"You ought to stop his tongue," said Aunt Martina. "He's only a dirty serving-man; if you didn't let him take such liberties he would respect you more."

"I stopped more than his tongue; he wanted me to let him come in to-night. 'No,' I said; 'you'll stay where you are, and split.' He's coming in to-morrow, though."

"To-morrow? and why to-morrow? Ah, my son, you let yourself be robbed quite openly; you don't amount to anything!"

"Well, after all, to-morrow is the a.s.sumption," said he, raising his voice, and putting the finishing touches to his hairdressing. "And Giacobbe is a relation, so let it rest. There, Giovanna, see how handsome I am!" He smiled at her, showing his splendid teeth.

He did, in truth, look so handsome, and clean, and radiant, with his shining locks and fresh colour, that Giovanna felt a momentary softening. Presently he began to hum a foolish little song that children sing when it rains:

"'Rain! rain! rain Ripe grapes, and figs----'"

And so, they all sat down to the evening meal in high good humour and contentment. Aunt Martina, excusing herself on the plea of having no appet.i.te, ate nothing but bread, onions, and cheese; articles of diet, however, of which she happened to be particularly fond,--but this in no wise interfered with the general harmony of the supper. After they had finished Brontu asked Giovanna to go out with him for a little walk; just to ramble about with no particular object, among the paths and deserted lanes of the village.

The sky had completely cleared, a few flickering stars glimmered faintly from out its pellucid depths; and the air was full of the odour of dead gra.s.s and wet stones. Quant.i.ties of sand and mud had been washed over the paths, but Giovanna wore her skirts very short, and such heavily nailed shoes that they struck against the stones with a sound like metal. Brontu took hold of her arm and began to invent wonderful pieces of news, as his custom was when he wanted to interest her.

"Zanchine," said he, naming one of the men, "has found something. What do you suppose it is? A baby."

"When?"

"Why, to-day, I think. Zanchine was digging up a lentisk when he heard a 'wow, wow'; he looked, and there was a baby, only a few days old. Well, that wasn't so wonderful; but now comes the queer part. A little cloud suddenly came flying through the air, and swooped down on Zanchine and seized the baby. It was an eagle who had evidently stolen the baby somewhere and hidden it among the bushes, and when he saw Zanchine looking at it, he shot down and----"

"Get out!" said Giovanna. "I don't believe a single word you say."

"Make me rich, if it's not true."

"Get out, get out!" said Giovanna again impatiently, and Brontu, seeing that instead of being amused, she was out of humour, asked her if she had had a bad dream. She remembered the one she had told her mother of, and made no reply.

In this way they came to the other side of the village; that is, to the part where Isidoro Pane lived. A spectacle of indescribable loveliness lay spread before them. The moon, like a great golden face, gazed down from the silver-blue west; and the black earth, the wet trees, the slate-stone houses, the clumps of bushes, and the wild stretch of upland--everything, as far as the eye could reach, to the very utmost confines of the horizon, seemed bathed in a tender, half-tearful smile.

The two young people pa.s.sed close by the fisherman's hut; they could hear him singing. Brontu stopped.

"Come on," said Giovanna, dragging him by the arm.

"Wait a moment; I want to knock on the thing he calls his door."

"No," she said, trembling. "Come away, come on, I tell you; if you don't come, I'll leave you by yourself."

"Oh! yes, that's true; you and he have had a quarrel; I haven't, though; I'm going to knock on his door."

"I'm going on, then."

"He was singing the lauds of San Costantino," said Brontu, as he rejoined her a few moments later. "The one the saint gave him on the river-bank that time. That old man is stark mad."

CHAPTER XII

On the following morning at about eleven o'clock, the religious services began in the church. They were set for this late hour so as to allow for the arrival of a young priest from Nuoro, a friend of Priest Elias's, who was to give a "panegyric" gratis to the people of Orlei. This panegyric was a great event, and in consequence, by ten o'clock the church overflowed with a gaily dressed throng of persons.

