The Italians Part 28

"No, dear Pipa," Enrica answered, softly, "I am not hurt--only frightened. The fire had but just reached the door when he came. He was just in time."

"To think we had forgotten her!" murmured Pipa, still holding her tightly.

"Who remembered me first?" asked Enrica, eagerly.

"The marchesa, signorina, the marchesa. She remembered you. The marchesa was brought down by Adamo. Your name was the first word she uttered."

Enrica's blue eyes glistened. In an instant she had disengaged herself from Pipa, and was kneeling at the marchesa's feet.

"Dear aunt, forgive me. Now that I am saved, forgive me! You must forgive me, and forgive him, too!"

These last words came faint and low. The marchesa put her finger on her lip.

"Not now, Enrica, not now. To-morrow we will speak."

Meanwhile Count n.o.bili, Fra Pacifico, and the Corellia men, strove what human strength could do to put the fire out. Even the sindaco, forgetting the threats about his rent, labored hard and willingly--only Silvestro did nothing. Silvestro seemed stunned; he sat upon the ground staring, and crying like a child.

To save the rooms within the tower was impossible. Every plank of wood was burning. The ceilings had fallen in; only the blackened walls and stone stairs remained. The villa was untouched--the wind, setting the other way, and the thick walls of the tower, had saved it.

Now every hand that could be spared was turned to bring beds from the steward's for the marchesa and Enrica. They had gone into Pipa's room until the villa was made ready. Pipa told Adamo, and he told the others, that the marchesa had not seen the burning papers, and the lighted pile of wood, until the flames rose high behind her back. She had rushed forward, and fallen.

When all was over, Count n.o.bili was carried up the hill back to Corellia, in triumph, on the shoulders of Pietro the baker, and Oreste, the strongest of the brothers. Every soul of the poor townsfolk--women as well as men who had not gone down to help--had risen, and was out. They had put lights into their windows. They crowded the doorways. The market-place was full, and the church-porch.

The fame of n.o.bili's courage had already reached them. All bless him as he pa.s.ses--bless him louder when n.o.bili, all aglow with happiness, empties his pockets of all the coin he has, and promises more to-morrow. At this the women lay hold of him, and dance round him. It was long before he was released. At last Fra Pacifico carried him off, almost by force, to sleep at the curato.

CHAPTER IV.

WHAT A PRIEST SHOULD BE.

Fra Pacifico was a dark, burly man, with a large, weather-beaten face, kind gray eyes under a pair of s.h.a.ggy eyebrows, a resolute nose, large, full-lipped mouth, and a clean-shaven double chin, that rested comfortably upon his priestly stock. He was no longer young, but he had a frame like iron, and in his time he had possessed a force of arm and muscle enough to fell an ox. His strength and daring were acknowledged by all the mountain-folks from Corellia to Barga, hardy fellows, and judges of what a man can do. Moreover, Fra Pacifico was more than six feet high--and who does not respect a man of such inches? In fair fight he had killed his man--a brigand chief--who prowled about the mountains toward Carrara. His band had fled and never returned.

Fra Pacifico had stood with his strong feet planted on the earth, over the edge of a rocky precipice--by which the high-road pa.s.sed--and seized a furious horse dragging a cart holding six poor souls below. Fra Pacifico had found a shepherd of Corellia--one of his flock--struck down by fever on a rocky peak some twenty miles distant, and he had carried him on his back, and laid him on his bed at home.

Every one had some story to tell of his prowess, coolness, and manly daring. When he walked along the streets, the ragged children--as black with sun and dirt as unfledged ravens--sidled up to him, and, looking up into his gray eyes, ran between his firm-set legs, plucked him by the ca.s.sock, and felt in his pockets for an apple or a cake.

Then the children held him tight until he had raised them up and kissed them.

Spite of the labors of the previous night (no one had worked harder), Fra Pacifico had risen with daybreak. His office accustomed him to little sleep. There was no time by day or night that he could call his own. If any one was stricken with sickness in the night, or suddenly seized for death in those pale hours when the day hovers, half-born, over the slumbering earth, Fra Pacifico must rise and wake his acolyte, the baker's boy, who, going late to bed, was hard to rouse.

