Chapter XXIX (1)

"Joan, you needn't expect me till you see me"--Joan turned quickly round to see Adam at the door, looking angry and determined--"and you can tell Eve from me that as it seems all one to her whatever companion she has, I don't see any need for forcing myself where I am told I should only be one in the way."

"Adam--" But the door was already slammed, and Joan again left in possession of the kitchen.--"Now, there 'tis," she said in a tone of vexation, "just as I thought: a reg'lar piece o' work made all out o' nothin'. Drabbit the maid! If her's got the man her wants, why can't her study un a bit? But somehow there's bin a crooked stick lyin' in her path all day to-day: her's nipped about somethin', I'm positive sure o' that; and they all just come home too, and everythin', and now to be at daggers--drawn with one 'nother! 'Tis terrible, 'tis."

Joan's reflections, interrupted by the necessary attention which her cakes and pasties made upon her, lasted over some considerable time, and they had not yet come to an end when two of the principal objects of them presented themselves before her. "Why, wherever have 'ee bin to?" she said peevishly. "Whatever made 'ee stay away like this for--actin' so foolish, when you knaws, both of 'ee, what a poor temper Adam's got if anythin' goes contrary with un?"

Jerrem shrugged his shoulders, while Eve, at once assuming an injured air for such an unmerited attack, said, "Really, Joan, I don't know what you mean. Old Poll Potter has just been telling us that Adam came flying and fuming up her way, wanting to know if she'd seen us, and then, when she said where we'd gone to, he used the most dreadful language to her--I'm sure I don't know for what reason. He chose to go out without me this morning."

"But that was 'bout business," said Joan.

"Oh, business!" repeated Eve. "Business is a very convenient word when you don't want to tell a person what your real errand is. Not that I want to pry into Adam's secrets--far from it. He's quite welcome to keep what he likes from me, only I'd rather he wouldn't tell me half things. I like to know all or none."

Joan looked mystified, and Jerrem, seeing she did not know what to say, came to the rescue. "I'm sure I'm very vexed if I've been the cause of anything o' this, Eve," he said humbly.

"You needn't be at all vexed: it's nothing at all to do with you. You asked me to go, and I said yes: if I hadn't wanted to go I should have said no. Any one would think I'd committed a crime, instead of taking a simple walk, with no other fault than not happening to return home at the very same minute that it suited Adam to come back at."

"But how is it he's a seed you if you haven't a seed he?" said Joan, fairly puzzled by this game of cross-purposes. "He came home all right 'nuf, and then went off to see whereabouts he could find 'ee to; and 'bout quarter'n hour after back he comes in a reg'lar pelt, and says, 'You tell Eve,' he says, 'that I'm not goin' to foace myself where I'm told I sha'n't be wanted.' Awh, my dear, he'd seed 'ee somewheres," she continued in answer to Eve's shrug of bewilderment: "I could tell that so soon as iver I'd clapped eyes on un."

"And where's he off to now?" said Eve, determined to have an immediate settlement of her wrongs.

"I can't tell: he just flung they words at me and was gone."

Eve said no more, but with the apparent intention of taking off her hat went up stairs, while Joan, bidding Jerrem go and see if Uncle Zebedee was roused up yet, returned to her previous occupation of preparing the tea. When it was ready she called out, "Come 'long, Eve;" but no answer was returned. "Tay's ready, my dear." Still no reply.--"She can't ha' gone out agen?" thought Joan, mounting the stairs to ascertain the cause of the silence, which was soon explained by the sight of Eve flung down on the bed, with her head buried in the pillow.--"Now, whatever be doin' this for?" exclaimed Joan, bending down and discovering that Eve was sobbing as if her heart would break. "Awh, doan't cry now, there's a dear: 't 'ull all come straight agen. Why, now, you'll see Adam 'ull be back in no time. 'Twas only through bein' baulked when he'd a come back o' purpose to take 'ee out."

"How was I to know that?" sobbed Eve.

"No, o' course you didn't, and that's what I told un. But, lors! 'tis in the nature o' men to be jealous o' one 'nother, and with Adam more partickler o' Jerrem; so for the future you must humor un a bit, 'cos there's things atwixt they two you doan't know nothin' of, and so can't allays tell when the shoe's pinchin' most."

"I often think whether Adam and me will be happy together," said Eve, sitting up and drying her eyes. "I'm willing to give in, but I won't be trampled upon."

"And he won't want to trample 'pon 'ee, neither. Only you study un a bit, and you'll soon learn the measure o' Adam's foot. Why, 'tis only to see un lookin' at 'ee to tell how he loves 'ee;" and Joan successfully kept down a rising sigh as she added, "Lors! he wouldn't let a fly pitch 'pon 'ee if he could help it."

"If he'd seen us before he came in first he'd have surely told you?" said Eve.

"Awh, he hadn't seen 'ee then," said Joan, "'cos, though he was a bit vexed, he wasn't in no temper. 'Twas after he went out the second time that he must have cast eyes on 'ee some way. Jerrem wasn't up to none of his nonsense, was he?" she asked. '"Cos I knaws what Jerrem is. He don't think no more o' givin' 'ee a kiss or that than he does o' noddin' his head or crookin' his elbaw; and if Adam caught un at that, it 'ud be enough for he."

