Chapter VI: Part 6

Presently the _Signor Cappellano_ comes in. He is supposed to be superintending the business, but there is field labour to attend to, the potato harvest is at hand, which the _Cappellano_ can ill afford to leave in other care than his own.

‘_Orsù_,’ begins the little man sharply. ‘Haste with your business, girls, for I have much to do and little time to waste.’

‘And it is perhaps necessary that your honour remain here to spy upon us,’ retorts the foremost of the maidens, pertly? ‘We are fairly capable of setting in order the church, and you may return to the fields.’

The little priest laughs. He knows that he is not much beloved among the neighbours, but the speaker is a pretty girl among her set, and the _Cappellano_ would fain be a favourite. He walks around, making a few haphazard remarks, that are received with about as much scorn as the feeble suggestions of an English curate who comes in among the squire’s daughters in the midst of decorations. He is soon out again in the hot daylight.

‘The good-for-nothing meddler!’ ejaculates she fervently who has spoken before. ‘It seems impossible he should not have understood by this time that I will have none of his impertinence!’ and she laughs a loud laugh, in which the others join also, furtively glancing at one another and then giggling afresh.

‘Say on, Bianca, and tell us a little news,’ they plead. And the request is readily complied with, for Bianca is the bold and adventurous spirit of the village, and has always some tale on hand which she loves to pass on amongst the quieter of her companions. The damsel is a proud and powerful woman; she has taken her stand long since in their midst, and, before her face at all events, the rest of the flock is tacitly content to submit to her sway.

She stands now upon the altar steps as she begins her story—a fine and goodly figure. Through the soft texture of her blue homespun, likely enough her only garment, one can clearly see the curves of her large and shapely form. Her bare feet rest freely upon the cool marble; one of her bare arms, from whence sleeves are tucked away, is stretched on high to fix a garland around the reredos, the other—curved and rounded beautifully—selects flowers from the basket at her side. Firm and graceful are the poses into which her figure is thrown as she moves and stands and stoops in the various requirements of her task. Bianca is no wondrous beauty; she has the heavy features and the sallow complexion of her race—she is but a fair sample of our Apennine _contadina_, only a woman with dark and fervid eyes, with masses of coarse and glossy hair; yet she has a fairness of form and a perfection of graceful strength, that we may not look to find elsewhere, as we find it at every turn amongst the North Italian peasants.

‘Well, girls,’ says she, and her voice sounds clear above the noise of the bells, ‘you must know that I’ve had an adventure—a fine and a merry one, too, and, what’s more, it’s the son of the _sindaco_ that I have to thank for it.’

‘Oh!’ comes an ejaculation in many tones from all the maidens.

‘It was down at the fair of Presoli. I went to sell and to buy for the mother, and as I was bargaining over a handkerchief—and I must have been red with excitement, too—he comes up behind me, and I hear him laughing with right good-will at my tussle with the old _pedona_. “Ha, ha! my pretty girl,” says he, “and I will give you the handkerchief.” “A thousand thanks, Signor Beppo,” I answer, and then we discourse a little, and when I have sold the little white heifer and bought the sieves and the rolling-pin for the mother, “It is nearly evening,” says he, “and at dusk the dance is to begin. Thou wilt surely come and step one measure with me.” I stay for the dance, I give no thought to the scolding which the mother will, perhaps, give me—for she expected me home for the supper, you must know—but I just enjoy myself to the full. Then the Signor Beppo gives me to eat and to drink, good wine of Monferrato, and he conducts me home in the later evening—it must have been upon ten o’clock.’

‘Oh, what fun!’ exclaim all the girls. ‘But didst thou not fear the mother?’

‘_Che!_’ the girl ejaculates, shrugging her shoulders. ‘I invented a little white lie for her. I told her there had come a rich _signore_, and wanted to buy the heifer for a good price, but then, that he went away, having said he would come back for her; that I waited, though tired and weary I was, until dusk of evening, and when he never came, that I sold to another man. Oh, the mother praised me for a thrifty girl! You think I am so stupid that I can’t even find a lie when I want it!’

The girls laugh. ‘Oh, no,’ says one, ‘and the white lies which one needs not to tell in confession are so fair and convenient.’

‘But say on, Bianca,’ calls out another. ‘The handkerchief that he gave thee—thou hast it?’

‘Surely. It is a ravishing handkerchief. He would have given me a brooch of gold, but that I would not.’

‘Oh, pity!’ says a sympathetic maid.

‘Pity!’ retorts Bianca. ‘Thou little fool! And what excuse should I have given for the trinket? The kerchief the mother knew well I meant to buy for myself, but gold gives no man to a girl but he who will marry her, and where was then my suitor to show? No, Bianca has got no gourd’s head on her shoulders! She knows her business! Also did he get his box on the ear before I had done with him, the fine young man,’ laughs she!

‘How was that? tell us,’ come the voices in chorus. But Bianca has said as much as she means to say, and no entreaties can extract more news from her.

‘I’ve told you the story for fun,’ says she, ‘and as to how I played my cards and why I spoke my mind as I did, that’s no concern of yours. And what’s more, girls, when your day comes, I don’t doubt you’ll know how to manage your game just as well as I did without any advice of mine,’ puts in this wary daughter of Eve. ‘All I say is, have your fun, and mind you don’t pay the bill.’

