Then home from the meadow pastures where they had been mowing, past the ripening grain, the fathers came, ill-pleased to find the dinner still not ready. Then these in their turn had to be fetched, and the story told from the beginning. Yea, and did we vary so much as the droop of a hair on the wet beard of the drowned man as he tumbled in the swirl of the lagoon where the Brenta meets the tide, a dozen voices corrected us, and we were warned to be careful. A reputation so sudden and tremendous is, at its beginning, somewhat brittle.

The group about the well now included almost every able-bodied person in the village, and several of the cripples, who cried out if any pushed upon them. Into the midst of this inward-bent circle of heads the village priest elbowed his way, a short and rotund father, with a frown on his face which evidently had no right there.

"Story-tellers!" he exclaimed. "There is no need for such in my village.

We grow our own. Thou, Beppo, art enough for a munic.i.p.ality, and thou, Andrea. But what have we here?"

He paused open-mouthed. He had expected the usual whining, mumping beggar; and lo, here were two well-attired _forestieri_ with their packs on their backs and their hats upon their heads. But we stood up, and in due form saluted the father, keeping our hats in our hands till he, pleased at this recognition and deference before his flock, signed to us courteously to put them on again.

After this, nothing would do but we must go with him to his house and share with him a bottle of the n.o.ble wine of Montepulciano.

"It is the wine of my brother, who is there in the cure of souls," he said. "Ah, he is a judge of wine, my brother. It is a fine place, not like this beast of a village, inhabited by bad heretics and worse Catholics."

"Bad Protestants--who are they?" I said, for I had been reared in the belief that all Protestants were good--except, perhaps, they were English Episcopalians. Specially all Protestants in the lands of Rome were good by nature.

The priest looked at us with a question in his eye.

"You are of the Church, it may be?" asked he, evidently thinking of our reverence at the well-stoop.

We shook our heads.

"It matters not," said the easy father; "you are, I perceive, good Christians. Not like these people of Spellino, who care neither for priest nor pastor."

"There he goes," said the priest, pointing out of the window at a man in plain and homely black who went by--the sight of whom, as he went, took me back to the village streets of Dullarg when I saw the minister go by.

I had a sense that I ought to have been out there with him, instead of sitting in the presbytery of the Pope's priest. But the father thought not of that, and the Montepulciano was certainly most excellent. "A bad, bad village," said the father, looking about him as if in search of something.

"Margherita!" he cried suddenly.

An old woman appeared, dropping a bleared courtesy, unlike her queenly name.

"What have you for dinner, Margherita?

"Enough for one; not enough for three, and they hungry off the road,"

she said. "If thou, O father, art about to feed the _lazzaroni_ of the north and south thou must at least give some notice, and engage another servant!"

"Nay, good Margherita," answered the priest very meekly, "there is enough boiled fowl and risotto of liver and rice to serve half a score of appet.i.tes. See to it," he said.

Margherita went grumbling away. What with beggars and leaping dogs, besides children crawling about the steps, it was ill living in such a presbytery--one also which was at any rate so old that no one could keep it clean, though they laboured twenty-four hours in the day--ay, and rose betimes upon the next day.

As the lady said, the place was old. Father Philip told us that it had been the wing of a monastery.

"See," he said, "I will show you."

So saying, he led us through a wide, cool, dusky place, with arched roof and high windows, the walls blotched and peeling, with the steam of many monkish dinners. The doors had been mostly closed up, and only at one side did an open window and archway give glimpses of pillared cloisters and living green. We begged that we might sit out here, which the priest gladly allowed, for the sight of the green gra.s.s and the tall white lilies standing amid was a mighty refreshment in the hot noontide.

Sunshine flickered through the mulberry and one grey cherry-tree, and sifted down on the gra.s.s.

Then the priest told us all the sin of the villagers of Spellino. It was not that a remnant of the Waldenses was allowed to live there. The priest did not object to good Waldensians. But the people of Spellino would neither pay priest nor pastor. They were infidels.

"A bad people, an accursed people!" he repeated. "I have not had my dues for ten years as I ought. I send my agent to collect; and as soon as he appears, every family that is of the religion turns heretic. Not a child can sign the sign of the Cross, not though I baptized every one of them.

All the men belong to the church of Pastor Gentinetta, and can repeat his catechism."

The priest paused and shook his head.

"A bad people! a bad people!" he said over and over again. Then he smiled, with some sense of the humour of the thing.