Eve shook her head. "Jerrem never takes none of those liberties with me," she said: "he knows I won't allow him to. The whole of the time we did nothing but talk and walk along till we came to a nice place, and then we stayed for a little while looking at the view together, and after that came back."

"'Tis more than I can make out, then," said Joan, "'cos, though I wondered when you set off whether Adam would 'zactly relish your bein' with Jerrem, I never thought 'twould put un out like this."

"It makes me feel so miserable!" said Eve, trying to keep back her tears; "for oh, Joan"--and she threw her arms round Joan's neck--"I do love him very dearly!"

"Iss, my dear, I knaws you do," returned Joan soothingly, "and he loves you too."

"Then why can't we always feel the same, Joan, and be comfortable and kind and pleasant to one another?"

"Oh lors! that 'ud be a reg'lar milk-and-watter set-out o' it. No, so long as you doan't carry on too far on the wan tack I likes a bit of a breeze now and then: it freshens 'ee up and puts new life into 'ee. But here, come along down now, and when Adam comes back seem as if nothin' had happened, and p'r'aps seein' you make so light of it 'ull make un forget all about it."

So advised, Eve dried her eyes and smoothed down her ruffled appearance, and in a short time joined the party below, which now included Uncle Zebedee, Barnabas Tadd and Zeke Teague, who had brought word that the Hart had only that morning returned to Fowey, entirely ignorant of the skirmish which had taken place between the Looe boats and the Lottery, and that, though it was reported that the man shot had been shot dead, nothing was known for certain, as it seemed that the men of Looe station were not over-anxious to have the thing talked about.

"I should think they wasn't, neither," chuckled Uncle Zebedee. "Sneakin', cowardly lot! they was game enough whiles they was creepin' up behind, but, lors! so soon as us shawed our faces, and they seed they'd got men to dale with, there was another tale to tell, and no mistake. I much doubt whether or no wan amongst 'em had ever smelt powder afore our Jerrem here let 'em have a sniff o' his mixin'. 'Tis my belief--and I ha'n't a got a doubt on the matter, neither--that if he hadn't let fly when he did they'd ha' drawed off and gone away boastin' that they'd got the best o' it."

"Well, and more's the pity you didn't let 'em, then," said Joan. "I would, I knaw. Safe bind's safe find, and you can never tell when fightin' begins where 'tis goin' to end to."

"It shouldn't ha' ended where it did if I'd had my way," said Jerrem.

"Awh, well! there, never mind," said old Zebedee. "You'll have a chance agen, never fear, and then we must make 'ee capen. How'd that plaze 'ee, eh?"

Jerrem's face bespoke his satisfaction. "Take care I don't hold 'ee to yer word," he said, laughing. "I've got witnesses, mind, to prove it: here's Barnabas here, and Zeke Teague, and they won't say me nay, I'll wager--will 'ee, lads?"

"Wa-all, bide a bit, bide a bit," said Zebedee, winking in appreciation of this joke. "There'll be two or three o' the oldsters drap in durin' the ebenin', and then us 'll have a bit of a jaw together on it, and weigh sides on the matter."

As Uncle Zebedee anticipated, the evening brought a goodly number of visitors, who, one after another, came dropping in until the sitting-room was pretty well filled, and it was as much as Eve and Joan could manage to see that each one was comfortably seated and provided for.

There were the captains of the three vessels, with a portion of the crew of each, several men belonging to the place--all more or less mixed up with the ventures--and of course the crew of the Lottery, by no means yet tired of having their story listened to and their adventure discussed. Adam's absence was felt to be a great relief, and each one inwardly voted it as a proof that Adam himself saw that he'd altogether made a missment and gone nigh to damage the whole concern. Many a jerk of the head or the thumb accompanied a whisper that "he'd a tooked hisself off," and drew forth the response that "'twas the proper line to pursoo;" and, feeling they had no fear of interruption, they resigned themselves to enjoyment and settled down to jollity, in the very midst of which Adam made his appearance. But the time was passed when his presence or his absence could in any way affect them, and, instead of the uncomfortable silence which at an earlier stage might have fallen upon the party, his entrance was now only the occasion of hard hits and rough jokes, which Adam, seeing the influence under which they were made, tried to bear with all the temper he could command.

"Don't 'ee take no notice of 'em," said Joan, bending over him to set down some fresh glasses. "They ain't worth yer anger, not one among 'em. I've kept Eve out of it so much as I could, and after now there won't be no need for her to come in agen; so you go outside there. Her's a waitin' to have a word with 'ee."

"Then wait she may," said Adam: "I'm goin' to stop where I am.--Here, father," he cried, "pass the liquor this way. Come, push the grog about. Last come first served, you know."

The heartiness with which this was said caused considerable astonishment.

"Iss, iss, lad," said old Zebedee, his face glowing under the effects of hot punch and the efforts of hospitality. "That's well said. Set to with a will, and you'll catch us up yet."