And Bianca is right, for again she is but a fair specimen of her class. The girls of North Italy are by no means so weak and impressionable as their free and fiery natures have led it to be surmised. Fun and frolic they love well enough, it is true; neither do they fear to run a risk of misunderstanding, sometimes, for the sake of a little glory and a brave adventure. But the girl who has not been dexterous with her weapons and bold in her dignity is for ever scorned amongst her neighbours and her comrades.

Therefore it is that our girls can freely go their way.

The Village Sempstress.

When the road leaves the church to steer for the valley’s narrower end and to follow the river’s course, it leads, before half a mile is gone, into the midst of a little hamlet that is one of San Matteo’s prettiest parasites. And there stands a cottage that has always been a marked feature in the neighbourhood. It is the house of Marrina, the village sempstress.

When the day’s heat has abated, and the shadows begin to deepen, and the breezes to blow more freshly, let us, with the villagers, gather round one of the village’s greatest characters.

She is an old maid. An old maid with plenty of ditties, like most of her kind, ditties about the youthful days when Paolo proposed, and nothing but prudence induced her to send poor Giovanni about his business—he who was such a handsome young fellow, too, and had such a flourishing _pasta_ business! But in spite of them all, Marrina is still single, though she is past fifty, and is of so portly a figure as to excuse any man for thinking twice about the necessary allowance of _polenta_ and beans. If you ask her, she will praise the Virgin to your face, who has kept her a virgin in peace and contentment until this age, and will assure you that, though Giovanni and Paolo were dying of love, nothing should persuade her to change her determination. Has she not nephews and nieces of all sizes, sexes, natures, and ages to cheer her loneliness? Does she not nourish towards all the men whose coats she fashions, and whose breeches she mends, a love far greater and more philanthropic than any she could have borne to one poor single husband?

It must surely be under no protest that Marrina is happy. Watch her broad, beaming face as she turns it round on the bystanders; listen to her good-humoured jests! She is no soured woman, though she has been lame from childhood, and has probably never been wooed as she pretends. She is proud of her position—the position which gowns and petticoats, corduroys and jackets, have won for her. With heavy figure, scantily clad in red and purple _bordato_—the homespun linen of the district—a bright yellow kerchief folded across her ample bosom, and her few grey locks neatly braided and packed into a lump behind her head, she sits on the stone bench beneath her cottage porch, two stockingless feet propped on an opposite stool, while she clips rashly with great scissors, sewing, settling, and jabbering jocosely the while.

A knot of peasants has gathered round; Marrina’s porch is almost as common a meeting-ground as the church piazza on _festas_ or the well at sunset. If there is any news rife anywhere, it is to be heard from the sempstress sooner than from anyone else; if there is any advice wanted, she is the one whose advice is asked at least, if rarely taken. A more sympathetic person could not be with whom to gossip over all matters of personal interest, with whom to weigh the pros and cons in all affairs of female indecision, and perhaps the taking of advice rarely includes much that is more definite. Besides the family circle—that children of brothers and of sisters, boys and girls of all ages, have swelled to goodly proportions around her—many inhabitants, not only of this hamlet, but of others in the parish, have met together to-night. Some have brought their own supper from home to eat, standing or lounging on steps and wall, others content themselves only with taking their evening rest. Amongst the men, many do not even talk; Marrina and her crew do it for them.

‘I never knew a man like you, Gian-Battista, for wearing out the knees of your breeches! I’ve patched this pair for you three or four times!’ (And this may clearly be discerned, for stuffs of more than one colour and texture have been used to help out the poor brown fustian.) ‘If you had a wife, and were not a blessed unencumbered mortal as I am, she would have told you long ago it wasn’t worth paying two _soldi_ every fortnight to get these things seen to! But I must earn my money, though I shan’t have the face to ask you for the coppers this time! Look there, here’s Bianca! She’s been to Ponte Decimo and some new stuff she’ll have brought to show me! I’m sick of these girls’ vanity! When I was a girl we took what our aunts and mothers gave us, without being so bold as to choose for ourselves. Eh, well, come on, child! What if I do talk? We’ve all been young once. Hand over the things.’

“I never knew a man like you Gian Battista, for wearing out
the knees of your breeches.”]

And the old face is as eager as any of the young ones over the merits of pure wool _versus_ cheaper mixed wares. ‘Give over thy silk apron, for the love of the Holy Mother, girl, and just buy a good thing while you’re about it! Who cares whether you’ve a silk apron or a decent stuff one? New-fangled notions from the towns! I’ve no patience with you all! As long as you’ve a good dress, a clean veil, and a little gold on, not the Lord himself but must needs be content with your looks!’

‘Don’t you think it’s too bright?’ objects the anxious and undecided purchaser. ‘They do say that in Genoa one wears nothing but dark colours.’

