Vittoria had rather to receive their excuses than to proffer her own.

They were mostly youths dressed like the better class of peasantry. They

laughed at the incident, stating how glad they would have been to behold

the heights all across the lakes ablaze and promising action for the

morrow. One square-shouldered fellow raised her lightly from the ground.

She felt herself to be a creature for whom circumstance was busily

plotting, so that it was useless to exert her mind in thought. The long

procession sank down the darkness, leaving the low red fire to die out

behind them.

Next morning she awoke in a warm bed, possessed by odd images of flames

that stood up like crowing cocks, and cowered like hens above the brood.

She was in the house of one of their new friends, and she could hear

Angelo talking in the adjoining room. A conveyance was ready to take her

on to Bormio. A woman came to her to tell her this, appearing to have a

dull desire to get her gone. She was a draggled woman, with a face of

slothful anguish, like one of the inner spectres of a guilty man. She

said that her husband was willing to drive the lady to Bormio for a sum

that was to be paid at once into his wife's hand; and little enough it

was which poor persons could ever look for from your patriots and

disturbers who seduced orderly men from their labour, and made widows and

ruined households. This was a new Italian language to Vittoria, and when

the woman went on giving instances of households ruined by a husband's

vile infatuation about his country, she did not attempt to defend the

reckless lord, but dressed quickly that she might leave the house as soon

as she could. Her stock of money barely satisfied the woman's demand.

The woman seized it, and secreted it in her girdle. When they had passed

into the sitting-room, her husband, who was sitting conversing with

Angelo, stretched out his hand and knocked the girdle.

'That's our trick,' he said. 'I guessed so. Fund up, our little Maria

of the dirty fingers'-ends! We accept no money from true patriots. Grub

in other ground, my dear!'

The woman stretched her throat awry, and set up a howl like a dog; but

her claws came out when he seized her.

'Would you disgrace me, old fowl?'

'Lorenzo, may you rot like a pumpkin!'

The connubial reciprocities were sharp until the money lay on the table,

when the woman began whining so miserably that Vittoria's sensitive

nerves danced on her face, and at her authoritative interposition,

Lorenzo very reluctantly permitted his wife to take what he chose to

reckon a fair portion of the money, and also of his contempt. She seemed

to be licking the money up, she bent over it so greedily.

'Poor wretch!' he observed; 'she was born on a hired bed.'

Vittoria felt that the recollection of this woman would haunt her. It

was inconceivable to her that a handsome young man like Lorenzo should

ever have wedded the unsweet creature, who was like a crawling image of

decay; but he, as if to account for his taste, said that they had been of

a common age once, when he married her; now she had grown old. He

repeated that she 'was born on a hired bed.' They saw nothing further of

her.

Vittoria's desire was to get to Meran speedily, that she might see her

friends, and have tidings of her lover and the city. Those baffled

beacon-flames on the heights had become an irritating indicative vision:

she thirsted for the history. Lorenzo offered to conduct her over the

Tonale Pass into the Val di Sole, or up the Val Furva, by the pass of the

Corno dei Tre Signori, into the Val del Monte to Pejo, thence by Cles, or

by Bolzano, to Meran. But she required shoeing and refitting; and for

other reasons also, she determined to go on to Bormio. She supposed that

Angelo had little money, and that in a place such as Bormio sounded to

her ears she might possibly obtain the change for the great money-order

which the triumph of her singing had won from Antonio-Pericles. In spite

of Angelo's appeals to her to hurry on to the end of her journey without

tempting chance by a single pause, she resolved to go to Bormio. Lorenzo

privately assured her that there were bankers in Bormio. Many bankers,

he said, came there from Milan, and that fact she thought sufficient for

her purpose. The wanderers parted regretfully. A little chapel, on a

hillock off the road, shaded by chestnuts, was pointed out to Lorenzo

where to bring a letter for Angelo. Vittoria begged Angelo to wait till

he heard from her; and then, with mutual wavings of hands, she was driven

out of his sight.

CHAPTER XXV

ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS

After parting from Vittoria, Angelo made his way to an inn, where he ate

and drank like a man of the fields, and slept with the power of one from

noon till after morning. The innkeeper came up to his room, and, finding

him awake, asked him if he was disposed to take a second holiday in bed.