During the laughter called forth by this challenge, Joan took another opportunity of speaking. "Why, what be 'bout, Adam?" she said, seeing how unlike his speech and action were to his usual self. "Doan't 'ee go and cut off your naws to spite yer face, now. Eve's close by here. Her's as sorry as anythin', her is: her wouldn't ha' gone out for twenty pounds if her'd knawed it."

"I wish you'd hold yer tongue," said Adam: "I've told you I'm goin' to stop here. Be off with you, now!"

But Joan, bent on striving to keep him from an excess to which she saw exasperation was goading him, made one more effort. "Awh, Adam," she said, "do 'ee come now. Eve--"

"Eve be--"

But before the word had well escaped his lips Joan's hand was clapped over his mouth. Too late, for Eve had come up behind them, and as Adam turned his head to shake Joan off he found himself face to face before her, and the look of outraged love she fixed upon him made his heart quail within him. What could he do? what should he say? Nothing now, for before he could gather up his senses she had passed by him and was gone.

A sickening feeling came over Adam, and he could barely put his lips to the glass which, in order to avert attention, he had caught up and raised to his mouth. At a blow all the resolutions he had forced himself to were upset and scattered, for he had returned with the reckless determination of plunging into whatever dissipation chanced to be going on.

He had roamed about, angry and tormented, until the climax of passion was succeeded by an overpowering sense of gloom, to get away from which he had determined to abandon himself, and, flinging all restraint aside, sink down to that level over which the better part of his nature had vainly tried to soar. But now, in the feeling of degradation which Eve's eyes had flashed upon him, the grossness of these excesses came freshly before him, and the knowledge that even in thought he had entertained them made him feel lowered in his own eyes; and if in his eyes, how must he look in hers?

Without a movement he knew every time that she entered the room: he heard her exchange words with some of those present, applaud a song of Barnabas Tadd's, answer a question of Uncle Zebedee's, and, sharpest thorn of all, stand behind Jerrem's chair, talking to him while some of the roughest hits were being made at his own mistaken judgment in holding back those who were ready to have "sunk the Looe boats and all aboard 'em."

In the anguish of his heart Adam could have cried aloud. It seemed to him that until now he had never tasted the bitterness of love nor smarted under the sharp tooth of jealousy. There were lapses when, sending a covert look across the table, those around him faded away and only Eve and Jerrem stood before him, and while he gazed a harsh, discordant laugh would break the spell, and, starting, he would find that it was his own voice which had jarred upon his ear. His head seemed on fire, his senses confused. Turning his eyes upon the tumbler of grog which he had poured out, he could hardly credit that it still stood all but untasted before him. A noisy song with a rollicking chorus was being sung, and for a moment Adam shut his eyes, trying to recollect himself. All in vain: everything seemed jumbled and mixed together.

Suddenly, in the midst of the clamor, a noise outside was heard. The door was burst violently open and as violently shut again by Jonathan, who, throwing himself with all his force against it, cried out, "They'm comin'! they'm after 'ee--close by--the sodjers. You'm trapped!" And, exhausted and overcome by exertion and excitement, his tall form swayed to and fro, and then fell back in a death-like swoon upon the floor.

_The Author of "Dorothy Fox."_

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

A VILLEGGIATURA IN ASISI.

To most travellers a visit to Asisi is a flying visit. They drive over from Perugia or up from the railway station, and if, besides San Francesco and Santa Chiara, they see the cathedral and San Damiano, they believe themselves to have exhausted the sights of the town. The beautiful front of what was once a temple of Minerva can be seen in passing through the piazza in which it stands: the departing visitors glance back at the city from the plain, and--"Buona notte, Asisi!"

Yet this town, as well as most Italian _paesi_, would reward a more lengthened stay, and, unlike many of them, a refined life is possible here. A person at once studiously and economically inclined might do much worse than commit himself to spend several months in the city of St. Francis. We did so last year, on the same principle that made us in childhood prefer the cherries that the birds had pecked, finding them the sweetest. We had heard Asisi abused: it was out of the world, it was desperately dull and there was nothing to eat. We therefore sent and engaged an apartment for the summer, and our confidence was not betrayed.

Perhaps the hotels are not good: we have never tried them. But the market is excellent for a mountain-city, and in the autumn figs and grapes are cheap and abundant. There are apartments to be let, and servants to be had who, with a little instruction, soon learn to cook in a civilized manner.

We have a fancy that there is a different moral atmosphere in a town surrounded by olive trees and one set in vineyards, the former being more sober and reserved, the latter more joyous and expansive. The latter may, indeed, carry its spirit too far--like the little city of Zagorolo near Rome, where the inhabitants are noted at the same time for the strength and excellence of their wines and for the quarrelsomeness of their dispositions. Palestrina, a little way off on the hillside, with a flowing skirt of vines all about it, breathes laughter in its very air. One may sit in Bernardini's--known to all visitors to the city of Fortune--and hear the travellers who come there laugh over mishaps which they would have growled over anywhere else. The comparison might be made of many other towns.

