XVII
The sollione had ran his course. Already the vines on the slopes below Montefiano were showing patches of ruddy gold among their foliage, and the grapes were beginning to color, sometimes a glossy purple, sometimes clearest amber. Figs and peaches were ripe on the fruit trees rising from among the vines, and here and there tall, yellow spikes of Indian-corn rattled as the summer breeze passed over them.
Solitary figures prowled about the vineyard with guns – no brigands, but merely local sportsmen lying in wait for the dainty beccafichi which visit the fig-trees at this season and slit open the ripest figs with their bills. In the evening a half-dozen of the plump little brown-and-white birds will make a succulent addition to the dish of polenta on which they will repose. Perhaps, if fortune favor, a turtle-dove, or even a partridge, may find its way into the oven for the sportsman's evening meal. In the mean time, a few purple figs, from which the sun has scarcely kissed away the chill of the night dew, a hunch of brown bread and a draught of white wine from a flask left in the shade and covered with cool, green vine leaves, form a breakfast not to be despised by one who has been out with his gun since the dawn was spreading over the Sabine hills and the mists were rolling back before it across the Roman Campagna to the sea.
Who that has not wandered through her vineyards and forests, among her mountains and by the side of her waters in the early hours of a summer dawn, or the late hours of a summer night, knows the beauty of Italy? Then the old gods live again and walk the earth, and nature triumphs. The air is alive with strange whisperings: the banks and the hedgerows speak to those who have ears to hear – of things that lie hidden and numbed during the hot glare of the day.
The gray shadows lying over the campagna were fast dissolving before a light that seemed to change almost imperceptibly from silver into gold, as the first rays of the rising sun stole over the Sabine mountains. Across the plain, the summit of Soracte was already bathed in light, while its base yet lay invisible, wreathed in the retreating mists. The air was fresh with the scent of vines and fig-trees, and long threads of gossamer, sparkling with a million dew-drops, hung from grassy banks rising above a narrow pathway between the terraces of the vineyards.
A black figure suddenly appeared round an angle of the winding path. Don Agostino Lelli, his cassock brushing the blossoms of wild geranium and purple mallow as he passed, was making his way in the dawn of the summer morning back to Montefiano. He had been sitting through the night with a dying man – a young fellow whom an accident with a loaded wagon had mortally injured. The end had come an hour or two before the dawn, and Don Agostino had speeded the parting soul with simple human words of hope and comfort, which had brought a peace and a trust that all the rites enjoined by the Church had failed to do. Perhaps he was thinking of the failure, and wondering why sympathy and faith in the goodness of God had seemed to be of more avail at the death-bed he had just left than ceremonies and sacraments.
His refined, intellectual countenance wore a very thoughtful expression as he walked leisurely through the vineyards. It was not an anxious nor an unhappy expression, but rather that of a man trying to think out the solution of an interesting problem. As a matter of fact, he had been brought face to face with a problem, and it was not the first time he had been confronted by it.
He had, as in duty bound, administered the last sacrament of the Church to a dying man who had made due confession to him. But he had known perfectly well in his own mind that those sacraments had been regarded by his penitent as little else than a formality to be observed under the circumstances. He knew that if he had asked that lad when he was in health whether he honestly believed the santissimo to be what he had been told it was, the answer would not have been satisfactory to a priest to hear. He had asked the question that night, and two words had been whispered back to him in reply – "Chi sa?"
They were very simple words, but Don Agostino felt that they contained a truth which could not be displeasing to the God of Truth. Moreover, he honored the courage of the lad more than he did that of many who dared not confess inability to believe what reason refused to admit.
"Who knows?" he had said to himself, half-smiling, repeating the young fellow's answer. And then he had added aloud, "You will know very soon – better than any of us. Until then, only trust. God will teach you the rest."
Afterwards, answered by the look on the dying lad's face, he had given the sacrament.