‘You go away with you!’ retorts the old woman angrily. ‘Why, when you can’t _get_ a colour now if you want it! When I was young that pedlar that you’ve heard me speak of—who used to look two ways out of his eyes, you know—why, I’ve known him bring round stuffs with colours in them that shamed the very Creator of the world! Now, hasn’t the Virgin that they carry round in procession got fine colours on? You don’t suppose the holy _Madonna_ doesn’t know what’s to be worn! Go to!’

And Marrina flings her big shears recklessly into some yards of calico, out of which there issues speedily the roughest pattern of a man’s shirt.

‘You’ve woven good linen this year, mother Teresa. I’ll buy twenty _palmi_ of it to make my Virginia some sheets against her marriage. The girl must have them, and, if her mother won’t give them her, I suppose her aunt must! And you,’ turning to the former girl, ‘not content with a stuff like that for a mere _festa_ dress, when my poor Tonietta has got nothing but a calico frock to have her First Communion! Why, I’d almost believe the wool was English, and they make no bad goods there, for they’re so rich they don’t need to.’

And Marrina takes the coveted stuff in her hands, crushing it to test its genuineness, and regarding it with the eye of a true connoisseur. Then, carefully refolding it, she gives back the packet without another word, and returns to her work.

The sky has become overcast. Banks and boulders of heavy cloud rest on the hills of Savignone down the valley. The mountains have caught the gloom, and look so dark that the ruined castle upon Monte Pilato’s side scarcely shows from off its background. A storm has been prophesied all day, because the air was so sultry; and now the walnuts overhead rustle ominously, and even the chestnuts far away seem to sway as though before a coming strength. Large drops of rain begin to fall.

‘Holy Madonna, and the tempest must come now when we want to keep the wheat upright!’

Marrina takes her huge person hastily away, limping over the stones, and calling with shrill voice to one niece to see to the linen, to the other to drive in the cows.

‘Ah, it’s become a strange parish since the days when I was a girl,’ she mutters. ‘Not a bell ringing yet for the Lord’s mercy against the storm, and it’s upon us, with the corn standing half a yard high, and the maize too!’

Most of the neighbours have disappeared to see after their property, but to the remaining Marrina addresses her complaint.

‘Why, when I was fifteen there wasn’t a stranger in the village—not even other country folk, let alone town folk! And now, because our valleys grow things better than theirs do, they must come and spoil our luck! It’s the strangers do it all. Not but that I admire the fine pink house over the river that Signor Mendicano built, as well as the blue front to the miller’s new cottage, but I say it’s the strangers spoil everything!’

‘You can’t have it both ways, dear heart,’ remarks a young man from beneath.

‘That’s all very well for you, Giannino. The strangers do you a great deal of good, I suppose, when they persuade you to play bowls all day and waste your time! When your land has gone to rack and ruin, and the disease has killed all your vines from want of a little care, they can set it all to-rights, I suppose, by just talking you over to go to America! It’s no fortune you’ll make there, but the fortune of pride and conceit, though you’ll have left your native land for it, and the girl who loves you well! But the young are all alike nowadays—no fear in them, and no fitting shame of things they know nothing about! And, to be sure, it’s not much there is in the girls of to-day that would keep a man to them! Yes, they’ll be all off to get their fortunes too, as if the poverty that did for their parents couldn’t do for them!

‘Ah, the bells _have_ begun to ring at last,’ she puts in as the clashing chime breaks in on her speech.

‘It’s all the foreigners from the towns!’ she goes on again glibly. ‘Now, I remember when I first used to go and mend canonicals in the sacristy for the _Prevosto_! It was as fearful he was of these _Signori_ as I am. They’ll ruin the village, Marrina, he said. And now doesn’t he go and eat their very _minestra_—I should even dare to say broth that’s made with meat on a Saturday, if it weren’t I’d be afraid for my soul at saying such a thing of the Lord’s priest! And no more delight does he take in walking under the canopy at procession than—_Dio!_ And there he is with the lady of the Signor Perrino! And a real woollen dress she has on, with this rain down on us! Why it’s a sin!’

Marrina quickly swings herself down the broken steps of her abode, and hastens towards the advancing couple.

‘Fetch a chair for her under the _pergola_; why it’s no education you young men have nowadays,’ she whispered angrily to Giannino.

The rain has come up the valley in a great mist; it has broken over the fields and the woods in a torrent that quickly saturates the ground; it drops again from the broad-leaved chestnuts. It is scarcely a wholesome rain, though the land was parched, for the hail descends and a violent storm might heavily damage the growing things of the country.

The _Prevosto_ seeks Marrina’s sympathy in this evil chance, but all her complaints have quickly given place to pleasure in the very presence of the townwoman with the real woollen dress on of a working-day. She is only a tradesman’s wife, but she has bits of news from the city and a figured silk jacket to display, and Marrina warms so that she is really mortified at the refusal of beans and _polenta_, which refreshment was offered at once with the gracious hospitality that comes as naturally to these courteous peasants as the passing benediction or chance greeting by the roadside.

But at last the storm is over, the air is fresh, the soil is fragrant after the rain. The _Prevosto_ goes on his way towards the sick person, whom he has to visit. The tradesman’s wife, after an exciting gossip, returns to the pink house in the meadows. Marrina lays aside her needle, for the night has darkened, and work cannot be done by firelight. ‘She’s a good soul, and it was a beautiful stuff,’ she murmurs sitting by the hearth. ‘But I say let everyone keep to what he’s been brought up in. And as for the strange folk and the going to America, I say, God forbid!’

