Page images
PDF
EPUB

over the Romitorio, looking towards Volterra. But, in this case, love was stronger than fear of vengeance. He had deeply incensed a youth who was in love with one of the peasant's daughters by paying his court to her, and by offering her some trinkets supposed to have been stolen, which she wore. This youth, by name Oreste, went in his fury straight to a town called Rosia, and informed our friends, the three gendarmes who live there, where Campanello was to be found, and promised to conceal them until he could be taken. In the meantime, poor Campanello, led away by the same fatal passion of love, lent himself blindly to his pursuer's devices. That very evening there was a dance given at a neighbouring cottage. Thither went Campanello in pursuit of his fair one, unarmed, even leaving his little sword in the house where he slept. In the middle of the dance, however, he caught sight of our brilliant friends, conspicuous in their war-paint, as they naturally would be, and, escaping by a back entrance, rushed off in flight. But Fate again met him in the shape of the injured lover, Oreste, who was watching outside. He sprang upon him; tied him up until the gendarmes arrived; secured him; and, already scenting the sweet savour of a Government reward for the capture of a capo brigante and a deserter, triumphantly led him off to prison.

I

XIII.

Start from Siena; Monte Varchi; Mr. B.-Brigands; Arezzo— Cortona; Lake of Thrasymene; Perugia.

HAD gone by rail from Siena to Orvieto, when a sudden fancy seized me to visit Arezzo and Perugia by road, and a relative (Mr. B- -) offered to accom

pany me.

Behold us, then, rising with the sun one fine morning early in October, and consigning ourselves to a lumbering vehicle, furnished with unlimited appliances for luggage, and drawn by four invalid horses, jingling with bells and wearing a certain species of fur nightcap, without which it is considered unorthodox to travel. The morning mists hung about the summits of the mountains, partially concealing the domes and campanile of the city, and partially revealing the rich olive gardens, pastures, and luxuriant vineyards along the road. The Chianti Hills and the higher ridge of Apennines were continually in view, each dent and crevice and water-course on their rugged sides marked with deep lines of shadow.

We were to strike the Arezzo road at Monte Varchi, where we had arranged to rest. My companion—a stern, hard man-was somewhat of a character. He was possessed by two ideas, viz., that Italy, including Rome, was on the eve of a republic; and that the Italians were, to a man, about to renounce Catholicism, expel the Pope, and massacre the priests. These and other equally startling facts, learnt from Mazzini, who was his intimate friend during his exile in London, Mr. B imparted to me in a solemn voice many times every day. The object of his present visit to Italy was to witness these marvellous events, and, if it were possible, to discover any locality where the meat was tolerable. If he did not succeed, he intended to return to London immediately. With Siena he was utterly disgusted; but having heard that the rich Umbrian plains furnished a good market at Perugia, he begged to accompany me thither.

It was market day at Monte Varchi, and the miserable wayside osteria was in indescribable confusion. House and stables were all in one, only the bipeds had the first story and the quadrupeds the terreno (groundfloor). Somehow or other we were continually turning up, however, into the stable, where upwards of two hundred horses were munching their oats.

"I wish I was a horse," said Mr. B; "I could

travel then. Oats are generally good everywhere; but the vicissitudes of diet to which my system is exposed in this unhappy country, caused by the contrasts and admixture of butchers' meat . . .

[ocr errors]

The arrival of a travelling carriage fortunately interrupted Mr. B- ; it was only, however, a reprieve. Out of the carriage tumbled six ladies of various ages, attended by a fat courier in a fine Polish jacket decorated with fur. He gave himself such airs that, in the absence of any other male, I took him for the papa, until I saw him run into the kitchen with a struggling fowl in his hand. The ladies could speak neither French nor Italian, and therefore depended entirely on the courier. They kept their eyes bent steadily on the ground, and looked as though they had come to Italy for a penance. There was a common sala into which we were all crammed, together with some local potentates—fattori (stewards) and mercanti di campagna, rough fellows, smelling of tobacco and garlic— by an unscrupulous padrona, who, reasoning upon the principle of equality and fraternity established below among the horses, treated us accordingly. The English family were so overcome by their feelings that, escorted by the courier in the furred jacket, they retreated into a bedroom.

Mr. B grimly smiled. "The day is at hand,”

said he, waving his hand majestically towards the retreating ladies, "when these fictitious distinctions will cease-in Italy at least, where the republic is about to be proclaimed." As Mr. B, seated in an old arm-chair, was evidently preparing for an oration, I escaped below among the horses.

Here stood knots of carmen and drivers in blue

rough, brutish fellows, who never

cotton jackets speak without tremendous oaths. Here, too, was the kitchen, where the cook was frantically cutting and cooking cutlets, brought in by a ragged, barefooted child, who seemed to live on the run between the butcher's and the kitchen.

At last we were served in a scrambling way at separate tables, and, because our dinner was brought up first, an eternal enmity was awakened in the breasts of the English ladies and their fat courier-an enmity from which we suffered all the way to Perugia.

After two weary hours we started down the one crowded street of Monte Varchi, where it would have been easy to walk on the people's heads. We crossed a fertile plain bordered by low hills, ploughed to the steepest summit by pretty milk-white oxen with crimson housings. Fine single oak-trees were scattered here and there, soon melting into a tangled wood, excellent for concealment; therefore very alarming to me,

« PreviousContinue »