Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 9, 2025
What was the stupefaction of the inhabitants of the village of Pietranera, who had been on the watch since sunrise for the departure of the chief magistrate of their department, when they saw him go straight across the square and enter the della Rebbia dwelling, accompanied by the three Barricini. "They are going to make peace!" exclaimed the village politicians.
At the end of twelve months, the court was about to give its decision, and according to all appearances in favour of the colonel, when Barricini placed in the hands of the public prosecutor a letter, signed by a certain Agostini, a well-known bandit, threatening him, the mayor, with fire and sword if he did not relinquish his pretensions.
He did not, as my readers already know, suspect the Barricini of the murder, but he did accuse them of having forged Agostini's letter, and this letter, he believed, at any rate, had brought about his father's death. He felt it was impossible to prosecute them for the forgery.
Orso did not leave his house, and the door of the Barricini dwelling remained closely shut. The five gendarmes who had been left to garrison Pietranera were to be seen walking about the square and the outskirts of the village, in company with the village constable, the sole representative of the urban police force. The deputy-mayor never put off his sash.
Once upon a time, Colonel della Rebbia sent a small sum of money to the Municipal Council of his commune to help to provide a fountain. The lawyer Barricini hastened to forward a similar gift, and to this generous strife Pietranera owes its water supply. Round about the evergreen oak and the fountain there is a clear space, known as "the Square," on which the local idlers gather every night.
That letter, monsieur, was probably the indirect cause of my father's death." The prefect sat thinking for a moment. "That your father should have believed that, when his own hasty nature led him into a lawsuit with Signor Barricini, is excusable. But such blindness on your part really can not be admitted. Pray consider that Barricini could have served no interest of his own by forging the letter.
The bodies of his two sons were brought home to Lawyer Barricini, each corpse thrown across a mule, which was led by a peasant. A crowd of dependents and idlers followed the dreary cortege. With it appeared the gendarmes, who always came in too late, and the deputy-mayor, throwing up his hands, and incessantly repeating, "What will Signor Prefetto say!"
Here's another of them wiped out, and by a right and left too! It's striking." As he thus spoke his funeral oration over the Barricini, Brandolaccio hastily guided Orso, Chilina, and Brusco, the dog, toward the Stazzona maquis.
They have gone to meet him on the road, and he is to stop a day at Pietranera, before he goes on to Corte, to lay what they call a corner-stone such stupid nonsense! He will sleep to-night with the Barricini; but to-morrow they'll be disengaged.
When she had come to the end of it she exclaimed: "Orlanduccio Barricini went down to Bastia a month ago, when it became known that my brother was coming home. He must have seen Tomaso, and bought this lie of him!" "Signorina," said the prefect, out of patience, "you explain everything by odious imputations! Is that the way to find out the truth? You, sir, can judge more coolly.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking