said to him, “I am +faithful.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">IX.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">HOW long he had sat +there since he had +entered the chamber +he did not know; he +had had no consciousness of the +old woman having entered the +room with the lamp, and having +told him that his dinner awaited +him in the smaller room beyond.</p> + +<p>It was with difficulty that he +roused himself to a perception of +her voice, when she stood again at +his elbow, and called him thrice in +a low, shrill, startled voice.</p> + +<p>“Let me alone, my friend,” he +said to her; “I am occupied—I +do not need to dine.”</p> + +<p>“It is not that. Hearken!” +said Caterina, and something in +her tone awakened him to attention. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span>“Sir—sir—there is no one in the +house.”</p> + +<p>He turned and looked at her.</p> + +<p>“No one in the house? There +must be some of the men—some of +the women. Have they not +supped?”</p> + +<p>“That is it, sir,” she answered. +“Supper-hour is long past, and +never yet did they fail to get together +to fill their bellies. Save +old Matteo, who is daft, and +Dreina, who is lame, there is not +a soul in the place. There must be +some meaning in it, sir. Never +did my folks dare to cross the +threshold without leave.”</p> + +<p>“It is strange,” said Cyrille, as +he comprehended the singularity +of her intelligence. “They do +indeed obey you usually like children. +Where can they all be +gone?”</p> + +<p>“The Lord knows, sir. But I +am afraid——”</p> + +<p>Her ruddy face was blanched.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span>“Of what are you afraid?”</p> + +<p>“That they have left the house +because they know there will be an +attack on it.”</p> + +<p>“Is it possible?”</p> + +<p>“Possible enough. People who +are warned and do not wish to take +either side always go away like this. +Matteo is daft, but even he knows +something; he laughs, and draws +his finger across his throat. Dreina +is crying, but will not speak though +I beat her. You had best close +the windows, sir, and fasten up the +doors.”</p> + +<p>He still scarcely gathered the full +meaning of her words; his brain +was still dizzy with the sweetness +of sudden hope, the rush of reviving +memories, and he had never +been alive to the true dangers of +the life around him, to its enmities, +its risks, its possibilities. He +meant so well by the people, that +he could not consent to believe that +they meant less well by him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>“You must be mistaken,” he said +to the old woman. “The household +must be playing you some +trick to affright you. Let us go +and look over the outbuildings. +The <i>guardiani</i> must at least be +about the place.”</p> + +<p>He put the portrait he had received +in his breast, and buttoned +his coat over it; then he took his +revolver from the table and put it +in his chest-pocket.</p> + +<p>“Do not go out of doors, sir,” +said Caterina, as she laid her hand +on his arm. “I do not believe +there is one of our men within +call anywhere, and who knows what +gang of thieves and ruffians may +not be hid all round already? If +you knew the things I have seen +in my youth and my womanhood! +I fear me you will meet your God +to-night, for there is no hand but +your own to defend you!”</p> + +<p>This time he believed her; he +saw that whether she deceived +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span>herself or not, she thought some +deadly peril awaited himself.</p> + +<p>“What will they do?” he asked, +“and why should they seek to +kill me?”</p> + +<p>She answered almost sullenly:</p> + +<p>“I have told you a score of +times, and so has the girl Muriella, +that you are hated because you are +a stranger, a meddler, as folks +think, a reformer as you call it. +You would never believe us because +we were women. Well, this night +I fear you will find we said truth. +But let us waste no time in talk. +Let us fasten up the doors. They +are strong; they have stood a siege +before now.”</p> + +<p>“I shall look a poor cowardly +fool if the household return.”</p> + +<p>“They will not return, sir, till +they see the house ablaze.”</p> + +<p>“Good heavens! Do you <i>know</i> +this?”</p> + +<p>“I do not know it, for if I +had heard tell of it, I should have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span>told you, and you could have got +the carabineers or the soldiery +here; but I know what an empty +house like this means, when there +are forty folks all gone out of it +at the same time on the same +errand, and I know that the woodlanders +of Le Selve are no lambs.”