The Village Damsel.

For a time holidays are over. Until the festival of the Madonna is due, after the dog days, there is no rigorous necessity for laziness. San Giovanni is past, and the most particular feasts of the early summer. Work is again the order of the day, with only the less important interval of Sunday to make a little breathing space—breathing space that will scarcely seem necessary from such pleasurable labour, perhaps, for all the peasants of the Northern Apennines think it indispensable even though they cannot be so fitly accused as the Southern Italians of that love of the _dolce far niente_ which has come to be considered, sometimes most unjustly, such a good description of their existence.

To-day is a _giorno feriale_, a working-day proper: let us judge for ourselves of the aptness of the proverbial reproof.

Standing on the church steps, as we stood on the day of the Corpus Domini, with the peasants—men and women—gathered in knots on the piazza, and the priest in their midst, you might see straight before you a road running right away amongst the meadows to the river’s bank, while to left of you another way winds itself above the water; and behind, a third, more rugged than ever, climbs the mountain’s side to a hamlet on the mountain’s brow. Take either of those three paths, and you cannot miss coming shortly into the midst of some steady labour.

Down towards the river’s shingle girls are driving cows to their evening drink, women are spreading yellow linen to bleach in the sunshine and moistening it with water that they dash up from the stream with their wooden scoops, or perhaps rolling it into bales before carrying it home. Below them the torrent’s bed widens out in the broader expanse of the valley, with plantations of willow trees guarding its way on the stones, and coronella shrubs bending over from the rocks; above them the water’s line dwindles away to a mere thread as it nears the mountains where it has had its birth. With the heavy homespun in coils on their heads and shoulders, or neatly folded away in baskets which they swing between them, the _contadine_ climb up to the meadow’s level, and so home to thatched cottages where walnuts grow in the fields, to lonelier cottages that stand in strong breezes on the ridge of the hill-side: home to fractious children, famished husbands, sons and brothers—the linen, the dinner, and the supper, have been their day’s work.

And on the broader way that leads to a larger neighbouring village, there have been also wayfarers. The little town that lies some three miles off down the river’s course holds a few things which cannot be procured in the village. It boasts a fair now and then, whence the head of a household brings back a calf or a heifer perhaps, and even on common days the town has a few shops that can produce articles of homely furniture, or even of bright peasant dress.

Nettina has been there this very afternoon. She is coming home as cooler shadows lengthen over the meadows and furrow the hills: she has a new wooden _conca_ on her head—the old timeworn copper one has been soldered so often, and yet always wears through and lets the water leak! In her hand she carries shoes which clash against a red earthen pot that is one of her purchases, and her large, shapely feet rise up and down off the sharp stones as fearlessly as though her way were across the cool turf of the meadow. Nettina is considered a handsome girl. She has keen dark eyes, a well-cut face, a brown skin, and black glossy hair that ripples gladly down beside her face and behind her ears, its plaits fitting round tightly into the head’s hollow above the nape of the neck; her teeth stand in beautifully even rows, large and white, and ready to be shown upon the slightest provocation to a smile. She walks well: though she must have been walking all day, she walks well, and is not tired. Her head is erect—the wooden bowl, poised on the cushion of her own knotted kerchief, only sways with the motion of her own gait. Her square shoulders scarcely give at all to the swing of her quick step, but the limbs move freely, and the body sways easily on the hips, upon one of which she holds a hand, as though to steady her step.

The last corner of the road has been doubled, and the well-known church spire with its blue painted belfry is in sight. Here the path from _La Madonna della Vittoria_ strikes the main road. A man descends it now. He should be a young man from the strength and speed of his step, but his face, and even the top part of his figure, is not visible, while his gait is of necessity stooping, for on his shoulders he bears an enormous load of hay packed into an enormous wicker pannier of coarsest network, through the holes of which long grasses press out to hang in a fringe around him. Nettina, however, seems to know, in spite of travesty, whether he be a young man or not.

‘A happy night to you, Beppino,’ she calls out, but without stopping her way.

‘And is it you, Nettina, of the walnut-grove? What, again to Ponte Novo? How many days in the week do you go to Ponte Novo?’

‘You’re an ill-educated man to speak so! But I pay no heed to you. Why should I wish, suppose you, to go to Ponte Novo? But a woman has duties which you men only remember when she forgets them!’

‘You say well—you say well! All the same the miller’s son who lives at Ponte Novo is better than the poor devils who grow the _gran turco_ up in the valley! Eh, I should like to see what you look like now?’

‘But you can’t! And it’s like your impudence to think I should look anything for you to see! I shall have no shame to tell you, when I go to say the “Yes” in church, _that_ you may count upon! So I will give you the holy night.’

And with this greeting Nettina hurries on. She has the water to fetch, and the supper to see to. She has no time for further parley. Only, as she walks, her white teeth are the better to be seen, as she thinks over the little conversation.