Angelo jumped up; as he did so, his stiletto slipped from under his

pillow and flashed.

'That's a pretty bit of steel,' said the innkeeper, but could not get a

word out of him. It was plain to Angelo that this fellow had suspicions.

Angelo had been careful to tie up his clothes in a bundle; there was

nothing for the innkeeper to see, save a young man in bed, who had a

terrible weapon near his hand, and a look in his eyes of wary indolence

that counselled prudent dealings. He went out, and returned a second and

a third time, talking more and more confusedly and fretfully; but as he

was again going to leave, 'No, no,' said Angelo, determined to give him a

lesson, 'I have taken a liking to your company. Here, come here; I will

show you a trick. I learnt it from the Servians when I was three feet

high. Look; I lie quite still, you observe. Try to get on the other

side of that door and the point of this blade shall scratch you through

it.'

Angelo laid the blue stilet up his wrist, and slightly curled his arm.

'Try,' he repeated, but the innkeeper had stopped short in his movement

to the door. 'Well, then, stay where you are,' said Angelo, 'and look;

I'll be as good as my word. There's the point I shall strike.' With that

he gave the peculiar Servian jerk of the muscles, from the wrist up to

the arm, and the blade quivered on the mark. The innkeeper fell back in

admiring horror. 'Now fetch it to me,' said Angelo, putting both hands

carelessly under his head. The innkeeper tugged at the blade.

'Illustrious signore, I am afraid of breaking it,' he almost whimpered;

'it seems alive, does it not?'

'Like a hawk on a small bird,' said Angelo; 'that's the beauty of those

blades. They kill, and put you to as little pain as a shot; and it 's

better than a shot in your breast—there's something to show for it.

Send up your wife or your daughter to take orders about my breakfast.

It 's the breakfast of five mountaineers; and don't "Illustrious signore"

me, sir, either in my hearing or out of it. Leave the knife sticking.'

The innkeeper sidled out with a dumb salute. 'I can count on his

discretion for a couple of hours,' Angelo said to himself. He knew the

effect of an exhibition of physical dexterity and strength upon a coward.

The landlord's daughter came and received his orders for breakfast.

Angelo inquired whether they had been visited by Germans of late. The

girl told him that a German chasseur with a couple of soldiers had called

them up last night.

'Wouldn't it have been a pity if they had dragged me out and shot me?'

said Angelo.

'But they were after a lady,' she explained; 'they have gone on to

Bormio, and expect to catch her there or in the mountains.'

'Better there than in the mountains, my dear; don't you think so?'

The girl said that she would not like to meet those fellows among the

mountains.

'Suppose you were among the mountains, and those fellows came up with

you; wouldn't you clap your hands to see me jumping down right in front

of you all?' said Angelo.

'Yes, I should,' she admitted. 'What is one man, though!'

'Something, if he feeds like five. Quick! I must eat. Have you a

lover?'

'Yes.'

'Fancy you are waiting on him.'

'He's only a middling lover, signore. He lives at Cles, over Val Pejo,

in Val di Non, a long way, and courts me twice a year, when he comes over

to do carpentering. He cuts very pretty Madonnas. He is a German.'

'Ha! you kneel to the Madonna, and give your lips to a German? Go.'

'But I don't like him much, signore; it's my father who wishes me to have

him; he can make money.'

Angelo motioned to her to be gone, saying to himself, 'That father of

hers would betray the Saints for a handful of florins.'

He dressed, and wrenched his knife from the door. Hearing the clatter of

a horse at the porch, he stopped as he was descending the stairs. A

German voice said, 'Sure enough, my jolly landlord, she's there, in Worms

—your Bormio. Found her at the big hotel: spoke not a syllable; stole

away, stole away. One chopin of wine! I'm off on four legs to the

captain. Those lads who are after her by Roveredo and Trent have bad

noses. "Poor nose—empty belly." Says the captain, "I stick at the

point of the cross-roads." Says I, "Herr Captain, I'm back to you first

of the lot." My business is to find the runaway lady-pretty Fraulein!

pretty Fraulein! lai-ai! There's money on her servant, too; he's a

disguised Excellency—a handsome boy; but he has cut himself loose, and

he go hang. Two birds for the pride of the thing; one for satisfaction—

I 'm satisfied. I've killed chamois in my time. Jacob, I am;

Baumwalder, I am; Feckelwitz, likewise; and the very devil for following

a track. Ach! the wine is good. You know the song?

