The Fool Errant Part 9

Perhaps I was by predestination a vagabond, and no doubt she was. All I can say is that if I myself became strong and healthy on those terms, Virginia bloomed like a wild rose and seemed to grow in grace under my eyes. She devoted herself to me and kept me in excellent order; washed my s.h.i.+rt and stockings at the fountain, kept my clothes neatly mended, b.u.t.tons on my vest; brushed my cloak, clouted my shoes. She was not inattentive to her own person either. She put her hair up into a coil and pinned it with a silver comb, kept herself clean, and wore shoes and stockings. A pair of stays became her well, and a loose white kerchief for her bare neck. She showed to be a beautiful girl. Her eyes lost their sombre regard, her colour cleared, her cheeks took rounder curves.

Where she got her clothes, where the food which made her sleek, where the happy light in her eyes, were mysteries to me. She seldom left me, she showed no signs of having been at work; so far as I knew she had no friends in Pistoja and asked no extraordinary charities. I believed that she shared in the distribution of alms at the gates of certain monasteries; I fancied once or twice that a look of recognition pa.s.sed between her and various persons as they met in the streets, but as she said nothing to me on the subject I made no inquiries. There was no doubt of her devotion to myself; she never left me or met me again without kissing my hand; she always spoke of me by a t.i.tle of respect-- as Don Francis, or your honour, or sir--and yet was entirely unceremonious in what else she said to me, criticised my actions, and quarrelled with me hotly upon many subjects. She took a plain view of my feelings towards Aurelia, as the reader will have seen, and a very plain view of Aurelia's towards me. But when she found that to have expressed them would really have hurt me, she withheld the expression, but did not change her view. One thing she never did: she betrayed not the slightest symptom of love for me. I might have been her sister, or she my brother, for any false shame she had--or for any sign of pa.s.sion towards me. She concealed nothing, she spared nothing, but she asked nothing that I was not ready to give her--and this, as I then thought, was not because she was determined to fulfil her bargain towards me, but because there was nothing more that she wanted. She liked me, I suppose, very much; she respected me--perhaps she might have been a little afraid of me. She knew that I was a signore who could end my absurdities--so she freely considered my conduct--whenever I chose; she thought me a little mad.

Meantime, as I was uniformly kind to her, she had never been so happy in her life. On my part, I spent my time in the writing of great quant.i.ties of poetry--which I read to Virginia in the evenings and which she thought very fine--and in teaching her to read and write. She proved an apt and willing pupil, quick to learn and with a retentive memory; but she could never spell. I think it may be said that, on the whole, I gave her as much as I got, for not only did she become happier and healthier, but I was able to soften the harsh angles of her mind, to humanise, reclaim her from savagery. I could not, however, make her religious after my own fas.h.i.+on. She went to Ma.s.s with me, and once, when I insisted upon it, confessed and took the communion. But she hated the priests, though she would never tell me the reason, and could hardly ever be drawn to confession again.

After trying various shelters from the weather and being driven from each by unforeseen circ.u.mstances--a cloister or two, a church (where the sacristan surprised us asleep one morning and turned us out into the rain), an old family sepulchre, an empty palace, and a baker's oven which had fallen to be let (and had been occupied by c.o.c.kroaches)--we finally discovered and took possession of a ruined tower near the church of Sant' Andrea, which suited us excellently well. It had been the fortress of a great old family in the Middle Ages, that of the Vergiolesi, from whom sprang the beautiful Selvaggia, beloved by Cino of Pistoja. The lower floor being choked with rubbish and fallen masonry, the only access to our retreat was by a broken beam projecting from the original doorway. You jumped for this, caught it if you were expert enough, and must swing yourself up to straddle it. You could then gain the string-course of brick which encircled the tower, and, edging along that, reach the lower sill of a window. That window was our front door.