Asisi is set in a world of olives. They swing like smoke from a censer all through the corn and grain of the plain; they roll up the hills and mountains, climbing the almost perpendicular heights like goats; they crawl through the ravines; they cover the tiny plateaus set between the crowded hills; and plantations of slim young trees are set through the city, bending like long feathers and turning a soft silver as the wind passes over them. It is delightful to walk under the olive trees in early summer, when they hang full of strings of tiny cream-colored blossoms. In winter these blossoms will have changed to a small black fruit. The trees are as rugged as the roughest old apple trees, and many of them are supported only on a hollow half-circle of trunk or on two or three mere sticks. One wonders how these slender fragments of trunk can support that spreading weight above, especially in wind and tempest, and how that wealth of blossom and fruit can draw sufficient sustenance through such narrow and splintered channels; but the olive is tough, and the oil that runs in its veins for blood keeps it ever vigorous.

True to my fancy--which, indeed, it helped to nourish--Asisi is a serious town. It has even an air of gentle melancholy, which is not, however, depressing, but which inclines to thoughtfulness and study. Travellers are familiar with its aspect--the crowning citadel with the ring of green turf between it and the city, which stretches across the shoulders of the mountain, row above row of gray houses, with the magnificent pile of the church and convent of St. Francis at its western extremity, clasped to the steep rock with a hold that an earthquake could scarcely loosen. Three long streets stretch from east to west, the central one a very respectable street, clean, well-paved, and delightfully quiet. You may sit in a window there and hear nothing the livelong day but the drip of a fountain and the screaming of clouds of swallows, which are, without exception, the most impudent birds that can be imagined. Annoyed one day by the persistent "peeping" of a swallow that had perched in a nook just outside my window, I leaned out and frightened him away with my handkerchief. He darted down to a little olive-plantation below, and a minute after up came a score or two of swallows and began flying round in a circle directly before my window, screaming like little demons. Now and then one would dart out of the circle and make a vicious dip toward my face, with the evident wish to peck my eyes out, so that I was glad to draw back. It reminded me of the famous circular battery which attacked one of the Confederate forts during our civil war, and it was quite as well managed.

The _vetturino_ whom we took from the station up to the town on our arrival told me, when I gave my address, that the Sor Filomena had gone away from Asisi, and I had better go to the hotel Leone. I insisted on being taken to the Sor Filomena's house. He replied that the house was closed, and renewed his recommendations of the Leone. After the inevitable combat we succeeded in having ourselves set down at our lodgings, where Sor Filomena's rosy face appeared at the open door.

"Why did you tell such a lie?" I asked of the unblushing vetturino, using the rough word _bugia_.

He looked insulted: "I have not told a bugia."

With a philosophical desire for information I repeated the question, using the milder word _mensogna_. He drew himself up, looked virtuous and declared that he had not told a mensogna.

"Why, then," I asked, "have you said one thing for another?"

It was just what he wanted. He immediately began a profuse verbal explanation of why one thing was sometimes better to say than another, why one was truer than another, and so mixed up his _una cosa_ and _un' altra cosa_ as to put me quite _hors de combat_, and send me into the house with the impression that I ought to be ashamed of myself for having told somebody a lie. It brought to my mind one of my father's favorite quotations: "Some things can be done as well as some other things."

I was shown to my room, which was rough, as all rooms in Asisi are, but large and high. As Sor Filomena said, it had _un' aria signorile_ in spite of the coarse brick floor and the ugly doors and lumpy walls. Some large dauby old paintings gave a color to the dimness, there were a fine old oak secretary black with age, a real bishop's carved stool with a red cushion laid on it, and a long window opening on to a view of the wide plain with its circling mountains and its many cities and _paesetti_--Perugia shining white from the neighboring hill; Spello and Spoleto standing out in bold profile in the opposite direction; Montefalco lying like a gray pile of rocks on a southern hilltop; the village and church of Santa Maria degli Angeli nestled like a flock of cloves in the plain; and half a dozen others.

I ordered writing-table and chair to be set before the window, and enthroned upon the bishop's tabouret an unabridged Worcester--this being probably his first visit to Asisi--and I was immediately at home.

The servant, Maria, whose maternal grandmother was a countess, was making some last arrangements in the room.

"Come and see what a beautiful new moon there is," I said to her.

She came to the window and looked toward the west. "That isn't the moon: it is a star," she said, fixing her eyes upon Venus.

It was quite characteristic of her class. They all think _forestieri_ do not know the moon from a star.

I pointed lower down, to where an ecstatic crescent was melting in the sunset gold.

She gazed at it a moment, then said: "It is beautiful: I never noticed it before. I never look at the sky except to see what the weather is to be. It is for you signori to look at beautiful things, not for us _poveretti_.--Do you see the sky in America?" she asked presently.

I assured her that we do, and that the sun, moon and stars shine in it just as here in Italy.

She was greatly puzzled. "I thought that America was under ground," she said.

I remembered Galileo and held my peace. Besides, in these days of universal knowledge, when we hear scientific terms lisped by infant lips, it is refreshing to see an example of fine old-fashioned ignorance. Yet this woman had better manners than are to be found in most drawing-rooms, a sweet, courteous dignity, and in matters which came within her personal knowledge great good sense and judgment. Only she had never learned that from the centre of the earth all directions are up.