"He who drinks wine, he may cry with a will,

Fortune is mine, may she stick to me still."

'I give it you in German—the language of song! my own, my native 'lai-ai-

lai-ai-la-la-lai-ai-i-ie!

"While stars still sit

On mountain tops,

I take my gun,

Kiss little one

On mother's breast.

Ai-iu-e!

My pipe is lit,

I climb the slopes,

I meet the dawn

A little one

On mother's breast.

Ai-aie: ta-ta-tai: iu-iu-iu-e!"

'Another chopin, my jolly landlord. What's that you're mumbling? About

the servant of my runaway young lady? He go hang! What——?'

Angelo struck his foot heavily on the stairs; the innkeeper coughed and

ran back, bowing to his guest. The chasseur cried, 'I 'll drink farther

on-wine between gaps!' A coin chinked on the steps in accompaniment to

the chasseur's departing gallop. 'Beast of a Tedesco,' the landlord

exclaimed as he picked up the money; 'they do the reckoning—not we.

If I had served him with the worth of this, I should have had the bottle

at my head. What a country ours is! We're ridden over, ridden over!'

Angelo compelled the landlord to sit with him while he ate like five

mountaineers. He left mere bones on the table. 'It's wonderful,' said

the innkeeper; 'you can't know what fear is.'

'I think I don't,' Angelo replied; 'you do; cowards have to serve every

party in turn. Up, and follow at my heels till I dismiss you. You know

the pass into the Val Pejo and the Val di Sole.' The innkeeper stood

entrenched behind a sturdy negative. Angelo eased him to submission by

telling him that he only wanted the way to be pointed out. 'Bring

tobacco; you're going to have an idle day,' said Angelo: 'I pay you when

we separate.' He was deaf to entreaties and refusals, and began to look

mad about the eyes; his poor coward plied him with expostulations,

offered his wife, his daughter, half the village, for the service: he had

to follow, but would take no cigars. Angelo made his daughter fetch

bread and cigars, and put a handful in his pocket, upon which, after two

hours of inactivity at the foot of the little chapel, where Angelo waited

for the coming of Vittoria's messenger, the innkeeper was glad to close

his fist. About noon Lorenzo came, and at once acted a play of eyes for

Angelo to perceive his distrust of the man and a multitude of bad things

about him he was reluctant, notwithstanding Angelo's ready nod, to bring

out a letter; and frowned again, for emphasis to the expressive comedy.

The letter said:

'I have fallen upon English friends. They lend me money. Fly to Lugano

by the help of these notes: I inclose them, and will not ask pardon for

it. The Valtellina is dangerous; the Stelvio we know to be watched.

Retrace your way, and then try the Engadine. I should stop on a breaking

bridge if I thought my companion, my Carlo's cousin, was near capture.

I am well taken care of: one of my dearest friends, a captain in the

English army, bears me company across. I have a maid from one of the

villages, a willing girl. We ride up to the mountains; to-morrow we

cross the pass; there is a glacier. Val di Non sounds Italian, but I am

going into the enemy's land. You see I am well guarded. My immediate

anxiety concerns you; for what will our Carlo ask of me? Lose not one

moment. Away, and do not detain Lorenzo. He has orders to meet us up

high in the mountain this evening. He is the best of servants but

I always meet the best everywhere—that is, in Italy. Leaving it,

I grieve. No news from Milan, except of great confusion there. I judge

by the quiet of my sleep that we have come to no harm there.

'Your faithfullest

'VITTORIA.'

Lorenzo and the innkeeper had arrived at an altercation before Angelo

finished reading. Angelo checked it, and told Lorenzo to make speed: he

sent no message.