The sun has set. The sky is deeper and further than ever, for it is more transparent now that there is only a remembrance of the rosy glow. The solid hills meet the air that seems almost solid, too, so far away; their outlines lie peacefully upon the sky, soft browns and greens of pastures contrasting with the harsher character of rocks, and again with the softest quality of clouds. Just opposite, Monte Pilato breaks from out the quiet line of the horizon to strike up a great mass into the air, and at the foot of the valley Monte Cranio makes a mitre with its two sharp peaks, in whose clefts one can see the chestnut trees’ outline even from this distance.

The woods cluster so richly over the country that there scarcely seems room for the waving wheat to grow, for the large-leaved maize, nor the tall grass of the meadows. Below the road, some hundred feet, the river is creeping lazily, but now the rush of water over the weir warns Nettina that she is close at home, and must leave the river’s bank and climb a steep bit of path to reach her cottage on the hill’s ridge. Yet her figure scarcely stoops, nor her pace slackens, though the way is hard. To her right a little gorge cleaves the land, in which gurgles a half-parched rill, and Nettina’s lungs have strength, even as she climbs, for a merry shout to the labourer who works on the opposite side.

Now she has gained the more level road above. On her right hand, thick chestnut woods clothe a hill-side that slopes up toward the horizon; but on her left, fields, and vineyards, and meadows lie in fertile terraces one below the other, until they reach the valley’s depth where the stream, shallow sometimes and calm, then tossed and wayward, flows onward to the larger river. Chestnut woods again are upon the further slope. They grow and flourish everywhere—tall and sweeping where the ground is richest, but finding room even upon those narrowest ledges of earth for which the rock makes a little place. The woods are not very dense, nor the trees noble and stately, as in English parks and forests, but the trunks are old, and hollow sometimes, or gnarled again and sinuous and sweetly scented; the branches are curved, and graceful with a strange and pertinacious grace; large and full-veined leaves fan kindly in the breeze. Who would seek fairer and pleasanter woods wherein to pass summer days?

Now thatched and sloping roofs and whitewashed walls of cottages peep out from between the trees, and the damsel knows that she will soon be home. For there is the village which lies opposite to her own across the gorge, and little lights are already beginning to flicker from its open doors and windows. Not lamp-lights, or even rushlights; in the July days, at least, no light is needed after daylight is gone but the light of dying embers or of newly kindled sticks upon the hearth. These that she sees are the flames of the wood fires just lit for supper. And Nettina hastens forward with quicker step. There is a cool wind creeping softly about, and even the noise of the rushing water below seems to freshen the air. She has entered the hamlet. Walking upon the soft dead leaves which have been strewn over the stony way, and running up the few broken steps beneath the little _pergola_, she turns in at the cottage door.

The mother is on her knees, blowing from her sound lungs upon the struggling fire, whence the white wood smoke ascends freely. The kitchen is an odd and dingy little place, with its solitary window and blackened ceiling, where slender rafters are set widely apart, that the chestnuts, strewn over the floor above, may be dried during winter by the heat from beneath. There is no glass, moreover, to the window, but only heavy little wooden shutters; but these are not often closed, and the free air blows in by night and by day, bearing the sweet scent of carnations, that stand in a broken pot on the sill. There is no door leading into the sleeping-room—only an aperture in the wall. The pot hangs over the fire by means of a heavy chain from the centre beam. For the hearth is in the middle of the room in these Italian cottages, raised a few inches above the rest of the floor.

Rough benches stand around it, and these, with a table and a dresser at the further end, where paste is rolled out for the _maccaroni_, are all of dark walnut wood. The room is the dwelling-room as well as the kitchen—this do many little signs of rough comfort and homeliness abundantly testify. Red earthenware platters are ranged on a shelf, and several curious water-vessels, of earthenware, or metal, stand about, giving colour and quaintness to the room. On a low wooden stool without the doorstep sits a little maiden of some eight or ten years, dark and richly brown, like the greater part of Italian children; she shells beans into a platter of quaint yellow ware, and beside her, upon the low wall of the little terrace, sits another child—older by a year or two, who carries a tiny, swaddled mummy in her arms. She is no doubt the daughter of some neighbour, and is sitting here with her little charge, that she may, at least, not be scolded by the mother and worried by more babies at home.

‘Hie thee to the well, Nettina,’ says the elder woman, almost without looking up from her task, as she sees her daughter stand within the kitchen. ‘Thou hast been long at the fair. But patience! I will kindle these two sticks while thou art gone, and then we put on the _polenta_. Haste thee.’

The girl has already twisted her kerchief into a firm little cushion upon which to rest the water-vessel on her head. Then she takes the great copper _conca_ and sallies forth.