</p> + +<p>He was silent a moment; then +he said:</p> + +<p>“I will sell my life dearly, +Caterina. As for you, slip out +while you can, and hide in the outhouses +or the underwood till morning. +You cannot alter my fate. Do +not stay to share it.”</p> + +<p>“I am no poltroon, sir, and my +years anyhow cannot be many. +Come to work.”</p> + +<p>She led the way carrying the +lamp, and held the light up whilst +he put up the enormous bars and +turned the gigantic keys of the iron-barred +doors, and shut and bolted +the shutters. There was no sound +without. The imbecile Matteo and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>the lame woman Dreina he drove, +as a precaution, into a little room +off the kitchen, which had no communication +with the outer court, and +locked them in there. The woman +would not speak.</p> + +<p>He caused Caterina to light as +many lamps as there were in the +building, and placed them in various +corridors and chambers; he looked +for the guns belonging to the men, +but they were gone, and those of +the under-steward likewise.</p> + +<p>“Fausto must be in this matter,” +he said to Caterina.</p> + +<p>“He is probably the mainspring +of it, sir,” she answered. “But no +one will ever prove it on him. He +went away yesterday eve to go +to shoot in the macchia over by +Ostia; there is no close time there. +You recollect he asked your leave +to go and buy cattle; but he told +several of the men he was going +shooting. If this plan succeed, he +will come back and act innocence. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>If it fail, he will take ship to one of +the Americas. He has feathered +his nest.”</p> + +<p>“He did ask leave—yes,” replied +Cyrille, still incredulous. “But after +all, there may be nothing of what +you think; your lads and lasses may +only have taken holiday.”</p> + +<p>“They have taken holiday, sir, +indeed,” said Caterina grimly. She +was angered against him for his +incredulity. To her the conspiracy +was clear as crystal.</p> + +<p>He was still very doubtful of the +truth of her suspicions, but he +thought it well to take such measures +for protection as he could. He +made the basement as safe from +attack as he could with the means +at his disposal, and no man’s +strength to aid him, and closed all +passages which led outward; there +were some subterranean passages, of +the existence even of which he had +possessed no previous knowledge.</p> + +<p>Caterina showed him an iron +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span>door in the side of a well. The door +was just above the level of the +water, which glimmered far down +below; steps in the stonework +descended to it.</p> + +<p>“It goes out to the woods under +the long avenue, and opens up +under that great ilex which they +call Pope Paul’s,” she said. “You +might get away so if you would. +The passage is low and narrow, but +it has been kept clear. You know +the woods well enough to find your +way at daybreak to the guardhouse.”</p> + +<p>“I could not hide and fly like +that,” answered Cyrille. “I am +placed in charge here. I can only +lay down my charge with my life.”</p> + +<p>Caterina nodded in approval, but +sighed.</p> + +<p>“If you will not fly, they will +have you before the night is passed. +’Tis a conspiracy of the whole Selve +folk.”</p> + +<p>She knew nothing, but she had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>many memories, and she was a +native of the woods.</p> + +<p>“Did they not poison your +dog?” she added.</p> + +<p>When he had made all as secure +as it was possible to make it (and +he thought, except against explosives +or petroleum, the doors would +stand all night), he went up to an +open loggia at the top of the +building, with a dark lanthorn, and +thence looked to all points of the +compass. On a clear night he +could see from the light at Palo on +the west to the Sabine Hills and to +Soracte on the east. Many a night +in the full moonlight he had traced +the profiles of the beautiful mountains +lying like the silver waves +of a phosphorescent sea. Now +they were all hidden under a haze +of heat and vapour; he could +scarcely distinguish farther than +the stone benches and balustrades +immediately below, and the outlines +of the nearest trees.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>The stillness was intense. Leaning +against one of the columns of +the loggia, invisible to anyone who +might be below, he waited and +listened. But the sense of the +possible peril near was less realised +by him than the knowledge of +the happiness which had come +across steppe and mountain, and +plain and forest, to bring him its +blessing.