"But there are many ways with bad people," he said; "for when my good friend, Pastor Gentinetta, collects his stipend, and the blue envelopes of the Church are sent round, what a conversion ensues to Holy Church!

Lo, there is a crucifix in every house in Spellino, save in one or two of the very faithful, who are so poor that they have nothing to give.

Each child blesses himself as he goes in. Each _bambino_ has the picture of its patron saint swung about its neck. The men are out at the _festa_, the women not home from confession, and there is not a _soldo_ for priest or pastor in all this evil village of Spellino!"

Father Philip paused to chuckle in some admiration at such abounding cleverness in his parish.

"How then do you live, either of you?" I asked, for the matter was certainly curious.

The father looked at us.

"You are going on directly?" he said, in a subdued manner.

"Immediately," we said, "when we have tired out your excellent hospitality."

"Then I shall tell you. The manner of it is this. My friend Gentinetta;--he is my friend, and an excellent one in this world, though it is likely that our paths may not lie together in the next, if all be true that the Pope preaches. We two have a convention, which is private and not to be named. It is permitted to circ.u.mvent the wicked, and to drive the reluctant sheep by innocent craft.

"Now, Pastor Gentinetta has the advantage of me during the life of his people. It is indeed a curious thing that these heretics are eager to partake of the untransformed and unblessed sacraments, which are no sacraments. It is the strangest thing! I who preach the truth cannot drive my people with whips of scorpions to the blessed sacraments of Holy Church. They will not go for whip or cord. But these heretics will mourn for days if they be not admitted to their table of communion. It is one of the mysterious things of G.o.d. But, after all, it is a lucky thing," soliloquised Father Philip; "for what does my friend do when they come to him for their cards of communion, but turns up his book of stipend and statute dues. Says he--'My friend, such and such dues are wanting. A good Christian cannot sit down at the sacrament without clearing himself with G.o.d, and especially with His messenger.' So there he has them, and they pay up, and often make him a present besides. For such threats my rascals would not care one black and rotten fig."

"But how," said I in great astonishment, "does this affect you?"

"Gently and soothly," said the priest. "Wait and ye shall hear. If the pastor has the pull over me in life, when it comes to sickness, and the thieves get the least little look within the Black Doors that only open the one way--I have rather the better of my friend. It is my time then.

My fellows indeed care no b.u.t.ton to come to holy sacrament. They need to be paid to come. But, grace be to G.o.d for His unspeakable mercy, Holy Church and I between us have made them most consumedly afraid of the world that is to come. And with reason!"

Father Philip waited to chuckle.

"But Gentinetta's people have everything so neatly settled for them long before, that they part content without so much as a 'by your leave' or the payment of a death-duty. Not so, however, the true believer. He hath heard of Purgatory and the warmth and comfort thereof. Of the other place, too, he has heard. He may have scorned and mocked in his days of lightsome ease, but down below in the roots of his heart he believes.

Oh, yes, he believes and trembles; then he sends for me, and I go!

"'Confession--it is well, my son! extreme unction, the last sacraments of the Church--better and better! But, my son, there is some small matter of t.i.thes and dues standing in my book against thy name. Dost thou wish to go a debtor before the Judge? Alas! how can I give thee quittance of the heavenly dues, when thou hast not cleared thyself of the dues of earth?' Then there is a scramble for the old canvas bag from its hiding-place behind the ingle-nook. A small remembrance to Holy Church and to me, her minister, can do no harm, and may do much good.

Follows confession, absolution--and, comforted thus, the soul pa.s.ses; or bides to turn Protestant the next time that my a.s.sessor calls. It matters not; I have the dues."

"But," said I, "we have here two things that are hard to put together.

In a time of health, when there is no sickness in the land, thou must go hungry. And when sickness comes, and the pastor's flock are busy with their dying, they will have no time to go to communion. How are these things arranged?"

"Even thus," replied Father Philip. "It is agreed upon that we pool the proceeds and divide fairly, so that our incomes are small but regular.

Yet, I beseech thee, tell it not in this munic.i.p.ality, nor yet in the next village; for in the public places we scowl at one another as we pa.s.s by, Pastor Gentinetta and I."

"And which is earning the crust now?" said I.

The jovial priest laughed, nodding sagely with his head.

"Gentinetta hath his sacraments on Tuesday, and his addresses to his folk have been full of pleasant warnings. It will be a good time with us."

"And when comes your turn?" cried Henry, who was much interested by this recital.