And now Don Agostino was walking homeward in the peaceful summer dawn, and if there was pity in his heart for the strong young life suddenly taken away from the beautiful world around him, there was also some joy. Even now the veil was lifted, and the boy – knew. Perhaps the simple, human understanding, which could have no place in theology, had not led him so far astray, and had already found favor in the eyes of Him who gave it.
And Don Agostino looked at the landscape around him, waking up to a new day and laughing in the first rays of a risen sun. As he looked he crossed himself, and the lad who had been summoned from all this beauty was followed to his new home by a prayer.
Suddenly Don Agostino's meditations were interrupted by the report of a gun fired some yards in front of him, immediately succeeded by a pattering of spent shot among the leaves on the bank above him. He called out quickly, in order to warn the unseen cacciatore of his propinquity; for there was a sharp bend in the pathway immediately ahead of him, and he by no means wished to receive the contents of a second barrel as he turned it. A reassuring shout answered him, and he quickened his pace until, after turning the corner, a brown setter came up and sniffed at him amicably, while its owner appeared among the vines close by.
Don Agostino lifted his hat in response to the sportsman's salutation and regrets at having startled him.
"I was safe enough where I was, signore," he said, smiling; "but it was as well to warn you that there was somebody on the path. I did not wish to be taken for a crow," he added, with a downward glance at his soutane.
The cacciatore laughed. "Your reverence would have been even safer as a crow," he replied; "but indeed there was no danger. I was firing well above the path at a turtledove, which I missed badly. But it is better to miss than to wound."
Don Agostino looked at the speaker, and there was approval in his glance, either of the sentiment or of the appearance of the sportsman – perhaps of both.
"Sicuro," he replied, "it is better to miss than to wound. For my part, I should prefer always to miss; but then I am not a sportsman, as you see. All the same, I am glad you cacciatori do not always miss – from the point of view of the stomach, you know. The signore is from Rome, I conclude?"
The other hesitated for a moment.
"From Rome – yes," he replied,
Don Agostino glanced at him again, and thought how good-looking the young man was. A gentleman, evidently, by his manner and bearing – but a stranger, for he had certainly never seen him in Montefiano.
"I," he said, "am the parroco of Montefiano – Agostino Lelli, per servirla."
The young cacciatore started slightly, and then he hesitated again. Courtesy necessitated his giving his own name in return.
"And I, reverendo," he replied, after a slight pause, "am Silvio Rossano, of Rome."
Don Agostino looked surprised.
"Rossano?" he said. "A relative, perhaps, of the Senator Rossano?"
"My father," replied Silvio. "Your reverence knows him?"
"Altrocchè!" exclaimed Don Agostino, holding out his hand. "Your father is an old friend – one of my oldest friends in days gone by. But I have not seen anything of him for years. Che vuole! When one lives at Montefiano one does not see illustrious professors. One sees peasants – and pigs. Not but what there are things to be learned from both of them. And so you are the son of Professor Rossano? But you have not come to Montefiano for sport – no? There is not much game about here, as no doubt you have already discovered."
He glanced at Silvio's game-bag as he spoke. Three or four beccafichi and a turtle-dove seemed to be its entire contents.
Silvio looked embarrassed, though he had felt that the priest's question must come. His embarrassment did not escape Don Agostino, who jumped at the somewhat hasty conclusion that either this young man must be hiding from creditors, or else that he must be wandering in unfrequented places with a mistress. In this latter case, however, Don Agostino thought it improbable that he would be out so early in the morning. It was, no doubt, a question of creditors. Young men went away from Montefiano when they could scrape up enough money to emigrate, but he had never known one to come there.
Silvio's answer tended to confirm his suspicions concerning the creditors.
"I did not come to Montefiano for the sport, certainly," he said; "and, indeed, I am not living in Montefiano itself. I am staying at Civitacastellana for the moment."