The interior was perfectly dry, rainproof and (from all quarters but one) windproof. Enchanting occupancy to me! fit household for a poet without pence; and to Virginia, who had never known a dry lodging, a very palace. Here by the light of candle ends, got for the asking from the churches, I made her acquainted with letters; I held her fingers at the charcoal until they could move alone. I pointed my own along the page until her eye could run true. The greater part of the walls of our chamber was covered with her sprawled lettering: and, for all I know to the contrary, may reveal to this day the names of Francis Strelley, of Aurelia Gualandi and of Virginia Strozzi. It is a fine proof of her loyalty to our bargain that the first name which Virginia essayed to write was mine, but the second, Aurelia's. She took her own in hand last. The verb chosen for these easy essays was as usual amare: but its application to the walls was again the pupil's device. I allowed her willingly to write "Don Francesco ama Donna Aurelia," but forbade her to reverse the names. One day when I was out she put "Virginia Strozzi ama Don Francesco." I did not know it till long afterwards.

I gave her the rudiments of literature also: I grounded her in letters as well as in lettering. Amongst my few possessions were still my "Aminta" and my "Fioretti": and I knew much of Dante's comedy by heart.

Virginia had a retentive memory and great apt.i.tude for learning.

Whenever she did well I called her a good child, and she was so dreadfully afraid lest I might withhold the praise that she toiled at her ciphering and pothooks long after I was asleep. There is no doubt that this was a happy time for both adventurers--full of interest for me, and of extreme comfort for the girl whom I was able to befriend.

It is not to be pretended that we kept good company. We were outcasts, and were thrown of necessity amongst those who had been cast out. But the standards of life vary with those who live, and I never could see that a man was less of a thief because he thieved from a throne, or less a profligate because he debauched a princess. I was, no doubt, in advance of my time; these are the ideas of Monsieur Voltaire. I believe that I saw a great deal of iniquity, for the taverns and gaming-dens to which I sometimes resorted for shelter or entertainment were filled with desperadoes of all sorts--deserters from the army, thieves, coin- clippers in hiding, a.s.sa.s.sins elect, women of the town, and even worse.

But while I expect my reader to believe that I never sinned with them, I shall find him harder to convince that I was never invited to sin. Such, however, is the fact, and of course it is open to the retort that you do not invite a drunkard to be drunk. Be that as it may, I met these unfortunates upon the common ground of civility, conversed with them as equals, and was not only respected by them for what I was, but came myself to respect them in spite of what they were. Virginia taught me much here. With her it never was, "Such-and-such is a woman of infamous life," but rather, "Such-and-such has a fine ear for music, or can make a complicated risotto." I learned, with astonishment, that with the most deplorable degradation of life there could consist an ability to share the interests of the most refined persons. These a.s.sociates of ours made no secret of their avocations (except to the police), nor were they abashed or confounded if I happened to meet them in the exercise of them; but, business done, they were to be treated like Mr. Councillor or My Lady. Nor was this an arbitrary exaction or a curious foppery on their part; not at all, but as they expected to be taken, so they behaved themselves. There was not, I am bound to say, one of those women who did not hear Ma.s.s three times a week, recite the daily rosary, confess herself, take the sacrament. Nor do I remember a single man of those whom I met in various houses of call or thieves-kitchens in the town who was without his mental activity of some honest kind, who had not a shrewd interest in politics, a pa.s.sion for this or that science-- as botany, mineralogy, or optics, or an appreciation keenly critical of the fine arts. Philosophers, too, some of them were, acute reasoners, sophists, casuists. We had no doubts, fears or suspicions of them, and they thought no evil of us. Some of them we invited to a reading in our tower; and once we enacted the "Aminta" with great applause: Beltramo, a very engaging boy (afterwards hanged for highway robbery and prison- breaking), Violante, an unfrocked priest called Il Corvo, Virginia and I took parts. Beltramo I never saw again but once, and that against my will. I saw him hanged at Genoa in 1742. A curious life indeed, which, to one so addicted to research into the ways of men as I always was, would have needed violence for its termination. Violence, indeed, did end it, and with humiliating detail.

One day I sold my cloak to buy a book. That was a vellum-bound copy of the Sonnets of Cino of Pistoja, which, with my autograph, "Fr.