The village fountain lies hard by, and at this evening hour it is thronged with women, young and old, in quest of their nightly supply. A great chattering may be heard; the well is a trysting-place for young men and maidens, and a place of gossip for the old women: it is noisy. Nettina has ever been a favourite; proud though she be, she is fond and gentle, so that, peasant girl as she is, she has more tact and courtesy than many a high-bred lady. The girls welcome her loudly, and would fain detain her awhile for the usual exchange of confidences, but she is firm to-night in her resolve not to loiter, and only laughs at the importunate questions of companions, all eager to know if that rumour be true about the new gallant. The _conca_ is filled in a few minutes, and then lifted to its place on her head; lifted, not painfully nor clumsily, but with a movement full of that grace for which these strong and hardy girls are so specially remarkable. Watch her now as she descends the steep and stony path upon the village. Her figure—strong and beautifully measured—sways gently upon its hips, her knees are straightened slightly, and her toes are pointed that she may the better feel her way as she comes down the hill. The way is rough, and the stones roll from under her, neither dare she look to her steps by reason of the burthen on her head; yet her bare feet tread none the less firmly, nor fear to cling to the rocks. The brown column of her throat grows erect to support a shapely head from out curved and goodly shoulders, and, beneath a soft silken kerchief which she wears loosely across the top part of her figure, the breasts swell tenderly. One arm rests curved on her hip, as though to steady her gait; and, even through a sleeve of soft, stout stuff, the firm moulding of the flesh can be distinctly traced. The other arm hangs at her side, and seems to emphasize the graceful motion of her limbs.

The _polenta_ is boiling in the great pot, the beans are shelled, and the neighbour’s baby has been carried away to be unswathed and swathed again, when Tonietta, playing now in the road, shrieks out in her piping treble to say that the _signori_ of the _villa_ are about to come by on their evening walk. Nettina steps out upon the terrace, the wooden staff in her hand with which she has been stirring the pot, and even the mother is no less curious to have a peep at the blue muslin dresses, and starched frills, and elaborate-dressed hair of the gentry. They pick their way over the dirty ground with dainty shoes, no wise fitted for mountain wear. The ladies belong to a fine family of _negozianti_, who have rented the doctor’s house in the larger village. They are grand now, and glad to be stared at, for it is the eve of a great _festa_, otherwise might they be seen in the mornings, around their lodging, in attire far more slatternly than Nettina’s at the present moment.

‘_Orsù_,’ whispers the elder woman loudly to her daughter, ‘haste thee, and dish up the _polenta_. The _signori_ will eat with us to-night, who knows?’

But ere the meal is served and ready, the fine ladies have gone their way, mobbed and gazed at by many children, commented upon by many voices of the more learned ones.

Further down the village, families are already at supper, eating their _minestra_ from off wooden platters, while they lounge in the cool upon steps and balconies of rough stone.

‘A happy evening, pretty ladies! Come and eat a mouthful with us.’ Such are the courteous invitations poured out from all sides upon the passers-by. Hospitable-natured, for all their rough simplicity and their poverty, these good peasants are gracious and gentle-mannered, with never a thought of false shame. What they offer is of their best, and the gift needs no apology. Frank and primitive people, with winning and cheery ways, are these. Often have I rested with them beneath vine-trellised _pergole_, eating of their savoury food, or have sat upon a wooden bench, when youths and maidens gathered round the hearth on autumn evenings to toss and roast the chestnuts, and always have I been cared for as an honoured guest, while yet the merriment and the plain-speaking went on alike, nor did irksomeness creep in amongst them because of the presence of one guest who was not of their own caste.

But the twilight is fast deepening into night. The _signore_ have doffed their holiday clothes, doubtless, and are eating their supper by this time. Within the cottage there is scarce time to display the goods bought at the fair, scarce a moment wherein to question and marvel at the _centesimi_ which were deducted from each bargain, before the men are all there, clamouring for the supper that is so late to-night, and laughing at the yellow kerchiefs and tapes and buttons displayed to view on the kitchen dresser. All the purchases are quickly cleared away for very shame! Nettina lifts the flat baskets within doors, in which maize has been drying all day in the sun, and gathers up the golden cones that were hanging on cords along the cottage’s front; that other gold of the gourd-flowers, where they trail on the ground, changed to green an hour ago, when they shut their petals with the sunset.

Men and women close round the hearth, for supper is ready at last. ‘The minestra is good to-night,’ some one remarks; ‘the _faggioli_ are boiled to a savoury pulp, the _tagliarini_ are finely cut.’ Darkness has fallen; nine o’clock strikes. ‘Good-night, neighbours; I am weary,’ says Nettina. ‘Good-night.’

The Village Swain.

Ask Nettina what she thinks of him: pretty, proud Nettina, who can tread so stately a measure at the village _fête_, and can throw so scornful a glance at the man who has been too frivolous for her well-ordered mind! Well, maybe she is a bad one to choose for a fair opinion, for whether he please her or no she will toss her head, and answer you only with a gruff ‘_Cosa me ne fasso?_’ which, being interpreted from our dialect, means, What is he to me? So, better than that, ask our village pet, our dear little cosy, most comfortable, and convenient of flirts—Bianca del Prato; she will tell you truth! Yes; though with her lips—curling, smiling, rosy lips—she only simper, ‘he is not amiss,’ yet does not the creeping crimson colour say as clearly as any words, and would not the two brown eyes say so too, if only they were not cast down, ‘The village swain? He is charming; he is beautiful! Life would be nothing without him! And the red kerchief that I wore at the fair is lovely only because he told me my lips could shame the colour even of _that_.’ And yet he is not Bianca’s betrothed. Prepare to be shocked, oh righteous damsels! He is only one of the village swains—only ‘a young man like every other’—only a youth whose name and whose voice she knows well, the fire of whose banter she has stood bravely, the glance of whose eyes she has blushed beneath, nothing more. But where would be the use of the summer sun, thinks Bianca, if one might only look pretty for one’s own _gallante_!