Of course a stranger's first visit in Asisi is to the basilica of San Francesco, and, though I had seen it before, I lost no time in renewing my acquaintance with it. This church is not only the jewel of Asisi, but one of the most precious of Italy. It is among churches what a person of genius is in a crowd. The rich marbles one sees elsewhere suggest the mechanic in their arrangement, and one grows almost tired of them; but here the soul of Art and Faith has poured itself out, covering all the wide walls, the ceilings, the sides of arches, the ribs of groinings--every foot of space, in short--with life and color; and how much more precious is one of those solemn pearly faces than a panel of alabaster or the most cunning mosaic of marbles! In the upper church alone there are twenty-two large frescoes of Cimabue and thirty of Giotto. Over these pours the light from fourteen large colored windows, unimpeded by side-aisles. When the sun beats upon these windows the church seems to be filled with a transparent mist softly tinted with a thousand rich hues. The deep-blue, star-sown vault sparkles and the figures on the walls become a vision.

The upper church has been in danger of losing its beautiful choir, a marvel of carving and _intarsio_, which Cavalcasella, inspector of fine arts in Italy, removed for the odd reason that it was a work of the fourteenth century, while the church was of the thirteenth, and to be in perfect keeping should have a stone choir. I have not learned whether this hyper-purist will require of the congregation a thirteenth-century costume when the church is again open for service.

These beautiful stalls, one hundred and two in number, are now placed for safe-keeping in what was the infirmary of the adjoining college. Possibly, when the work going on _pian piano_ in the church is completed, they may be restored to their original place. Their sombre richness would show well in that radiant atmosphere.

The work in the church is, however, well done, and was greatly needed, for those precious frescoes were gradually going to decay. No touch of pencil is allowed: the work is one of preservation merely, and is being conducted with the greatest care. The loosened _intonaco_ is found by tapping lightly on the wall: plaster is then slipped underneath and the painting firmly pressed to its place. At first _gesso_ was used, but it was found not to answer the purpose. Every smallest fragment of painting is saved, and the blank spaces are filled in with plaster which is painted a light gray. This freshens and throws out the adjoining colors.

It is customary to call the lower church "devotional." With many, a dark church is always devotional. I should rather call it sympathetic. Every sort of mood may here find itself reflected, and the sinner be as much at home as the saint. Anger and hate may hide as well as devotion: the artist may dream, the weary may rest, the stupid doze. The only objects which ever seemed to me utterly incongruous there were a brisk company of hurried tourists, red-covered guidebook in hand, clattering with sharp-sounding boot-heels up the dim nave and talking with sharp, loud voices at the very steps of the altar where people were kneeling at the most solemn moment of the mass. But even these invariably soften their tones and their movements after a while.

This church has always some pleasant surprise for the frequent visitor. The morning light shows one picture, the evening light another: the sunrise adorns this window, the sunset that. There is no hour from dawn to dark in which some gem of ancient painting does not look its best, while little noticed, if seen at all, at other hours. Some are seen by a reflected light; others, when the church is so dark that one may stumble against a person in the nave, gather to themselves the dim and scattered rays like an aureole, from which they look out with soft distinctness; and there are others, again, upon which a sun-ray, finding a narrow passage through arch after arch, alights with a sudden momentary glory that is almost startling.

It is a fascinating place, that middle church--never light, but always traversed by some varying illumination which is ever lost in shadows. And in those shadows how much may lurk of present material beauty and of beautiful memory! Here, before the chapel of St. Louis, Raphael lingered, learning the frescoed Sibyls of its vault so by heart that he almost reproduced them afterward in the Pace at Rome--that dear Raphael who did not fear being called a plagiarist, his soul was so full of beauty, and he so transfigured whatever he touched with that suave pencil of his that seemed to have been clipped in light for a color. And where did the feet of Michael Angelo rest when he stood in the transept and praised that Crucifixion painted on the wall? One might expect that the stones would have been conscious of the Orpheus they supported.

In the college adjoining the church there were a year ago but fifteen monks, and no others are admitted. When these fifteen shall be dead the convent--_Sacro Collegio_ they call it--will pass entirely into the hands of the government, which now uses the greater part of it for a school for the sons of poor teachers, who are sent here from all parts of Italy.

Accompanied by a professor of the college, we went over that part of the building not appropriated to the monks. It is a little town in itself, and has something of the variety and contrasts of a town. To go from the vast refectory to that upper part of the building called the Ghetto, with its interminable low and narrow corridor and lines of little chambers, is to see the two extremes of which building is capable.

Without intending to write a statistical article, I may give a few of the dimensions we took note of. The refectory is one hundred and ninety feet long and forty wide, and is capable of seating at table five hundred persons. The tables run around the room, with a single row of seats against the wall, and are served from the centre of the hall. Quite across one end extends a painting of the Last Supper. At one side is a tiny pulpit, from which in the old time one would read aloud while the monks ate.

The infirmary and rooms used for storing articles in ordinary use occupy twenty large chambers. The five elementary school-rooms are each fifty feet square, the kitchen is eighty-three feet square, and the fencing-hall and garden adjoining contain together over sixty-six hundred square feet. The cistern under the cloister is of nearly the same size.

