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In these he found himself served by Antonio with so much judgment, diligence, and expedition, that in the year 1512 he gave him the charge of the corridor that was to lead to the ditches of the Castello di S. Angelo; for which he began to receive a salary of ten crowns a month; but the death of Julius II then took place, and the work was left unfinished.
Doubtless, had not the war come on he would have achieved success in his business ventures then, as he did afterwards. When Lieutenant Colonel Alger reported to Colonel Gray for duty he appeared the ideal soldier. Tall, erect, handsome, he was an expert and graceful horseman. He rode a superb and spirited bay charger which took fences and ditches like a deer.
As days passed that slight reticence and dejection in his manner, which they had at first attributed to remorse and a guilty conscience, now began to tell as absurdly in his favor. Here was poor Uncle Billy toiling though the ditches, while his selfish partner was lolling in the lap of luxury in San Francisco!
A vast extent of land lying low and level near the banks of the river Glenelg, and well fitted, if properly drained, for the abundant growth of useful and valuable produce, was found, during the rainy season, to be in the state of a foul marsh, overgrown with vegetation, choking up the fresh water so as to cause a flood ankle-deep; and this marshy ground, being divided by deep muddy ditches, and occasionally overflown by the river, offered, as may be supposed, no small hindrances to the progress of the travellers.
A young Spaniard, carrying a long gun, with its rest suspended at his side and the burning match in his right hand, who was walking with nonchalance upon the rampart, stopped to look at Cinq-Mars, who was riding about the ditches and moats. "Senor caballero," he cried, "are you going to take the bastion by yourself on horseback, like Don Quixote Quixada de la Mancha?"
I had the road; there was no mistaking it; it ran along between trees and fences which were plainly visible; but there were ditches and brush buried under the snow which covered the grade to a depth of maybe three feet, and every bit of these drifts was of that treacherous character that I have described.
Not that he was oppressed by the labors of learning, but that he wanted to be out of doors. Many a little one was equally eager for the freedom of the fields, but the common child-love for hedges and ditches, and flower-picking, and the like, was intensified in Jan by a deeper pleasure which country scenes awoke from the artist nature within him.
How many crimes, how many wars, how many murders, how many misfortunes and horrors, would that man have saved the human species, who pulling up the stakes or filling up the ditches should have cried to his fellows: Be sure not to listen to this imposter; you are lost, if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong equally to us all, and the earth itself to nobody!
All the water at this time of year is red too, as the rivers are stirred up by the heavy summer rains, and resemble angry muddy ditches more than fresh-water streams.
Already the rain fell in crystal rods; already the whole face of the country sounded with the discharge of drains and ditches; and I looked forward to a day of downpour and the hell of wet clothes, in which particular I am as dainty as a cat.
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