</p> + +<p>With all the tide of recovered +hope coursing like warm wine +through his veins, he could not +believe that he was about to be +besieged like a rat in his hole, +hunted out like a fox from his +earth. The man whom Princess +Marie loved, whom she remembered, +whom she smiled on in +banishment, disgrace, and poverty, +must wear an amulet too potent, +he thought, to be done to death +by a tribe of ingrate peasants. +There could not be such devilish +derision in fate, that at the very +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>moment when his barren life blossomed +like the rose, it was to be +cut down by a yelling rabble +against whom he had no sin but to +have served them in sickness and +to his own peril.</p> + +<p>He leaned against the marble +pilaster, and let his thoughts drift +away from the present hour to the +past, which was so dear; to the +future, which was still dearer. Come +what may, be what might, nothing +save death itself could slay that +ecstasy which sang like a bird in +his breast.</p> + +<p>The clock tolled at the stables +more than once the passing hours, +and the stillness was broken by no +other sound. It was midnight; he +thought the old woman had been +misled by her fears: the men and +women would no doubt return at +sunrise from revel at some distant +town to which they had known it +would be useless to ask the Massaja +to grant leave of absence.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span>Suddenly he heard a sound, distant, +slight, such a sound as the +passing of goats or sheep over +grass produces; scarcely perceptible +by day, but audible in the deep +hush of night.</p> + +<p>“That is the movement of men,” +thought Cyrille, with a sick sense +of certainty. He listened a moment +longer to make sure that it was not +a breeze rising which stirred the +foliage; then, with his impression +confirmed, he left the loggia, and +descended the stairway to where +old Caterina sat in his chamber +telling her beads.</p> + +<p>“There are persons approaching,” +he said to her; “and they can +come for no good.”</p> + +<p>“They come, thinking you are +asleep, and that one of the doors +has been left open for them. How +many are there?”</p> + +<p>“I cannot tell. But several.”</p> + +<p>Caterina shook her head.</p> + +<p>“If help could come—but how +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>should any help come? We are +cut off from all.”</p> + +<p>“Hark! they are crossing the +grass. In a moment they will be +at the great doors.”</p> + +<p>“They expect Dreina will open +for them, the wretched baggage!”</p> + +<p>For a moment or two there was +silence, then a crossing of confused +voices became audible through +the heavy timber of the closed +doors.</p> + +<p>“Let them think me asleep,” +murmured Cyrille, and he covered +the entrance with his revolver. +He could not tell who were there +without, nor in what numbers; their +purpose it was easy to imagine. +It was also probable that they +were for the instant nonplussed +finding no one there ready to +admit them. But he knew that +they would not long let this baffle +them.</p> + +<p>“Go and hide somewhere, good +Caterina,” he murmured to her. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>“It unnerves me to know you are +here.”</p> + +<p>“Do not think of me, sir,” said +the stout old woman. “I am of no +use, but I will be of no hindrance. +It is strange to me that the girl +Muriella did not hear of this and +warn us. When did you see her +last?”</p> + +<p>“Three days ago, I think.”</p> + +<p>His voice was drowned in the +sound of iron striking wood as the +blow of hatchets fell on the oak +of the great doors. But every inch +of the wood was studded with great +nails in front and plated with iron +behind, and the axes made but little +progress.</p> + +<p>“Try the side doors,” said a +voice in which he recognised +Alcide’s. “The strumpet Dreina has +played us false.”</p> + +<p>The feet of a score of men +trampled on the marble of the +terrace running round the buildings. +But the side doors were armoured +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span>in the same way, and had been all +bolted and barred. The assailants +realised that they would not enter +by those means; they began to +swear savagely amongst each other.</p> + +<p>They had not crossed the turf +as yet.</p> + +<p>“Poor Caterina!” said Cyrille; +“would to heaven you were in +safety.”</p> + +<p>“It is not me whom they come +after. Forgive me, sir; but is there +much money in the strong-box?”