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Behind the loggia were the priest's four rooms, bare even for the bareness of that squalid place. He kept no servant, but it was counted an honor to serve him, and the mothers of Corellia came by turns to cook and wash for him. Fra Pacifico, as I have said, had risen at daybreak. Now he is searching to find a messenger to send to Lucca, as the marchesa had desired, to summon Cavaliere Trenta.
Fra Pacifico had stood with his strong feet planted on the earth, over the edge of a rocky precipice by which the high-road passed and seized a furious horse dragging a cart holding six poor souls below. Fra Pacifico had found a shepherd of Corellia one of his flock struck down by fever on a rocky peak some twenty miles distant, and he had carried him on his back, and laid him on his bed at home.
Not a sound broke the silence nothing save the striking of the clock at Corellia, bringing with it visions of the dark old church the kneeling women and the peace of God within. Even Argo and his friends Juno and Tuzzi, and the bull-dog were mute. About twelve o'clock the marchesa arrived from Lucca. In her company came the Cavaliere Trenta and Maestro Guglielmi. Fra Pacifico was in waiting.
Maestro Guglielmi enters with a quick, brisk step and easy, confident bearing; indeed, he is in the highest spirits. He had trembled lest Nobili should have insisted upon leaving Corellia immediately after the ceremony when it was still broad daylight.
The driver is quite aware of this, and his long whip, which he has cracked at intervals all the way from Lucca would reach the grinning, white-toothed little vagabonds well; but he the driver grins too, and spares them. Together they all mount the zigzag mountain-pass, that turns short off from the right bank of the valley of the Serchio, toward Corellia.
Yet I think that I shall not only be excused, but receive the praises even of him who, as you say, is bringing this new action against Corellia, possibly because she is a woman, if during the hearing I explain my motives, more fully and amply than I can in the narrow limits of a letter, either in order to justify or even to win approval of my conduct. Farewell.
When all was over, Count Nobili was carried up the hill back to Corellia, in triumph, on the shoulders of Pietro the baker, and Oreste, the strongest of the brothers. Every soul of the poor townsfolk women as well as men who had not gone down to help had risen, and was out. They had put lights into their windows. They crowded the doorways. The market-place was full, and the church-porch.
As in the palace of Lucca, she still even at lonely Corellia lives as it were under the shadow of that great ancestral name. Lonely Corellia! Yes, it is lonely! The church bells, high up in the Lombard tower sound loudly the matins and the eventide. They sound louder still on the saints days and festivals. With the festivals pass summer and winter, both dreary to the poor.
"The people of Corellia would also offer their respectful homage to her," bravely adds Mr. Sindaco, tempting his fate. "The Lady Enrica is much esteemed here in the town." As he speaks the sindaco gazes in wonder at the muffled figure in the corner. Can this be she? Why does she not move forward and answer? and show her pretty face, and approve the people's greeting?
Thus the coach slowly traverses the whole length of the piazza, the wheels rumbling themselves into silence out in a long street leading to another gate on the farther side of the town. Not another word more is said that night among the townsfolk; but there is not a man at Corellia who does not curse the marchesa in his heart.
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