Strelleius--Pistoriae--IV Kal. Aug. MDCCXXII," I still possess in my present retreat at Lucca. Cino had been a famous poet in his day, the lover of the beautifully named Selvaggia Vergiolesi, who had, in fact, lived in our romantic tower. I thought that the opportunity of becoming acquainted, on the very spot, with the mind of a man who must so often have sighed and sung upon it was well worth an unnecessary garment. The volume mine, and a few pence besides, I purchased bread, wine and sausage, and made Virginia a feast. We banqueted first on sausage, next on poetry, and revelled so late in the latter that we exhausted our stock of candle, and had none left for the exigencies or possibilities of the night. Tired out and in the dark we sought our proper ends of the long room. I, who lay below the window, immediately fell into a deep sleep.

I was awakened by a dream of suffocation, imprisonment and loss, to find that of such pains I was literally a sufferer. A thick woollen was over my mouth and nose, the knees of some monstrous heavy man were on my chest, cords were being circled and knotted about my hands and arms. My feet were already bound so fast that the slightest movement of them was an agony. Dumb, blind, bound, what could I do but lie where I was? The work was done swiftly, in the pitchy dark, and in silence so profound that I could hear Virginia's even breathing, separated as she was from me by the length of a long floor. There was but one effort I could make with my tied ankles, and that was to raise both legs together and bring the heels down with a thud upon the boards. The cords cut me to the bone--the effect upon Virginia was precisely nothing.

When I was reduced to a mere chrysalis, having cords wound all over my body which glued my arms to my flanks, I was lifted like a bundle and lowered by a rope through the window to the ground. The descent--for I spun round and round with horrible velocity--made me extremely giddy; probably I lost my senses for a time. My next discovery was of being carried swiftly over the ground by one who ran rather than walked; of my captor mounting what I supposed to be the city wall, with me on his back, dropping lightly on the other side and running again, on and on.

The river was crossed, for I heard the pounding and splas.h.i.+ng, the bank was mounted; I was now crossing furrowed ground, Heaven knew whither! I was a long time; the thief climbed a hill; I heard him labouring his breath, and felt the heat come up from his body like the sun in the dog- days from a paved courtyard. I was too uncomfortable, too perturbed, too much enraged over the fact to spend much thought on what the fact might mean. Was I taken for a soldier? Then why such a mystery about it? I had seen men crimped in the open piazza, out of wine-shops, from the steps of churches. What then was my fate? I was soon to learn.

After what I think to have been an hour and a half's journey, my captor, puffing for breath, stopped and put me down on gra.s.s.

"Porca Madonna!" cried a strident voice, "I'm not so young as I was, or you have grown fat in Pistoja. The fatter the better for me."

Then I knew that I had been kidnapped by Fra Palamone.

CHAPTER XV

I AM IN BONDAGE

The woolly gag removed, I said, in the dark, "Fra Palamone, so sure as G.o.d lives and reigns, you shall pay me for this."

He replied, "My dear lad, I am paid already, and twice paid. It is the certain conviction that I am hereafter to be much blessed in your society that has forced me to take this liberty. May I now have the pleasure of setting you free? It wounds me in my tenderest part to know how these cords must bruise you. Your aching wounds--my aching heart.

Come, a fair exchange! Be free, and set me free." A great shadow of him settled down over my eyes, the impending bulk of his huge body; heat and garlic came in waves about me, his furnace breath.

"Not yet, Fra Palamone," I said firmly. "You will do well to leave me as I am until I know more of your intentions. You used the word 'freedom'

just now: how am I to understand it? I warn you that, so far as I know, the first use I shall make of my freedom will be to kill you." I meant it at the time, for I was beside myself with rage.

He began to swear gently to himself, walking to and fro before my feet, coupling (as his manner was) the names of his Maker, Redeemer and Divine Advocate with those of dishonourable animals. Having thus eased himself, as a pump gets rid of foul water in the pipes before its uses can begin, he began to answer my objections. "If to have the play of young limbs, the prerogative of two-footed creation, be not liberty," said he, "then there is no liberty in the world. And if to be loosed from sin and shame, by means however abrupt, be not liberty of the most exalted, spiritual kind, then, young man, you are a bondslave indeed, to your own ign.o.ble desires."