There is water in profusion--in the court, the kitchen, the boys' wash-rooms, wherever it can be needed. In the entry from the principal court is an odd fourteenth-century fountain which is a perfect calendar. It is set against the wall, and is in twelve compartments, answering to the twelve months of the year. In the frieze above are carved roses, red stone on a white ground--in some compartments thirty, in others thirty-one, answering to the days of the month. All the fountains are made of the crimson-and-white stone of Asisi, which is seen everywhere about the city--in vases for holy water, in pavements, in garden-walls, in the foundations of houses. The stone, a red sandstone, is found in plenty in the adjoining mountains, and has a rich, soft crimson hue with irregular lines of white. But it is very hard to work, and could scarcely be made to pay the expense of the necessary machinery.

"For what I should have to pay for a bath of red marble, about one hundred lire (twenty dollars)," said the Count B---- to me, "I could buy a bath of Carrara."

"Baths of crimson marble and of Carrara!" I thought, and remembered with an involuntary shudder my dear native zinc.

But to return to the Sacro Collegio. In one of the immense labyrinthine cellars is a _botte_ for wine capable of containing five thousand litri. There, it is said--I know not how truly--once a year, when the botte was emptied, came four of the spiritual fathers of the college above, with a table and chairs, and played a certain game of cards, which was one of their simple amusements. Whether this meeting was intended as an exorcism of any evil influences which might threaten the new must about to be put in, or a mild bacchanalian tribute to the empty space from which they had drawn so much comfort and cheerfulness during the year, or whether the wine left some fine perfume behind it which they wished to inhale, tradition saith not. Maybe the fathers never went there, and the story is merely _ben trovato_.

In the school of design we admired a copy of some of the carving of the choir of the cathedral of Asisi. The leaves were remarkably crisp and all the lines full of life. My guide told me that this choir and the famous one of St. Peter's in Perugia were designed by the same artist, but that of Perugia was executed by another and more timid hand, while this of Asisi was carved by the artist himself.

Our last visit in the college was to the grand _loggia_--finer than anything of the kind I have seen in Italy except the Loggia del Paradiso of Monte Casino, which is open, while this of San Francesco is closed. The grandeur of this loggia, with its lofty arches and long perspective, is in harmony with the magnificence of the view to be seen from it. Seated there, on the stone divan that runs the whole length of the colonnade, I listened a while to the very interesting talk of my companion. This gentleman, Professor Cristofani, is said to be one of the most learned men in Umbria, and has studied so thoroughly his native province as to be an authority on all that concerns its history and antiquities. A native of Asisi, he has devoted himself especially to that city, and his _Storia di Asisi_ and _Guida di Asisi_ are monuments of learned and patient research. He has written also a history of San Damiano which has lately been translated in England.

The government took possession of this church and convent of San Damiano, the first home of St. Clara and her companions, and proposed establishing there a school of arts and trades; but Lord Ripon persuaded them to sell the property to him, and in his turn presented it to the _frati_ from whom it had been taken. It is a rough place, but interesting in memories.

"I have a book _in petto_," the professor said, "which will, I think, be more valuable and interesting than the others. I have collected material for a history of the church and convent of St. Francis, and shall write it as soon as I have time. I should be glad if it could be illustrated."

While he spoke my imagination was already turning over the leaves of a history of that stately monument, around which clusters so much of Middle-Age story, and looking at copies of forms and faces which to remember is a dream of rainbows and angels. There should be that quaint Madonna who points her thumb over her shoulder at St. Francis while she asks her Son to bless him, and the three saints and the Madonna of the north transept, and the pictures at the entrance of the chapel of San Martino, and the vault of the chapel of St. Louis, and a thousand other lovely things.

And, "Signor Professore," I said eagerly, "how I should like to translate that work, pictures and all, into English!"

He cordially consented, with many compliments.

As we left the loggia he pointed to the arch opposite the entrance-door. "That is the arch of suicides," he said: "more than one man has thrown himself down that precipice."

We were joined by a Benedictine monk as we went but, who proposed that we should go up the campanile. It is pleasant to visit the bells of a famous or favorite church. It is like seeing a poet whose songs we have heard, and pleasanter in some respects; for while the poet may mantle himself in commonplace at our approach, like Olympus in clouds, one can always waken the spirit of song in these airy singers.

The way up this campanile is very rough, a mere gravelly path, and one can only maintain his footing by holding a rope that runs all the way up, following the four sides. Reaching the large chamber at the top, we paid our respects to the seven bells, whose intricate changes I had so many times tried to follow. Their ringing is a puzzle. In the middle hung the melancholy _campanone_, with a silvery soprano by its side--a very Dante and Beatrice among bells.

We stayed to hear the noon Angelus strike, and while the last stroke was still booming around the great bell I took a step toward it and stretched my hand out.

I was instantly snatched backward, with a profusion of excuses.

"It is said," the professor explained, "that if a bell be touched, even with the finger-tip, while ringing, it will instantly break. I do not know if it be true, but it is worth guarding against."