Along with him he must grope up and down slippery steps, and along dark alleys, bearing the Host under a red umbrella, until he had placed it within the dying lips. If a baby was weakly, or born before its time, and, having given one look at this sorrowful world, was about to lose its eyes on it forever, Fra Pacifico must run out at any moment to christen it.

There was no doctor at Corellia, the people were too poor; so Fra Pacifico was called upon to do a doctor's duty. He must draw the teeth of such as needed it; bind up cuts and sores; set limbs; and give such simple drugs as he knew the nature of. He must draw up papers for those who could not afford to pay the notary; write letters for those who could only make a cross; hear and conceal every secret that reached him in the confessional or on the death-bed. He must be at hand at any hour in the twenty-four--ready to counsel, soothe, command, and reprimand; to bless, to curse, and, if need be, to strike, when his righteous anger rose; to fetch and carry for all, and, poor himself, to give out of his scanty store. These were his priestly duties.

Fra Pacifico lived at the back of the old Lombard church of Santa Barbara, in a house overlooking a damp square, overgrown with moss and weeds. Between the tower where the bells hung, and the body of the church, an open loggia (balcony), roofed with wood and tiles, rested on slender pillars. In the loggia, Fra Pacifico, when at leisure, would sit and rest and read his breviary; sometimes smoke a solitary pipe--stretching out his shapely legs in the luxury of doing nothing.

Behind the loggia were the priest's four rooms, bare even for the bareness of that squalid place. He kept no servant, but it was counted an honor to serve him, and the mothers of Corellia came by turns to cook and wash for him.

Fra Pacifico, as I have said, had risen at daybreak. Now he is searching to find a messenger to send to Lucca, as the marchesa had desired, to summon Cavaliere Trenta. That done, he takes a key out of his pocket and unlocks the church-door. Here, kneeling at the altar, he celebrates a private ma.s.s of thanksgiving for the marchesa and Enrica. Then, with long strides, he descends the hill to see what is doing at the villa.

CHAPTER V.

"SAY NOT TOO MUCH."

The sun was streaming on mountain and forest before Count n.o.bili woke from a deep sleep. As he cast his drowsy eyes around upon the homely little room, the coa.r.s.ely-painted frescoes on the walls--the gaudy cups and plates arranged in a cupboard opposite the bed--and on a wax Gesu Bambino, placed in state upon the mantel-piece, surrounded by a flock of blue sheep, browsing on purple gra.s.s, he could not at first remember where he was. The noises from the square below--the clink of the donkey's hoofs upon the pavement as they struggled up the steep alley laden with charcoal; the screams of children--the clamor of women's voices moving to and fro with their wooden shoes--and the boom of the church-bells sounding overhead for morning ma.s.s--came to him as in a dream.

As he raised his hand to push back the hair which fell over his eyes, a sharp twitch of pain--for his hands were scorched and blistered--brought all that had happened vividly before him. A warmth of joy and love glowed at his heart. He had saved Enrica's life.

Henceforth that life was his. From that day they would never part.

From that day, forgetting all others, he would live for her alone.

He must see her instantly--if possible, before his enemy, her aunt, had risen--see Enrica, and speak to her, alone. Oh, the luxury of that! How he longed to feast his eyes upon the softness of her beauty!

To fill his ears with the music of her voice! To touch her little hand, and scent the fragrance of her breath upon his cheek! There was no thought within n.o.bili but love and loyalty. At that moment Enrica was the only woman in the world whom he loved, or ever could love!

He dressed himself in haste, opened the door, and stepped out into the loggia. Not finding Fra Pacifico there, or in the other rooms, he pa.s.sed down the stone steps into the little square, threading his way beyond as he best could, through the tortuous little alleys toward the gate. Most of the men had already gone to work; but such as lingered, or whose business kept them at home, rose as he pa.s.sed, and bared their heads to him. The mothers and the girls stared at him and smiled; troops of children followed at his heels through the town, until he reached the gate.