I said, "I have told you on what terms I will take my liberty. I will die here as I am sooner than make bargains with you."

"I am an old man," he replied, "a-weary of my labours. I will not wrangle--I abhor disputations. I am able to offer you, Don Francis, a service which is perfect freedom. Will you take it or leave it?" I was silent, and I believe the old villain went to sleep, as certainly I did.

Youth will have its rest, whether there be gall in the mouth or a teat.

When I awoke it was broad day. The sun was up and deepening the pale tints of the sky; a bird in the oak-tree overhead was singing his orison, and Fra Palamone cooking a pork chop upon a little fire of twigs. Never did I see such delicate art put into such a piece of work; he had not boasted when he said that he was a cook. Not only did he cook it to the exquisite point of perfection, but he ate it, bone and all-- combining the zest of a cannibal with the epicure's finer relish--and poured near a litre of wine down his tunnel of a throat, before he deigned to regard whether I lived or was dead. His next act was to recite the rosary aloud, on his knees, with intense fervour; and his next--after three prostrations in honour of the Trinity--to untie the cord about his middle and add a knot or two to the mult.i.tude already there. With this formidable scourge circling about in his hand, he came to where I lay helpless.

"Ser Francesco," he said, showing his long tooth and purring his words like a cat, "I find that bonds, imprisonment and hunger have not quickened your resolution. I admire you for it, but meantime I suffer the rage of the devil. I must a.s.suage my pains at all costs, and regret that my balm must be your bane. But since you elect to be a prisoner it seems reasonable that you should taste prison discipline--and I, O Heaven! inflict it." I marked his infernal purpose in his eyes--no need that he should bare his iron arm!--and determined to endure, even unto death, sooner than give way to him. He came towards me, his arm bare to the shoulder; I clenched my teeth, shut my eyes and waited, not for long. The cords writhed about me like snakes of fire, biting so deeply that my very heart seemed torn and raw. The blood surged into my head, beat at my ears and nose, and (as it seemed) gushed out in a flood, drowning me in wet heat. So, presently, I lost my senses, neither knew nor felt any more. "Blessed art thou, Death! Aurelia hath surely sent thee!" were my last thoughts as I swooned. Waking once more, I was alone, lying bound on the edge of a little oak wood. Before me were brown fields and stretches of flickering heat, and far below, in the valley, I could see Pistoja, pale red and white in the full sun. It was near noon; the sun was directly overhead in a cloudless sky, and his rays burned me up. My head throbbed desperately, my body felt one free wound; I was sick with hunger, clogged with drouth. I made sure that I had been left there to die, and waited momently for the summoning angel, commending my simple soul to the advocacy of the Blessed Virgin and the merits of my patron St. Francis of a.s.sisi. I thought, with a pang, of my mother, who might be praying for me now; beside her hallowed image even Aurelia's was dim. Then all visions faded out. Out of the midst of that glaring sky there beamed, as it appeared to me, a ray of intense light, which grew steadily to an intolerable radiancy. I believed it to be the sword of G.o.d in St. Michael Archangel's hand, held out to give me the accolade, and make me Cavalier of Paradise. "G.o.d and our Lady!" my soul's voice cried. An unearthly note of trumpet-music responded to my call, beginning very far away, and swelling in volume of sound until all the air seemed vibrant with it. Then said my soul, "In ma.n.u.s tuas, Domine Jesu!" and I knew nothing more.

And yet again I awoke, in the level light of early evening, unspeakably refreshed, free from bonds, and little more than stiff in the limbs. Fra Palamone was by my side, a cup of broth in his hands. "Drink this, poor suffering Francis," he said, as gently as a woman. "Henceforth all shall be harmony betwixt me and thee." He put the basin to my lips and lifted my head on his knee that I might drink more at ease. It was a strong, invigorating stuff, with a cordial in it, I know not of what kind. Had it been vitriol I had been too weak to refuse it. It brought my vigour back in a tide; I sat up. Fra Palamone began to talk, with more candour and fair reason than his late exploits warranted.