</p> + +<p>“Happily not. I sent an express +with the proceeds of three months’ +sales to Rome last week.”</p> + +<p>“That will make them mad.”</p> + +<p>“If they get in. I hope to keep +them out. I shall not open to them—of +that you may be sure.”</p> + +<p>She was a stout-hearted old +woman; she laughed a little grimly.</p> + +<p>In the centre of the great doors, +as in most old Italian entrances, +there was a small barred square +panel, the width of a man’s hand +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span>which could be slid back, leaving +the grating open, and thus a parley +could be effected without danger.</p> + +<p>Cyrille drew back the panel, and +standing on one side of the grating, +where none could see or touch him, +said in a clear voice:</p> + +<p>“Why come you here armed?”</p> + +<p>“Open, and you will know,” +answered the voice of Alcide, and +they cursed him.</p> + +<p>“I do not open to threats. Say +your errand, or depart.”</p> + +<p>They cursed him again.</p> + +<p>“We shall have your blood,” +said their spokesman. “We come +for that. We shall not be balked. +We will burn you out like a live +hog smoked from his lair.”</p> + +<p>Cyrille closed the panel.</p> + +<p>The group without roared with +fury like wild boars, and threw +themselves with all their weight +against the doors.</p> + +<p>“You could have shot him +through the grating,” said Caterina, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span>with her face gray and stern. +“Why did you not? It was +Alcide who spoke.”</p> + +<p>“I know it was,” replied Cyrille.</p> + +<p>“Why did you not shoot him?”</p> + +<p>He was silent. He could not +have made her understand the +reluctance to shed blood which +had held his hand.</p> + +<p>The hideous uproars of a ravenous +pack was now let loose upon +the stillness of the summer midnight. +They fired at the doors. +The shots recoiled harmlessly. +They were all armed merely in the +rude manner of the woods. They +had expected to be admitted from +within, and the disappointment +baffled and drove them mad.</p> + +<p>“Burn him out!” cried their +ringleader. “There is brushwood +in the sheds.”</p> + +<p>By the sound of the trampling +feet and lessening shouts he could +tell that they were gone where the +firewood used by the household +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>was stored in sheds beside the +stackyard and stables.</p> + +<p>“They will try to burn us out,” +said Cyrille. “But the house is +like a rock.”</p> + +<p>The old woman shrugged her +shoulders.</p> + +<p>“You could have shot the worst +of them and you did not. He +will roast you, as he says, like a +spitted hog.”</p> + +<p>“I cannot kill a man in cold +blood,” he replied, and he pressed the +portrait in his breast closer to him.</p> + +<p>But he knew that they would +doubtless do what they threatened.</p> + +<p>The solid house would resist +long, but it could not resist all +night. If they brought wood +enough and fired it, sooner or +later those within would perforce +fall a prey to the smoke and the +flames.</p> + +<p>Rather than perish so, he thought +he would open and go out, and +fall fighting. But to do so would +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>be to expose the whole place to +certain pillage; and he was there +as the representative and trustee +of the owners.</p> + +<p>In a few minutes there was no +doubt as to the intentions of the +marauders. They returned dragging +with them quantities of brushwood +and faggots, and by the sound +he could tell that they were piling +them up before the principal entrance; +the voice of Alcide was +loudest in command and objurgation.</p> + +<p>“Fire you through the peephole, +sir,” said Caterina. She was +gray with horror, but she did +not cry out, or give any sign of +cowardice.</p> + +<p>“Not yet,” said Cyrille. “These +wretched people were confided to +my care. If I have missed the +way to their souls it is my fault.”</p> + +<p>Caterina gave a snort of scorn.</p> + +<p>“They will not miss the way +to your vitals, be sure! Much +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>good will your fine thoughts do +you when the scoundrels shall haul +you out through the smoke, and +hack you to pieces as they would +hack a wild boar’s limbs off his +trunk.”</p> + +<p>Despite his courage and composure +a shudder ran through him +at the horrible words. But he +did not open the panel and +fire.</p> + +<p>The men without were mad with +rage because they had not found +the house opened to them as +arranged with the absent household.