There are three village beauties—you have seen them all. There are _four_ village beaux—of the very first water! So much the better for the girls, _they_ think! Pietro Mazzacane shall serve us for a type.

If, from the church, you take the straight road that has led you before to the home of Marrina, the sempstress, and if, instead of following your shadow, you turn to its right, and cross the river upon those odd old stepping-stones, if you do this of an evening after work hours, and climb the opposite hill till you reach the hamlet in front of you, maybe you may find Pietro smoking a clay pipe on the doorstep, whilst he devours a goodly bowl of the home _minestra_. He is a tall man, not heavily built, not even very broad-shouldered; as he lounges, one leg bent, one arm upraised behind his head, consolation’s emblem in clay between his lips, as he appears now, propping his manly form against the grey stone of the cottage wall, you might scarcely believe him to be strong or even a good labourer. His crisp black hair vies with the tendrils of his own vines in curly, wayward beauty; his dark, deep eyes tell of fire that can swiftly be roused, of love tales that can sweetly be told; his lips are ruddy, his limbs have the subtle shape which should be theirs. All this you will allow: even of his yellow skin you will graciously say ‘it harmonises with the rest.’ But still you doubt that that man can ever labour with the stern strength that labour demands: he does not look like it. And you are right. Put him to till _your_ ground, to dig _your_ trenches, to plant _your_ potatoes, and his long lazy limbs will achieve not a whit more than you gave them credit for, though his clay pipe will work busier than ever, and his siestas be the more frequent as also his merry jokes and his friendly conversations.

But do not judge our Pietro’s powers from _your_ trenches. Get up some day, when the steaming land bids men know how brazen will be the mid-day’s heat—get up when Pietro, when Nettina, and when Bianca get up: at three o’clock in the morning. The sky is grey. Perhaps there is not a cloud, and yet it is grey with a solemn greyness, and one would scarcely dare to hope for the rosy young light that will steal over it before long to flush it slowly into warm and fulsome life.

The mountains seem very near; their peaks and cones look very tall as they stand out of the morning mists that creep around their girth and wind themselves away into the hollows of the hills. Perhaps you find it almost cold. So does not Pietro. Only the sack in which he is to carry down a load from the mountain is wound round his shoulders above his linen shirt, but the keen exercise stands in place of covering, for an hour’s hearty lung-labour has brought him out upon the cone of Monte Marzo, some five hundred feet above the placid valley of his home. Bianca has driven the cows to pasture upon the slopes just below, but the village swain has only time for one shout in far-off greeting now; it is his _own_ business that he is about, and his own corn must not rot, nor his own land lie fallow for want of a good day’s swing of the pickaxe. What say you now? Are not his muscles tough, and is that arm not mighty that hurls the _zappa_ above his head and brings it down again into the stiff clay to dig up his field?

Look around you off this mountain-top. Behind you lies Monte Stella, before you the range of the Polcevera hills, to your right Antola with her great stretching shoulder and heavy-browed summit; below you are valleys, where meadows lie and waters flow and fall and trickle; and everywhere on high hills and descending slopes there is cultivation. It is no lazy race of men that has notched those mountain-sides with terraces the better to train the vines towards the sun, that has planted them with corn and maize, with peas and beans and potatoes, with fruit trees of every kind, that has trained the gourds and the vines, that has utilised every strip and corner of land upon the steeps, that has quarried the stone, and fed and tended the silk-worms. ‘_Per Bacco_, the Lord Himself could do no more,’ Pietro would tell you as he shoulders his huge pickaxe and, beneath the chestnut wood hard by, gathers and crowds into his sack no mean load of the first fallen leaves to strew beneath the cattle in cattle-sheds. One does not go down the mountain empty-handed, even after a hard day’s work, and no one could say that Pietro does not show to advantage running down the steep with faggots on his shoulders and over his head—running to keep his balance on the rough and rapid incline. Though Bianca would laugh if you found anything to admire in him at such a moment! ‘A young man not amiss, I grant you, but with a load of _foglia_ on his head—_Dio_, what a taste!’

No, Bianca likes him better on the days when, he being somebody else’s brother working with her own father, she can go with ‘somebody else’ to take the meal to them at midday; better still on the days when he is threshing with all the neighbours on her father’s threshing-floor, and comes to eat a _cena_ of her own preparing in her own home; best of all, when there is a fair at Ponte Novo or Bossola, and she, who is going to buy _conche_, can walk by his side, who is going to buy cattle.

Yes, those are fine days! One goes to see a friend the evening before, and gets one’s hair plaited in a beautiful _resca di pesce_ for the morrow’s adventure. [It does not get tossed as you might fancy; the sleep of the just is sweet and sound.] Then to rise with the daybreak, to don one’s best _bordato_ dress, to fold one’s yellow kerchief, and tie one’s heavy shoes, that all ‘goes without saying’ for a girl. That would be done for mere pride’s sake, whether one’s _gallante_ lives in Genoa, as Bianca’s does, or no.