He said that a great danger, greater than my ignorance of this country would allow me to guess, had threatened me of late, had come to his knowledge in Florence, and had been forestalled by himself, under the merciful guiding of Heaven, at the last moment. The Government of Tuscany, owing to the dotage of the Grand Duke and the wicked influence of Donna Violante over her brother-in-law, the Grand Prince Gastone, was impotent; there was no police, but indeed a flagrant anarchy abroad, where private malice stalked in the cloak of justice, and the pa.s.sions of evil men had scope for the utmost indulgence. Great men did as they chose--which was to do evil; the most unnatural debauchery obtained; the Grand Prince Gastone ran spoiling about the country, a satyr heading a troop of satyrs. No honest person was safe from ruin. He told me that I had been remarked in Pistoja, and my name and origin guessed at. They knew me as consorting with profligates and criminals, and accused me of having stolen a young girl from the Marchese Semifonte, upon whose estate she had been born and bred. It was said that I had brought her to dishonour; the laws were to be put in operation against me, or what masqueraded as laws; worse than death would have been my portion had he not intervened and saved me. He had been ill-advised perhaps in the manner of doing; but I was to reflect--was not secrecy essential? He owned that my obstinate refusal of his company had angered him, stretched as he was by anxiety, to the point of laying violent hands upon me with his girdle. "These cords," he said, "which were meant to remind us of our humility, are too convenient ministers of our l.u.s.t. But the remedy for my great offence is easy." He again took off the girdle and put it in my hands. He took off his habit and knelt before me in a woollen s.h.i.+rt. "Smite, Don Francis," said he, "and fear nothing. Smite in token of forgiveness. As you are generous, smite."

I hope he found me generous enough, for I did smite him with all my force; whether he felt forgiven or no, this did me a power of good. I had the satisfaction of cutting his s.h.i.+rt to ribbons and of drawing blood from him, a satisfaction which now seems to me wholly unlike my nature, and quite unworthy of my position. He bore it with exemplary cheerfulness, singing sacred songs softly to himself, only pausing in these pious exercises to encourage me to hit him harder. "Hey, but that was a shrewd one; that went home! Nerve yourself, Don Francis, courage and resolve! A little lower, my son, nearer to the b.u.t.tock. There! a proud patch there--ho ho! but you're into it!" and so on. At the end, when I sank back exhausted, bathed in sweat, he sprang towards me, put his arms about me and kissed me. "Dear Francis, beloved friend," he said warmly, "how can old Palamone thank you enough for your n.o.ble work? By devoted service? It is yours. By more than brotherly love? You have it.

One thing at least is clear: we can never be separated after this."

Nothing could be clearer to me than that we must be separated immediately, but I did not think it wise to dash his hopes until I found out how far he had lied. I wished to learn also what he wanted of my company. I told him, therefore, that supposing his tale about me to be true in general, in particular it was most false. So far from having injured Virginia, I said, I had saved her from destruction, and if the marchese did indeed claim her as his property, the very first thing I had to do was to defeat his purpose, since that was the root of my partners.h.i.+p with her. I explained my position and hers to him as well as I could, and condescended, for her sake, to bargain with the old wretch.

"Since you, Palamone," I said, "desire my company, though Heaven alone knows why you do desire it, I will agree to share my journey with you so far as Florence, whither I shall go immediately, but not on any account without Virginia. I have charged my conscience with her honour, and am inflexible on that point. If you won't agree to this, you must follow your own devices, and may attempt whatever atrocity occurs to you. That is my firm decision which no suffering can relax."

Fra Palamone, all smiles, made no difficulties. He would fetch Virginia that very night, and we would set off the next morning for Prato, where there was a great church ceremony which he must by all means attend.

Then we would go to Florence, full of friends of his (he a.s.sured me), who would make the weeks fly for my amus.e.m.e.nt. "Trust me, my dear brother," he said, "you will never repent having made the acquaintance of your old Palamone."