'My humanity,' Angelo then addressed his craven associate, 'counsels me

that it's better to drag you some distance on than to kill you. You 're

a man of intelligence, and you know why I have to consider the matter.

I give you guide's pay up to the glacier, and ten florins buon'mano.

Would you rather earn it with the blood of a countryman? I can't let

that tongue of yours be on the high-road of running Tedeschi: you know

it.

'Illustrious signore, obedience oils necessity,' quoth the innkeeper.

'If we had but a few more of my cigars!'

'Step on,' said Angelo sternly.

They walked till dark and they were in keen air. A hut full of recent

grass-cuttings, on the border of a sloping wood, sheltered them. The

innkeeper moaned for food at night and in the morning, and Angelo tossed

him pieces of bread. Beyond the wood they came upon bare crag and

commenced a sharper ascent, reached the height, and roused an eagle.

The great bird went up with a sharp yelp, hanging over them with knotted

claws. Its shadow stretched across sweeps of fresh snow. The innkeeper

sent a mocking yelp after the eagle.

'Up here, one forgets one is a father—what's more, a husband,' he said,

striking a finger on the side of his nose.

'And a cur, a traitor, carrion,' said Angelo.

'Ah, signore, one might know you were a noble. You can't understand our

troubles, who carry a house on our heads, and have to fill mouths agape.'

'Speak when you have better to say,' Angelo replied.

'Padrone, one would really like to have your good opinion; and I'm lean

as a wolf for a morsel of flesh. I could part with my buon'mano for a

sight of red meat—oh! red meat dripping.'

'If,' cried Angelo, bringing his eyebrows down black on the man, 'if I

knew that you had ever in your life betrayed one of us look below; there

you should lie to be pecked and gnawed at.'

'Ah, Jacopo Cruchi, what an end for you when you are full of good

meanings!' the innkeeper moaned. 'I see your ribs, my poor soul!'

Angelo quitted him. The tremendous excitement of the Alpine solitudes

was like a stringent wine to his surcharged spirit. He was one to whom

life and death had become as the yes and no of ordinary men: not more

than a turning to the right or to the left. It surprised him that this

fellow, knowing his own cowardice and his conscience, should consent to

live, and care to eat to live.

When he returned to his companion, he found the fellow drinking from the

flask of an Austrian soldier. Another whitecoat was lying near. They

pressed Angelo to drink, and began to play lubberly pranks. One clapped

hands, while another rammed the flask at the reluctant mouth, till Angelo

tripped him and made him a subject for derision; whereupon they were all

good friends. Musket on shoulder, the soldiers descended, blowing at

their finger-nails and puffing at their tobacco—lauter kaiserlicher

(rank Imperial), as with a sad enforcement of resignation they had, while

lighting, characterized the universally detested Government issue of the

leaf.

'They are after her,' said Jacopo, and he shot out his thumb and twisted

an eyelid. His looks became insolent, and he added: 'I let them go on;

but now, for my part, I must tell you, my worthy gentleman, I've had

enough of it. You go your way, I go mine. Pay me, and we part. With

the utmost reverence, I quit you. Climbing mountains at my time of life

is out of all reason. If you want companions, I 'll signal to that pair

of Tedeschi; they're within hail. Would you like it? Say the word, if

you would—hey!'

Angelo smiled at the visible effect of the liquor.

'Barto Rizzo would be the man to take you in hand,' he remarked.

The innkeeper flung his head back to ejaculate, and murmured, 'Barto

Rizzo! defend me from him! Why, he levies contribution upon us in the

Valtellina for the good of Milan; and if we don't pay, we're all of us

down in a black book. Disobey, and it's worse than swearing you won't

pay taxes to the legitimate—perdition to it!—Government. Do you know

Barto Rizzo, padrone? You don't know him, I hope? I'm sure you wouldn't

know such a fellow.'

'I am his favourite pupil,' said Angelo.