</p> + +<p>They had planned an easy +entrance, unmolested pillage, and +the slaughter of the foreigner in +his bed. They could not tell +why they found him up and +armed; and all the entrances of +the house closed.</p> + +<p>“’Tis that traitress Muriella,” +muttered Lucio; “she warned him, +be sure,” and as he spoke the other +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span>men screamed in chorus with rage +and hate. Let them find her! let +them only find her! She should +rue the day that her mother, the +cursed woman of Viterbo, bore +her!</p> + +<p>They heaped the dry heather +and pine branches up in a great pile +before the doorway; they lighted +matches and resinous cones, and +tried to set fire to the pile. They +had not brought petroleum, because +of its name and use they were all +ignorant. The wood failed to catch +alight; the air was heavy, and there +was no wind to stir a flame.</p> + +<p>Cyrille debated whether it would +not be best for the place and for the +woman to give himself up to the +will of the assailants, on condition +that she and it should be spared. +But he knew that he could not +trust them to fulfil any conditions, +and the soldier and the noble in +him loathed the thought of surrender +to this rabble, and at last +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>he fired through one of the inch-wide +squares of the grating. His +shot broke the wrist of the man +lighting the heather.</p> + +<p>They all for a moment fell back +demoralised; Alcide was safe out +of reach, for he had expected shots +from within, and had given his +comrades the posts of danger.</p> + +<p>“I would willingly spare you,” +said Cyrille, and his voice came +clearly to them through the little +aperture. “But you shall not fire +the house whilst I live; I will +break the bone of every man’s arm +used to set light to this wood.”</p> + +<p>There was a brief pause. They +were cunning, vindictive, merciless, +but they were not brave, and they +could not be certain that he was alone. +They drew back from the doorway, +and took counsel amongst themselves. +No one of them cared to be +the second to have his wrist snapped +in two; the first man who had met +this fate was howling like a wounded +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>wolf, calling curses down on the head +of Alcide. It was one thing to enter +a defenceless and open house, and +pillage all it contained, and kill a +stranger in his sleep, and another +to force entrance under the deadly +fire of a revolver whose owner was +masked and protected by iron-plated +doors.</p> + +<p>They had unlit torches with them, +brought to light their way about +the cellars and store-rooms when +they should enter the house. +Alcide lighted one, and standing +where Cyrille could not see him, +hurled its blazing mass on to the +piled brushwood, and three other +men did the same. But the torches +fell short and dropped on the marble +pavement before the door; as they +flared there harmlessly their red +glare glowed on the black figures +of the woodlanders, which looked +like the forms of demons as they +danced and yelled with rage and +thirst for blood, hidden by the darkness +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span>of the night, save where the +fitful glimmer of the torches touched +them.</p> + +<p>Owing to the narrowness of the +slit through which he fired, Cyrille +could only aim at those immediately +before the door or on the grass in +front of him.</p> + +<p>The peasants could, without going +far, keep out of range, and from +their station beyond the balustrade +they flung two other torches; these +fell full on the piled heather, which +caught alight, and sent a rolling, +stifling cloud of smoke up through +the grating. As they saw the +success of their effort they lost +caution, they shouted with rapture, +and crowded nearer to enjoy the +sport; the fire ran from heather to +bramble and branch; the cones +caught alight with jets of flame; +the dry faggots cracked and flared, +the volumes of smoke rolled up to +the sculptured arms and crown +about the doorways.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span>“Their blood be on their own +heads,” said Cyrille, and he fired—once, +twice, thrice. Each time a +man fell. But Alcide still kept out of +range. The fire was fierce, and its +red waves licked hungrily the old +oak and iron which opposed their +entrance.</p> + +<p>Resistance could be but a question +of time.</p> + +<p>“If I could believe they would +keep faith with me, I would let +them torture me to death, to save +the house and the woman. But +they do not know what faith +means. Were I once dead, they +would sack the place from loggia +to cellar, and get drunk on wine +and blood.