It was indeed! A fine appetite I should have had for my breakfast, at that moment awaiting me, if I had had to reflect over it that the great bell of the great basilica of St. Francis of Asisi had that very morning been cracked into pieces by my fore finger! What visions of horrified crowds of _Asisinati_, of black storms of newspaper items, of censuring gossip the world over, would have come between me and that purple pigeon smothered in rice which Maria had promised me! The pope himself would have known me individually out of the cloud of his subjects, and have frowned upon my image. And how it would have been whispered behind me to the end of my days, "That is the lady who broke the great bell of St. Francis"! But I had not broken it, and it still hangs sound and strong, to send its melancholy sweet music out to meet the centuries as they roll in storm and sunshine over the eastern mountains. Let us be thankful for the evils which might have happened and did not.

I cannot resist the temptation to relate a little incident concerning this same learned Professor Cristofani, it struck me as so quaint. He is a poor man--literature, and even teaching, do not pay very well in Italian paesi--and he has a family. Cheaply as servants may be employed, he could not afford one, and his wife was not very well. Last summer the _Alpinisti_ visited Asisi, and some of the principal members, having an introduction to him, wished to visit him. Their stay in Asisi was short, and, being sunrise-and-mountain-top people, they made their call at six o'clock in the morning on their way to the top of Mount Asio, from which Asisi takes its name, and, I may here add, the correct spelling of its name, which I have followed. A servant from the Leone Hotel showed the visitors to the house, and very stupidly knocked at the kitchen-door. A loud "_Avanti!_" from within answered the knock. The door was opened by the guide, revealing a tableau. The professor, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up and an apron tied on, was earnestly kneading a mass of dough preparatory to sending it to the baker's oven, where everybody bakes their bread, and his pretty blonde young daughter was making coffee at the kitchen fire.

"Well, I am a poor man, and my wife was sick," he said afterward, in telling the story, with a sad smile in his eyes, which are as blue and almost as blind as violets.

These stories awaken a laugh only at the time, but gain a certain sublimity when years have gilded them--like that one of St. Bonaventura, which this reminds us of: When the two legates sent by the pope of that time to carry the scarlet beretta of a cardinal to St. Bonaventura set out in search of him, they were obliged to follow him to a little Franciscan convent at a short distance from Florence, where he had retired for devotion and to practise for a while the humble rules of his order. As these two dignified prelates came solemnly around an angle of the building they glanced through the open kitchen-window, and were astonished to see the personage they sought engaged in washing the supper-dishes. He accosted them with perfect calmness, and, learning their errand, requested them to hang the hat in a tree near by till he should have finished washing the dishes. They complied, and the pots and pans and plates having been attended to, the whole community adjourned to the chapel and the saint received the dignity of prince of the Church.

The eight days' festa of Corpus Domini opened in Asisi with one of the most exquisite sights I have ever seen, the procession of the cathedral as it passed from San Francesco through Via Superba on its return to the cathedral. We took our places in a window reserved for us, and waited. There all was quiet and deserted. The air was perfumed by sprigs of green which each one had strewn before his own house. One living creature alone was visible--a little boy who knelt in the middle of the street and carefully placed small yellow flowers in the form of an immense sunflower chalked out on the pavement. Here and there, in some stairway-window, a shrine had been prepared, with its Madonna, lamp and flowers. It was near noon of a bright June day, but the houses were so high that the sun struck only on the upper stories of the north side of the street. All below was in that transparent shadow wherein objects look like pictures of themselves or like reflections in clear water. The whole street was indeed a picture, with its gray houses set in irregular lines, and as distinct in character as a line of men and women would have been. On the building opposite our window was an inscription telling that Metastasio had lived there--on another a date, 1419.

In 1419, when they piled the stones of that wall, Christopher Columbus was not born, yet the basilica of St. Francis had been built more than one hundred and fifty years; and on such a June day as this the Asisinati leaned from their windows to see a Corpus Domini procession come up the street, just as they were now doing. It came through the fragrant silence and clear shadow like a vision. I could not restrain an exclamation of surprise and delight, for I had not dreamed of anything so beautiful. The procession would have been striking anywhere, but shut in as it was between the soft gray of the opposite stone houses, with the green-sprinkled street beneath and the glorious blue above, it was as wonderful as if, looking down into clear deeps of water, one should see the passing of some pageant of an enchanted city buried deep in the crystalline waves centuries ago. There was nothing here but the procession, leisurely occupying the whole street, treading out faint odors without raising a particle of dust. The crowd that in other places always obscures and spoils such a display here followed on behind. The leisureliness of an Italian religious procession is something delicious, as well as the way they have of forming hollow squares and leaving the middle of the street sacred to the grander dignities.

The members of the different societies wore long robes of red, blue or of gray trimmed with red, and had small three-cornered pieces of the material of the robe suspended by a string at the back of the neck, to be drawn up over the head if necessary. The arms of the societies were embroidered on the breast or shoulder, and each one had its great painted banner of Madonna or saint and a magnificent crucifix with a veil as rich as gold, silver, silk and embroidery could make it. There were the white _camicie_ half covering the brown robes of long-bearded, bare-ankled Cappuccini, and sheets of silver and gold in the vestments of the other clergy.

Presently the canopy borne over the Host appeared, with the incense-bearers walking backward before it and swinging out faint clouds of smoke: the voices of the choir grew audible, singing the _Pange lingua_, and everybody knelt. In a few minutes all was over.