'I'd have sworn it,' groaned the innkeeper, and cursed the day and hour

when Angelo crossed his threshold. That done, he begged permission to be

allowed to return, crying with tears of entreaty for mercy: 'Barto

Rizzo's pupils are always out upon bloody business!' Angelo told him

that he had now an opportunity of earning the approval of Barto Rizzo,

and then said, 'On,' and they went in the track of the two whitecoats;

the innkeeper murmuring all the while that he wanted the approval of

Barto Rizzo as little as his enmity; he wanted neither frost nor fire.

The glacier being traversed, they skirted a young stream, and arrived at

an inn, where they found the soldiers regaling. Jacopo was informed by

them that the lady whom they were pursuing had not passed. They pushed

their wine for Angelo to drink: he declined, saying that he had sworn not

to drink before he had shot the chamois with the white cross on his back.

'Come: we're two to one,' they said, 'and drink you shall this time!'

'Two to two,' returned Angelo: 'here is my Jacopo, and if he doesn't

count for one, I won't call him father-in-law, and the fellow living at

Cles may have his daughter without fighting for her.'

'Right so,' said one of the soldiers, 'and you don't speak bad German

already.'

'Haven't I served in the ranks?' said Angelo, giving a bugle-call of the

reveille of the cavalry.

He got on with them so well that they related the object of their

expedition, which was, to catch a runaway young rebel lady and hold her

fast down at Cles for the great captain—'unser tuchtiger Hauptmann.'

'Hadn't she a servant, a sort of rascal?' Angelo inquired.

'Right so; she had: but the doe's the buck in this chase.'

Angelo tossed them cigars. The valley was like a tumbled mountain, thick

with crags and eminences, through which the river worked strenuously,

sinuous in foam, hurrying at the turns. Angelo watched all the ways from

a distant height till set of sun. He saw another couple of soldiers meet

those two at the inn, and then one pair went up toward the vale-head. It

seemed as if Vittoria had disconcerted them by having chosen another

route.

'Padrone,' said Jacopo to him abruptly, when they descended to find a

resting-place, 'you are, I speak humbly, so like the devil that I must

enter into a stipulation with you, before I continue in your company, and

take the worst at once. This is going to be the second night of my

sleeping away from my wife: I merely mention it. I pinch her, and she

beats me, and we are equal. But if you think of making me fight, I tell

you I won't. If there was a furnace behind me, I should fall into it

rather than run against a bayonet. I 've heard say that the nerves are

in the front part of us, and that's where I feel the shock. Now we're on

a plain footing. Say that I'm not to fight. I'll be your servant till

you release me, but say I 'm not to fight; padrone, say that.'

'I can't say that: I'll say I won't make you fight,' Angelo pacified him

by replying. From this moment Jacopo followed him less like a graceless

dog pulled by his chain. In fact, with the sense of prospective

security, he tasted a luxurious amazement in being moved about by a

superior will, wafted from his inn, and paid for witnessing strange

incidents. Angelo took care that he was fed well at the place where

they slept, but himself ate nothing. Early after dawn they mounted the

heights above the road. It was about noon that Angelo discerned a party

coming from the pass on foot, consisting of two women and three men.

They rested an hour at the village where he had slept overnight; the

muskets were a quarter of a mile to the rear of them. When they started

afresh, one of the muskets was discharged, and while the echoes were

rolling away, a reply to it sounded in the front. Angelo, from his post

of observation, could see that Vittoria and her party were marching

between two guards, and that she herself must have perceived both the

front and rearward couple. Yet she and her party held on their course at

an even pace. For a time he kept them clearly in view; but it was tough

work along the slopes of crag: presently Jacopo slipped and went down.

'Ah, padrone,' he said: 'I'm done for; leave me.'

'Not though I should have to haul you on my back,' replied Angelo. 'If I

do leave you, I must cut out your tongue.'

'Rather than that, I'd go on a sprained ankle,' said Jacopo, and he

strove manfully to conquer pain; limping and exclaiming, 'Oh, my little

village! Oh, my little inn! When can a man say that he has finished

running about the world! The moment he sits, in comes the devil.'

Angelo was obliged to lead him down to the open way, upon which they made

slow progress.

'The noble gentleman might let me return—he might trust me now,' Jacopo

whimpered.

'The devil trusts nobody,' said Angelo.