And is it not the merest chance that Pietro, sauntering up the hill with two or three other young fellows abreast, all of them with hands in their pockets, and pipes in their mouths, and carnation in their soft felt hats, is it not the funniest thing that Pietro should just meet ‘_Bianca bella_’ upon the bend of the rising ground, where the town first comes to sight, and just have been making a joke about her to Giovanni, too? Well, well, at all events, Pietro has a very bright red scarf to gird up his loins, and a very specially handsome carnation, and quite a remarkable blue cravat, besides wearing his hat a little more to one side than the rest. He looks quite as well as if he had been dressed in Genoa; one cannot be expected not to see that, though one has a lover in the town! And Pietro knows that Bianca _has_ seen it, and is as pleased as he need be.

Surely no man ever had his way with the girls better than Pietro! Though Bianca picks up a friend at Cerisola, and there is a great deal of talk about woollen stuffs, our swain still fancies even the female rubbish is trimmed and fitted to his special ear. Oh, blessed and invariable male content! A pretty girl in front who cannot fail to admire the best-looking man about, a glass of sour _monferrato_ at the first village, and a pipe in your mouth—Paradise can offer nothing better! Excepting a good bargain, and for the better chance of that, all those other three good things are abandoned when once our Pietro gets into the thick of the cattle market. That poor pale little brindled heifer means success or failure, perhaps for the whole year, to our modest land and farm-owner. No wonder that knuckles come down bravely on the little three-legged table of the _osteria_ where Pietro sits face to face over wine with the seller; no wonder that oaths are frequent, and words run high! Is it not a question of two whole francs? Nevertheless, they split the difference, and make up the quarrel till it needs must be opened afresh over the game of bowls, whither buyers and sellers soon carry every grievance.

As Pietro stands swinging his arm for the fling—handling the bowl or stooping for his aim, as he saunters about among the company or drinks his glass at the open-air bar—in all or each of these poses he is an object of admiration to many even more than to Bianca del Prato, who has seen him grow tall ever since the day, ten years ago, when he switched the cherry-bough back into her face! An object of admiration, and, though he is a simple-hearted fellow enough, to none more than to himself. Is he not young and healthy—what better can he do? And no doubt he is right! Though Bobbio can perhaps produce better and Cerisola several as good, our Pietro is a good enough example of his kind. He is not very religious; he will laugh at the priests to their face when they pass in procession, and make fun of their Latin, but he will bend his knee and doff his hat and wedge his person just within the church-door at benediction time, or when the bell sounds at the elevation, as a good Catholic should: what man of sense does more? And at a bargain he will hold his own to the last, and come off triumphant if it be only to one _centesimo_; what better praise can one give to a man’s honesty? Surely, Pietro Mazzacane is as good as you could wish for a village swain!

The Love-letter.

There are three of the village girls who are prettier than its other girls. One of them is red-haired and buxom, with pink cheeks and white arms—she is the most admired by townsfolk: village folk have another taste. Nettina, from the walnut-grove, carries the palm with them—she has a figure that is grand in its every line, and when she dances on the green on a _festa_ night, she does not bound and frolic with uncurbed merriment, but moves stately through the ring, and has no mind for any foolish jest with men that are from the cities. Nettina is a very proud and modest maid—she cares for no new fashions of dress, she is thrifty and patient, and when she walks up the steep from the church to her father’s cottage she can bear the floursacks on her shoulders or the dry leaf on her head without show of weariness or stain. ‘What a fine chip of a woman,’ say the village suitors! But Nettina looks neither to right nor to left till a fitting offer be made and a trusty mediator ready to negotiate—so—to meet coming down the mountain or at the well of an evening or upon the piazza at Ave Maria and at the fair—Bianca even before Nettina is the pet of our village. She is grey-eyed and smooth-tongued, with long hair and lithe figure, not proud nor hasty, but good-tempered and merry, with ready jest, when the evening’s ‘chaff’ has hit the hardest. Moreover, she can deftly spin the distaff and weave linen on the hand-loom: Bianca is San Matteo’s second belle.

The daylight is gone, but the clearness of the summer’s night is as good as the sun. Supper has been cooked and eaten at home; the hearth is swept, and though the Angelus has finished sounding awhile ago, and resting-time is near, our Bianca sallies out into the white evening to do a commission that has been on her mind all day. The Signor Cappellano shall earn four _soldi_ to-night, and who knows if he shall not earn some more on the day of the wedding, for Pietro Gambari is rich, and every priest shall have his due. Already she begins to dream of that pretty day in the mellow autumn, and of the silk dress, which surely such a promising lover will not fail to bestow for the marriage, even besides the gold which it is her right to expect! And so many _confetti_ for the children! Bianca is rash. She is going to negotiate a little for herself, without the help, as yet, of the inevitable mediator. But only a little, to the extent of answering a love-letter! If the suitor be true and worthy, he will find the mediator to send to her father’s house.