I expressed with the utmost plainness my astonishment at the pains he was at to get my society. "My dear Francis," he said, raising his eyebrows, as if in despair of making me understand his whim, "what greater proofs of my affection can I give you? I have flayed your back and allowed you to flay mine. I have filled your mouth with wool and carried you like a bale for three leagues in the middle of the night.

And you ask me why? I can only say that I have a liking for you. You are spirited, pious, ingenuous, and well-read. As a man of many trades and accomplishments, I shall find you useful in a hundred ways. You will understand that before we have been in Prato half an hour. Honestly, my friend, I have twice tried to serve you in difficulties, and each time you have obstinately refused to acknowledge it. Now, for a third time, I am going to oblige you. Consider whether I am altogether undeserving; consider it when I am gone for your Virginia."

I had nothing else half so interesting to do. I pondered his acts towards me over and over again, but could not for the life of me fit them into any reasonable relation to himself. That he meant to make profit out of me was certain; he lived for profit. But how? By selling me into slavery? Had his explanations to the Customs-house men at the frontier been pure falsehood? I knew that the Grand Duke Cosimo was surrounded by miserable young men of all colours, tongues and sizes, gathered from every quarter of the globe. That was a humour of his which all his toadies and sycophants tried to indulge. Probably his collection lacked an Englishman--but even as I hotly determined that it should for ever lack one sooner than possess me, I remembered that this mad prince lay dying. Palamone must needs know that; and then, what sort of a price did he hope for from a man with the death-rattle rising in his throat?

Did the heir-apparent, the Grand Prince Gastone, intend to maintain the collection? It was possible. Of some monstrous villainy of the sort I vehemently suspected Fra Palamone, and am the more glad, therefore, to record that in this particular case I did him a wrong. He came back in good time with Virginia, who, her eyes alight, sprang towards me and s.n.a.t.c.hed at my hands. I let her kiss them, and was sincerely glad to see my friend again. We devoured each other with questions. Had she been in danger of the marchese? She blushed at the supposition, and asked me what I was thinking her. Had she been alarmed on my account? No, not at first; but later she had been making inquiries. Had I been uneasy? I confessed that I had. Fra Palamone, with some magnanimity, left us alone for the best part of an hour; he sat, I remember, on the edge of the hill looking towards Pistoja, reading his breviary, well removed from earshot. This gave Virginia opportunity to exhibit her view of his behaviour. "We had better travel with him for a while," she said. "He is known all over the country for a desperate rascal, but is privy to too many secrets to be apprehended. n.o.body dares lay him by the heels for fear of what he will divulge; and the more you thwart him the more risk you run. He might easily kill you in a rage; he thinks no more of stabbing a man than of skewering a sausage. I grant you that your suspicions do him no wrong. He would sell you in a moment to any one who would buy you. But they are groundless; it is quite plain what he wants.

He sees that you are a foreigner of good birth and position; he knows you for a truant on an escapade. Being certain that there will be hue and cry after you, a large reward offered, he means to keep you under his eye until the price is high enough to tempt him, then he will produce you and get the bounty. Call him brigand, say he holds you to ransom, you will be right. Meantime he will make you useful, as you will see when we are in Prato. Me, too, he will use; but not as you might suppose. His one pa.s.sion is money, his besetting sins are gluttony and rage; he has no other appet.i.tes, I believe. For myself, I shall serve him as well as I can, and I advise you to do the same. Ways of escape will occur to us by-and-by."

I could see that she was right. Here was his plan--infinitely creditable to him compared to the other. I promised Virginia that I would humour him for the present; and just then the man himself came to us with two chickens, some cheese, a flat loaf, and a bottle of excellent red wine, grown (as he told me) upon the Grand Duke's podere at Poggio a Cajano.

We had a cheerful meal, and separated for the night in high good humour.