'Ah, padrone! there's a crucifix. Let me kneel by that.'

Angelo indulged him. Jacopo knelt by the wayside and prayed for an easy

ankle and a snoring pillow and no wakeners. After this he was refreshed.

The sun sank; the darkness spread around; the air grew icy. 'Does the

Blessed Virgin ever consider what patriots have to endure?' Jacopo

muttered to himself, and aroused a rare laugh from Angelo, who seized him

under the arm, half-lifting him on. At the inn where they rested, he

bathed and bandaged the foot.

'I can't help feeling a kindness to you for it,' said Jacopo.

'I can't afford to leave you behind,' Angelo accounted for his attention.

'Padrone, we've been understanding one another all along by our thumbs.

It's that old inn of mine—the taxes! we have to sell our souls to pay

the taxes. There's the tongue of the thing. I wouldn't betray you; I

wouldn't.'

'I'll try you,' said Angelo, and put him to proof next day, when the

soldiers stopped them as they were driving in a cart, and Jacopo swore to

them that Angelo was his intended son-in-law.

There was evidently an unusual activity among the gendarmerie of the

lower valley, the Val di Non; for Jacopo had to repeat his fable more

than once, and Angelo thought it prudent not to make inquiries about

travellers. In this valley they were again in summer heat. Summer

splendours robed the broken ground. The Val di Non lies toward the sun,

banked by the Val di Sole, like the southern lizard under a stone.

Chestnut forest and shoulder over shoulder of vineyard, and meadows of

marvellous emerald, with here and there central partly-wooded crags,

peaked with castle-ruins, and ancestral castles that are still warm

homes, and villages dropped among them, and a river bounding and rushing

eagerly through the rich enclosure, form the scene, beneath that Italian

sun which turns everything to gold. There is a fair breadth to the vale:

it enjoys a great oval of sky: the falls of shade are dispersed, dot the

hollow range, and are not at noontide a broad curtain passing over from

right to left. The sun reigns and also governs in the Val di Non.

'The, grape has his full benefit here, padrone,' said Jacopo.

But the place was too populous, and too much subjected to the general

eye, to please Angelo. At Cles they were compelled to bear an

inspection, and a little comedy occurred. Jacopo, after exhibiting

Angelo as his son-in-law, seeing doubts on the soldiers' faces, mentioned

the name of the German suitor for his daughter's hand—the carpenter,

Johann Spellmann, to whose workshop he requested to be taken. Johann,

being one of the odd Germans in the valley, was well known: he was

carving wood astride a stool, and stopped his whistling to listen to

the soldiers, who took the first word out of Jacopo's mouth, and were

convinced, by Johann's droop of the chin, that the tale had some truth in

it; and more when Johann yelled at the Valtelline innkeeper to know why,

then, he had come to him, if he was prepared to play him false. One of

the soldiers said bluntly, that as Angelo's appearance answered to the

portrait of a man for whom they were on the lookout, they would, if their

countryman liked, take him and give him a dose of marching and

imprisonment.

'Ach! that won't make my little Rosetta love me better,' cried Johann,

who commenced taking up a string of reproaches against women, and pitched

his carving-blade and tools abroad in the wood-dust.

'Well, now, it 's queer you don't want to fight this lad,' said Jacopo;

'he's come to square it with you that way, if you think best.'

Johann spared a remark between his vehement imprecations against the sex

to say that he was ready to fight; but his idea of vengeance was directed

upon the abstract conception of a faithless womankind. Angelo, by reason

of his detestation of Germans, temporarily threw himself into the part he

was playing to the extent of despising him. Johann admitted to Jacopo

that intervals of six months' duration in a courtship were wide jumps for

Love to take.

'Yes; amor! amor!' he exclaimed with extreme dejection; 'I could wait.

Well! since you've brought the young man, we'll have it out.'

He stepped before Angelo with bare fists. Jacopo had to interpose. The

soldiers backed Johann, who now said to Angelo, 'Since you've come for

it, we'll have it out.'

Jacopo had great difficulty in bringing him to see that it was a matter

to talk over. Johann swore he would not talk about it, and was ready to

fight a dozen Italians, man up man down.