Without, the holiness of Nature was around. The morning air blew upon him crisp and clear. The sky, blue as a turquoise, was unbroken by a cloud. The trees were bathed in gold. The chain of Apennines rose up before him in lines of dreamy loveliness, like another world, midway toward heaven. A pa.s.sing shower veiled the ma.s.sive summits toward Ma.s.sa and Carrara, but the broad valley of the Serchio, mapped out in smallest details, lay serenely luminous below. Beyond the gate there was no certain road. It broke into little tracts and rocky paths terracing downward. Following these, streams ran bubbling, sparkling like gems as they dashed against the stones. No shadows rested upon the gra.s.s, cooled by the dew and carpeted by flowers. The woods danced in the October suns.h.i.+ne. Painted b.u.t.terflies and gnats circled in the warm air; green lizards gamboled among the rocks that cut the turf. Flocks of autumn birds swooped round in rapid flight. Some freshly-shorn sheep, led by a ragged child, cropped the short herbage fragrant with strong herbs. A bristly pig carrying a bell about his neck, ran wildly up and down the gra.s.sy slope in search of chestnuts.

Through this sylvan wilderness n.o.bili came stepping downward by the little paths, like a young G.o.d full of strength and love!

The villa lay beneath him; the blackened ruins of the tower rose over the chestnut-tops. These blackened ruins showed him which way to go.

As he set his foot upon the topmost terrace of the garden, his heart beat fast.

Enrica would be there, he knew it. Enrica would be waiting for him.

Could n.o.bili yearn so fondly for Enrica and she not know it? Could the mystic bond that knit them together, from the first moment they had met, leave her unconscious of his presence? No; that subtile charm that draws lovers together, and breathes from heart to heart the sacred fire, had warned her. She was standing there--there, beneath him, under the shadow of a flowery thicket. Enrica was leaning against the trunk of a magnolia-tree, the s.h.i.+ning leaves framing her in a rich canopy, through which a glint of suns.h.i.+ne pierced, falling upon her light hair and the white dress she wore.

n.o.bili paused to look at her. Miser-like, he would pause to gloat upon his treasure! How well a golden glory would become that sunny head!

She only wanted wings, he thought, to make an angel of her. Enrica's face was bent. Her thoughts, far away, were lost in a delicious world, neither earth nor heaven--a world with n.o.bili! What mysteries were there, what unknown joys, or sharper pains perchance, she neither knew nor cared. She would share all with him! In a moment the place she stood on was darkened. Something stood between her and the sun. She looked up and gave a little cry, then stood motionless, the color going and coming upon her cheek. One bound, and n.o.bili was beside her.

He strained her to him with a pa.s.sion that robbed him of all words.

Scarcely knowing what he did, he grasped the tangled meshes of her silken hair and covered them with kisses. Then he raised her soft face in his hand, and gazed upon it long and fervently.

Enrica's plaintive eyes melted as they met his. She quivered in his embrace. Her whole soul went out to him as she lay within his arms. He bent his head--their trembling lips clung together in one long kiss.

Then the little golden head drooped upon his breast, and nestled there, as if at last at home. Never before had Enrica's dainty form yielded beneath his touch. Before, he had but clasped her little hand, or pressed her dress, or stolen a hasty kiss on those truant locks of hers. Now Enrica was his own, his very own. The blood shot up like fire over his face. His eyes devoured her. As she lay encircled in his arms, a burning blush crimsoned her cheeks. She turned away her face, and feebly tried to loosen herself from him. n.o.bili only pressed her closer. He would not let her go.

"Do not turn from me, Enrica," he softly murmured. "Would you rob me of the rapture of my first embrace?"

There was a pa.s.sionate tremor in his voice that re vibrated within her from head to foot. Her flushed cheek grew pale as she listened.

"Heavens! how I have longed for you! How I have longed for you sitting at home! And you so near!"

"And I have longed for you," whispered Enrica, blus.h.i.+ng again redder than summer roses.--Enrica was too simple to dissemble.--"O n.o.bili!"--and she raised her dreamy eyes upward to his, then dropped them again before the fire of his glance--"you cannot tell how lonely I have been. Oh! I have suffered so much; I thought I should have died."

"My own Enrica, that is gone and past. Now we shall never part. I have won you for my wife. Even the marchesa must own this. Last night the old life died out as the smoke from that old tower. To-day you have waked to a new life with me."

Again n.o.bili's arms stole round her; again he sealed the sacrament of love with a fervid kiss.

Enrica trembled from head to foot--a scared look came over her. The rush of pa.s.sionate joy, coming upon the terrors of the past night, was more than she could bear. n.o.bili watched the change.