The building itself was painted in the most vivid colours--pink walls relieved by stripes of bright blue; a yellow wooden pulpit; and rows of l.u.s.ty saints with red cheeks and blond hair, simpering from their pink niches like so many Teutonic worthies. San Costantino, however, the Patron Saint, was clad in armour, and his face looked dark and stern.

This ancient statue was believed to perform miracles, and, according to local tradition, had been carved by San Nicodemus himself.

Through the wide-open door came a flood of sunshine, which, pouring over the congregation, enveloped them in a cloud of golden dust. At the other end of the church, where the altar stood, it seemed quite dark, notwithstanding the large M of lighted tapers, looking, with their motionless flames, like so many arrowheads stuck on shafts of white wood.

Priest Elias was celebrating Ma.s.s; and close by stood his friend, wearing a lace alb, and with a small, dark face like that of a shrewd child; he was singing away at the top of his voice, and all wondered to hear the little priest sing so loud, knowing that he was to preach as well. Most of the people had, indeed, come expressly to hear this sermon, and were paying scant attention to the Ma.s.s, being taken up with whispering and staring about them. True, the heat was suffocating, and clouds of insects made devotion difficult, even for the most pious. At last Priest Elias, having finished chanting the gospel, turned his pale, ascetic face towards the people, and his lips were seen to move. Just then the figure of Giacobbe Dejas appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the vivid, blue background of the sky. His usual mocking expression was changed to one of self-satisfaction. Aware that the priest was speaking, he paused on the threshold to listen, holding his long black cap in his hand; then, finding that he could distinguish nothing, he stepped inside and whispered to an old man with a long yellow beard, who stood near the door, to know what had been said.

"I don't know; I couldn't hear him; they make as much racket as if they were out in the square," said the old man querulously.

A tall, fresh-complexioned youth, with black hair and an aquiline nose, turned and stared at Giacobbe. Noting his unusual cleanliness, his new clothes, and general air of complacency, he grinned ill-naturedly.

"I think," said he, "that Priest Elias said the other priest was going to begin the panegyric now."

"Did you hear him say it?" asked the old man crossly.

"I didn't hear him say anything at all," replied the youth.

Giacobbe worked his way towards the front of the church, pushing in and out among the men, who turned to look at him as he pressed against them.

Suddenly a silence fell on the crowd. The men all drew back against the walls, and the women sat down on the floor. In the centre of the church, where a stream of sunshine fell, was a sort of wooden bedstead, painted blue, and watched over by four little pink-cheeked cherubs, whose green, outstretched wings gave them the appearance of four emerald b.u.t.terflies. On the bed, reposing with closed eyes upon brocade cushions, was a tiny Madonna. She was dressed entirely in white, with rings, necklaces, and earrings of gold--it was the a.s.sumption. The dark, shrewd face of the little priest now appeared above the edge of the pulpit. Giacobbe regarded him fixedly for a moment, and then turned his right ear towards him so as to hear better.

"People of Orlei, brothers, sisters----" said the priest in a clear, childish treble--"asked to preach you a little sermon on this solemn day----" Giacobbe liked the opening, but finding that he could hear very well without paying strict attention, he turned and began to observe the people, talking all the while to himself, though without losing any of the discourse.

"There's Isidoro Pane, the devil take him! if he hasn't got on new clothes too; I wonder if he is also thinking of getting married. Eh, eh!