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly there came to his ears +a sound of galloping horses. The +sound came from the long avenue +in front of the house to the north. +The men did not heed it; they +were leaping and shouting and +bellowing with triumph as the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span>fire waxed higher and fiercer, and +the smoke ran up amongst the +bronze scroll-work of the balconies +above.</p> + +<p>He could now see nothing, for +the burning wood hid all save itself, +but he could hear, and the gallop of +the horses grew nearer, and there +blent with it the jingling of chains +and of scabbards, and a shrill yell +of terror rose from the grassland +beyond the balustrade.</p> + +<p>“The saints be praised!” cried +Caterina, and she fell on her knees +and burst into tears. “’Tis the +carabineers of Ronciglione!”</p> + +<p>Cyrille went to a side door which +the fire had not reached, unfastened +its bolts and bars, and went out on +to the grass.</p> + +<p>The gendarmes had slid from +their saddles, had surrounded and +seized the woodlanders, who made a +fierce but short resistance. Against +a horse from which she had dismounted +there leaned a woman—pale, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span>dishevelled, exhausted, staring +with dilated eyes at the burning +pile. She was drenched with sweat; +discoloured with heat and dust; her +mouth was wide open with parching +thirst; her bare feet were bleeding.</p> + +<p>It was Muriella.</p> + +<p>Great tears were falling down her +cheeks, for she had delivered her +own kinsmen over to justice, and +she was ashamed of the guilt of her +father’s people.</p> + +<p>“You brought the guards?” cried +Cyrille, as he recognised her.</p> + +<p>“I overheard—this afternoon—late,” +she said, her breath deep +drawn and laboured, like a worn-out +steer’s; “it would have done no +good to come here, and I knew +the men at the picquet were +absent. I ran to Ronciglione in +four hours for the soldiery. There +was no other way. I could trust +no one.”</p> + +<p>Alcide was standing, pinioned +by a gendarme, his gun having +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>been taken from him; his eyes +were red with a wicked, furious +flame. There was little light, except +such as was shed by the glare +of the burning wood; but that +was enough to enable him to see +who it was who had been his undoing.</p> + +<p>With a sudden movement, lithe +and quick and unexpected as a +snake’s, he twisted himself from the +hold of the carabineer who was +about to manacle him, and with one +leap like a deer’s he sprang to the +side of his niece.</p> + +<p>“Traitress!” he hissed in her +ear, as he snatched a knife hidden in +his waistbelt, and stabbed her full +in the breast.</p> + +<p>They seized him instantly again, +but he had aimed too well not to +have slain.</p> + +<p>“It does not matter,” she said, +as she pressed the haft of the knife +to her bosom. “I was in time—it +was that which mattered.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>The blood from her pierced lungs +choked her.</p> + +<p>“You will go home,” she murmured +feebly. “The saints did +hear!”</p> + +<p>A moment later she was dead.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="transnote"> +<p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p> + +<p>Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.</p> + +<p>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.</p> + +<p>Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.</p> +</div></div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77040 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/77040-h/images/cover.jpg b/77040-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4124a47 --- /dev/null +++ b/77040-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/77040-h/images/coversmall.jpg b/77040-h/images/coversmall.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..42cef9d --- /dev/null +++ b/77040-h/images/coversmall.jpg diff --git a/77040-h/images/i_009.jpg b/77040-h/images/i_009.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ff927f --- /dev/null +++ b/77040-h/images/i_009.jpg diff --git a/77040-h/images/i_colophon.jpg b/77040-h/images/i_colophon.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b6162b --- /dev/null +++ b/77040-h/images/i_colophon.jpg diff --git a/77040-h/images/i_title.jpg b/77040-h/images/i_title.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0c1d5db --- /dev/null +++ b/77040-h/images/i_title.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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