There was a fair in connection with this feast, the most notable part of which was dishes of all sorts set on tables or spread on the grass of the pleasant piazza of St. Peter's, the Benedictine church, with no roof over but the sky. The brown and yellow-green earthenware for kitchen use would have delighted any housekeeper. We bought some tiny saucepans with covers, and capable of holding a small teacupful, for a cent each. Italian housekeepers make great use of earthen saucepans and jars for cooking. One scarcely ever sees tin--iron almost never. In rich houses copper is much used, but brown ware is seen everywhere.

The next notable festa, and the great feast of Asisi, is the Pardon, called variously the Pardon of Asisi, the Pardon of St. Francis and the Porziuncola.

In the old times, and particularly when this indulgence could be obtained only in Asisi, the concourse of people was so great that there were not roofs to cover them, and many slept in the open air. But since the favor has been extended to other churches, as well as from other reasons, the number is greatly diminished, and consists chiefly of people in _villeggiatura_ near by and of a few hundred Neapolitan peasants, who with undiminished fervor come to obtain the Pardon, and whose singular performance, called _gran ruota_ (the great wheel), everybody goes to see.

The Catholic reader will know that this Pardon can be obtained only from vespers of the first to vespers of the second day of August, and that while in every other church communion is a necessary condition, it is sufficient to merely pass through the chapel of the Porziuncola, for which St. Francis obtained the indulgence from Pope Honorius.

There is a large fair in connection with this festa--merchandise of all sorts in the piazza and corso, and a cattle-fair in the upper part of the town. The long white road stretching from Asisi to Santa Maria degli Angeli in the plain was quite black with _contadini_ coming up with their goods in the early dawn, and a sound of hoofs and of many feet told that the procession was passing the house. There were carts full of produce, men leading white and dove-colored cattle, and women with large round baskets on their heads. These baskets contained live fowl. In one a large melancholy turkey meditated on his approaching fate: in another, two of lighter disposition swung their long necks about and viewed the scene. One of these baskets was as pretty as the blackbird pie of famous memory. In it sat eight chickens of an age to make their debut on the platter, all settled into a fluffy, soft-gray cushion, out of which their little heads and necks and half-raised wings peeped and turned and fluttered in a manner that testified to the agitation of their spirits. The woman carrying this basket would have made a pretty caryatid, chickens and all, so straight was she, so robust her shoulders and so full and regular the oval of her face.

The cattle were superb--some immensely large, others delicately small, and all with such long, slim, pointed horns as made one shrink. Those strong, high-lifted heads carried their weapons like unsheathed scymitars. Red cords were twined across their foreheads from horn to horn, and red tassels swung beside their faces. This procession passed in almost entire silence, with only a pattering of hoofs that sounded like heavy rain.

Presently appeared a light wagon in which sat alone a large fleshy woman, who had quite the expression of one making a triumphal entry into the city. Her black hair was elaborately dressed in braids fastened with gold pins and in short curls on the forehead, and was lightly covered with a black lace veil. Her dress was a sky-blue silk, with a lace shawl carefully draped over the wide shoulders. Her hands were loaded with rings and her neck with gold chains, and a large medallion swung over two large brooches. There was a smile of conscious superiority on her coarsely-handsome face as she glanced over the contadini, who humbly made way for her. A small, meek, well-dressed man who walked beside the wagon seemed to be the proprietor of its occupant, and to be somewhat oppressed by his good fortune. There was no room for him in the wagon. It occurred to me that this might be an avatar of the old woman of Banbury Cross.

The crowd thinned away like rain that from a heavy shower falls only in scattered drops, and I was about turning from the window when my eyes fell upon a beautiful bit of color across the way, standing out, as so much Italian color does, against the background of a gray stone wall. It was an odd, slim cone, something over five feet high, made of grass and clover sprinkled through with burning poppies. I was just thinking that this verdure must be fastened to a pole set into the ground when it began to move. The fresh, long grass waved, the poppies glowed like live coals when blown upon, two slim brown feet and ankles appeared under the green fringe, and the dimpled elbow of a slim brown arm peeped out above. Nothing else human was visible as this figure walked away up the street toward the fair. Poor Ruth! She had neither cows, pigs nor chickens, but she came with such riches as she could glean at the roadside from bountiful Nature, clothed and covered from the top of her invisible head down to her well-turned ankles in a garment as fair as fancy could weave.

Later, Count B---- came to take me to the cattle-fair, where we found the upper piazza all a drift of shaded snow at one side with cows and oxen, and at the other a shining chestnut-color with horses and donkeys. We walked among these creatures, my companion warding away from me their long horns and telling me some little items of bovine character which may be known the world over, but which were new to me. Some cattle are women-haters, he said, and in a country where women have so much to do with the cattle that was a great defect. The buyer detected the flaw in this way: he passed his hand slowly down the creature's back from the neck to the tail: then a woman would do the same. If the animal made any difference between the two or looked round at the woman, he would not buy. They try them also when they are eating in the stall. If the animal looks round when it is eating at the person who is approaching, it is ill-natured.