CHAPTER XVI

VIRGINIA AND I FALL OUT, BUT ARE RECONCILED

I confess that I have never been able to feel the force of that argument which says, for example, that because a man is a sheep-stealer he must needs be a bad husband. As well might one set out to prove that a parricide must inevitably prove an indifferent cook. In the person of Fra Palamone, of whose scoundrelly proclivities I had had more than an inkling already, it is undoubtedly true that many agreeable qualities were to be found. He was, to use my ill.u.s.tration again, an admirable cook; he was a good talker, a companionable man, a kindly host. Having got my measure, as it were, and won of me by persuasion, what he had failed to win by force, he was sensible enough to see that, if he wished to keep me, he must curb his vile pa.s.sion of rage. And so, for a while, he did.

Trudging our road to Prato early in the morning, he was very gay.

Virginia stepped along by my side, a free-moving young creature who never seemed to tire; but he struck out in front of us, most of the time singing at the top of his voice very discreditable songs, or with a joke, salutation, sarcasm or criticism for everybody we pa.s.sed on the way. Wearying of this, because, as he said, it was poor work fencing with bunglers, he kept us closer company for the rest of the journey, and was most entertaining. He talked, he joked, he told tales, he told lies. He was shrewd, caustic, tender, witty, extravagant, uproarious, turn and turn about, but he never lost sight of his aim. Probably there never was a man of looser conversation who kept a tighter hold upon the direction of his discourse. The end of all his oratory came when he made us, his pupils as he called us, acquainted with his plans.

"This festa," he said, "whither we go, will bring all the world to Prato, if it have not done so already; and as this same world is the orange which I and you, my apprentices, propose to suck, let us lose no time in getting our teeth well into the rind. In this way, namely: there are three days' junketing before us, to which we will minister exactly what the revellers need. Tomorrow, when they translate the blessed remains of Santa Caterina de' Ricci, we shall sell objects of devotion to the faithful." As we were now sitting by the roadside for our midday meal, he produced a variety of objects from a bag at his feet.

"Observe," he continued, "these images--lilies, bambini, nouris.h.i.+ng matrons, curly-headed deacons; these flaming hearts, these hearts stuck upon swords: a holy traffic indeed! Here, too," and he extricated a budget tied in blue tape-ribbon, "are the lives of all the frati worthy of record, and of a good few, between you and me and this damsel, not to be found recorded. Here, in this napkin, is everything requisite to make Santa Caterina de' Ricci the happiest of dead ladies--as, portraits of her mother, of her mother's sisters, of her father and all his relatives, of the young man who drowned himself at Ponta.s.sieve for her love, and of that other young man who, on the contrary, did not, but made himself a priest and became her spiritual director. Here are the palace in which she was born, the escutcheon of the De' Ricci which she despised, her governess's house, the convent where she made her vows, and the cell where, if she did not die, she might very easily have died.

Here you have the great doctors and captains of the Dominican Order, here is Albert the Great, here seraphic Thomas, here murdered Peter, here Catherine, here Rose--admirable engravings, as you see, mostly after the admired John. Here then is our day's work cut out for us--a happy toil! On the next, having done our humble service to the souls of all these persons, we must be careful not to forget their bodily needs.

I shall exercise my skill in dentistry for trifling rewards, and you, my young Aesculapius, will prove to others, as you have already proved to me, that the strong wrist and willing arm are not lacking among your personal endowments. I am persuaded that these duties will occupy the whole of the second day, for Prato will be full to suffocation by that time, and there will hardly be a head whose recesses we may not have to explore. By these means, having secured (as I hope) the public confidence, the time will be ripe for my great design. After wors.h.i.+p, relaxation, the release from pain; after pain, pleasure comes. On that third day, my children, we will set up a faro-bank, the profits of which, if skill be employed, will more than counterbalance what we have cheerfully lost in our efforts to do good. The reward, I say, is certain, and who shall call it undeserved? Not I, for one. Now, children, to the road once more! Happy fortunes attend us! Pray for old Palamone, who loves you dearly and thinks about you night and day."

He got up as he was finis.h.i.+ng this speech of his and took to the road before I could object--as I did object--to some of his propositions. But I told Virginia that I intended to leave him at Prato and push on to Florence, as I had no intention of helping him cheat his neighbours.

"What!" I cried, "a Strelley of Upcote, a gentleman and an old Catholic, to clown it in a fair! Never in the world!"