'Bare-fisted?' screamed Jacopo.

'Hey! the old way! Give him knuckles, and break his back, my boy!' cried

the soldiers; 'none of their steel this side of the mountain.'

Johann waited for Angelo to lift his hands; and to instigate his

reluctant adversary, thumped his chest; but Angelo did not move. The

soldiers roared.

'If she has you, she shall have a dolly,' said Johann, now heated with

the prospect of presenting that sort of husband to his little Rosetta.

At this juncture Jacopo threw himself between them.

'It shall be a real fight,' he said; 'my daughter can't make up her mind,

and she shall have the best man. Leave me to arrange it all fairly; and

you come here in a couple of hours, my children,' he addressed the

soldiers, who unwillingly quitted the scene where there was a certainty

of fun, on the assurance of there being a livelier scene to come.

When they had turned their heels on the shop, Jacopo made a face at

Johann; Johann swung round upon Angelo, and met a smile. Then followed

explanations.

'What's that you say? She's true—she's true?' exclaimed the astounded

lover.

'True enough, but a girl at an inn wants hotter courting,' said Jacopo.

'His Excellency here is after his own sweetheart.'

Johann huzzaed, hugged at Angelo's hands, and gave a lusty filial tap to

Jacopo on the shoulder. Bread and grapes and Tyrolese wine were placed

for them, and Johann's mother soon produced a salad, eggs, and fowl; and

then and there declared her willingness to receive Rosetta into the

household, 'if she would swear at the outset never to have 'heimweh'

(home-longing); as people—men and women, both—always did when they took

a new home across a mountain.'

'She won't—will she?' Johann inquired with a dubious sparkle.

'Not she,' said Jacopo.

After the meal he drew Johann aside. They returned to Angelo, and Johann

beckoned him to leave the house by a back way, leading up a slope of

garden into high vine-poles. He said that he had seen a party pass out

of Cles from the inn early, in a light car, on for Meran. The

gendarmerie were busy on the road: a mounted officer had dashed up to the

inn an hour later, and had followed them: it was the talk of the village.

'Padrone, you dismiss me now,' said Jacopo.

'I pay you, but don't dismiss you,' said Angelo, and handed him a bank-

note.

'I stick to you, padrone, till you do dismiss me,' Jacopo sighed.

Johann offered to conduct them as far as the Monte Pallade pass, and they

started, avoiding the high road, which was enviably broad and solid.

Within view of a village under climbing woods, they discerned an open

car, flanked by bayonets, returning to Cles. Angelo rushed ahead of them

down the declivity, and stood full in the road to meet the procession.

A girl sat in the car, who hung her head, weeping; Lorenzo was beside

her; an Englishman on foot gave employment to a pair of soldiers to get

him along. As they came near at marching pace, Lorenzo yawned and raised

his hand to his cheek, keeping the thumb pointed behind him. Including

the girl, there were four prisoners: Vittoria was absent. The

Englishman, as he was being propelled forward, addressed Angelo in

French, asking him whether he could bear to see an unoffending foreigner

treated with wanton violation of law. The soldiers bellowed at their

captive, and Angelo sent a stupid shrug after him. They rounded a bend

of the road. Angelo tightened the buckle at his waist.

'Now I trust you,' he said to Jacopo. 'Follow the length of five miles

over the pass: if you don't see me then, you have your liberty, tongue

and all.'

With that he doubled his arms and set forth at a steady run, leaving his

companions to speculate on his powers of endurance. They did so

complacently enough, until Jacopo backed him for a distance and Johann

betted against him, when behold them at intervals taking a sharp trot to

keep him in view.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

A common age once, when he married her; now she had grown old

Critical in their first glance at a prima donna

Forgetfulness is like a closing sea

He is inexorable, being the guilty one of the two

Her singing struck a note of grateful remembered delight

It rarely astonishes our ears. It illumines our souls

Madness that sane men enamoured can be struck by

Obedience oils necessity

Our life is but a little holding, lent To do a mighty labour

Simple obstinacy of will sustained her

The devil trusts nobody

Was born on a hired bed

End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Vittoria, v4

by George Meredith