That fresh-looking fellow down there by the door was laughing at me; he saw how happy and prosperous I looked, and thought of course that I must be going to get married. Well, and what if I am? Is it any business of yours, you puppy? Can't I get married if I want to? I have a house of my own, and cattle too.[6]

"Eh, eh! my sister will die without heirs--G.o.d bless her!--there she is, looking like a pink, shiny, little wax doll. Who would ever suppose that she is older than I? She wants me to get a wife. Well, I am perfectly willing, but whom shall I get? I am not so easy to please, and then I'm afraid--I'm afraid--I'm afraid. With this new law--the devil roast all the lawyers--who in the world is one ever to trust? There's that precious young master of mine; there he is at this very minute, with the stamp of mortal sin on him. What is he doing here? Why don't they horsewhip him? Why don't they drive him out like a dog? And his old bird-of-prey mother too? The old jade, there she is! Why don't they drive both of them out?" "Ah," he thought presently, "that is true, though; if they turned every one out who did wrong, the church would soon be empty. But those two people, I hate them; I'd like to flog them till the blood came. I'm not bad, though; didn't I stay up at the folds only to-day, working to repair the damage made by yesterday's storm?

Then, when I came down, there was Giovanna getting dinner all by herself. She was dirty, and ill, and unhappy. No holiday for her! The mother and son go off together, and she, the maid-servant, stays at home and does the work. Well, it serves her right--a bad woman! And yet, I do feel sorry for her sometimes. There, G.o.d help me, I do feel sorry for her. When I said something ugly to her just now, she never answered a word. After all, when you come to think of it, she's the mistress, and I'm the servant. But is it my fault if I can't help pitching into you sometimes, little spring bird? I can't bear the sight of you, and all the same I'm sorry for you, and that's the way it is. Now, we must listen to what the priest has to tell us. He's just like a sparrow; that's it, a sparrow singing in its nest."

"Brothers, sisters, beloved----" cried the little preacher in the soft Loguedorese dialect, which sounds almost like Spanish, and waving his small white hands in the air--"the faith of Our Lady is the most ideal, the most sublime of all faiths. She, the gentle woman, daughter, wife, and Mother of Our Lord, mounted to heaven all radiant and fragrant as a chaplet of roses, and took her seat in glory amongst the angels and seraphim----"

"There's Priest Elias," thought Giacobbe, turning his little squint-eyes, which shone like metal in the bright light, towards the altar. "Yes, with his hands folded together, a boiled-milk priest, who can't preach anything except goodness and forgiveness, and all the time he has the Holy Books, and could strike right and left among the people if he chose to. Ah, if he had only threatened Giovanna Era----! He always looks as if he were in a dream, anyhow."

"No one," continued the little preacher, standing erect in the yellow pulpit, "no one has ever been able to say that he failed to get anything he asked in true faith from Our Most Holy Lady. She, the Lily of the Valley, the Mystical Rose of Jericho----"

But the audience was growing weary. The women, seated on the floor like beds of ranunculuses and poppies, were beginning to stir uneasily, and had ceased to listen. The young priest understood, and brought his discourse to a close, with a general benediction, which included the entire gathering of persons who, while ostensibly listening to the word of G.o.d, were, for the most part, wholly taken up with their own and their neighbours' affairs.

Priest Elias, arousing from his dream, resumed the celebration of the Ma.s.s. He alone, with possibly Isidoro Pane, had listened to the sermon, and the latter, so soon as the Ma.s.s was concluded, began to sing the lauds, his clear, sweet voice flowing out like a stream of limpid water rippling among rocks and flowering moss.

The young stranger listened with ecstasy to those liquid tones; the old fisherman's venerable figure, his long, flowing beard, and gentle eyes, and the bone rosary clasped between his knotted fingers, recalling certain pilgrims he had seen in Rome.

He wanted to meet the old man, and Priest Elias, accordingly, stopped him at the church door. Giacobbe, who was watching, was almost consumed with envy at the sight of the fisherman standing in friendly conversation with the two priests.

"What the thunder were they saying to you?" he demanded as the other came up.

"They wanted me to dine with them," said Isidoro, with some show of importance.

"Oh! they wanted you to dine with them, did they? So, my little spring bird, you are getting to be somebody, it seems. Well, you come along with me."

"To the Dejases'? Not I!" exclaimed Isidoro in a tone of horror.