"Civitacastellana!" exclaimed Don Agostino. "Pardon my curiosity, my dear Signor Rossano, but how in the world do you occupy yourself at Civitacastellana – unless, indeed, you are an artist? It is a beautiful spot, certainly, with its neighboring ravines and its woods, but – well, after Rome you must find it quiet, decidedly quiet. And the inn – I know that inn. One feels older when one has passed a night there."
"I cannot call myself an artist," said Silvio, laughing, "though I certainly draw a great deal. I am an engineer by profession, and Civitacastellana is – well, as you say, a very quiet place. Sometimes one likes a quiet place, after Rome."
"Ah, yes, that is true," returned Don Agostino, thoughtfully. "I, too, have come to a quiet place after Rome, but then I have been in it more than ten years. I think the change loses its effect when one tries it for so long a time."
Silvio glanced at him. He had at once realized that this was no ordinary village priest, scarcely, if at all removed from the peasant class. The quiet, educated voice, the polished Italian, the clear-cut, intellectual features, all told their own tale quickly enough. And this Don Lelli was an old friend of his father. Silvio was well aware that his father did not number very many priests among his friends, and that the few whom he did so number were distinguished for their wide learning and liberal views.
"You know Rome, reverendo?" he inquired, with some curiosity, though he knew well enough that he was talking to a Roman.
Don Agostino smiled. "Yes," he replied, "I know Rome. That is to say," he added, "if anybody can assert that he knows Rome. It is a presumptuous assertion to make. Perhaps I should rather say that I know one or two features of Rome."
"You no doubt studied there?"
"Yes, I studied there. I was also born there – like yourself, no doubt. We are both Romani di Roma– one cannot mistake the accent."
"And it was then you knew my father, of course," said Silvio.
"When I was a seminarist? No, some years after that period of my life. I knew your father when – well, when I was something more than I am now," concluded Don Agostino, with a slight smile.
"When you were a parish priest in the city?" asked Silvio.
"When I was at the Vatican," replied Don Agostino, quietly.
"At the Vatican!" Silvio exclaimed.
Don Agostino laughed quietly. "Why not?" he returned. "You are thinking to yourself that members of the pontifical court are not usually sent to such places as Montefiano. Well, it is a long story, but your father will tell it you. He will not have forgotten it – I am quite sure of that."
They had walked on together while they were talking, and presently emerged on the steep road leading up the hill to Montefiano. From this point Silvio could see the little town clustering against the face of the rock some mile or so above them, and the great, square castle of the Acorari dominating it.
"You have been to Montefiano?" Don Agostino asked his companion.
"Yes," answered Silvio, "several times. But," he added, "the Montefianesi do not seem very communicative to strangers."
Don Agostino laughed. "They are unaccustomed to them," he said, dryly; "but they are good folk when once you know them. For the rest, there is not much for them to be communicative about."
"Has the castle no history?"
"It has much the same history as all our mediæval and renaissance strongholds – that is to say, a mixture of savagery, splendor, and crime. But the Montefianesi would not be able to tell you much about it. I doubt if nine out of every ten of them have ever been inside it."
"But it is inhabited now," said Silvio, quickly.
Don Agostino glanced at him, struck by a sudden change in the tone of his companion's voice.
"Yes," he replied, "for the first time for many years. The princess and her step-daughter, Donna Bianca Acorari, are there at present."
"You know them, of course, reverendo?"
"I have not that honor," replied Don Agostino. "My professional duties do not bring me into communication with them, except occasionally upon paper. But," he continued, "will you not come to my house? You can see it yonder – near the church, behind those chestnut-trees. It is getting late for your shooting, and I dare say you have walked enough. I have to say mass at six o'clock, but this morning I shall be late, for it is that now. Afterwards we will have some coffee and some eggs. We have both been occupied for the last few hours, though in different ways; and I, for one, need food."
Silvio accepted the invitation with alacrity, and they proceeded to mount the long hill together.
"I thought," he observed, presently, "that you would certainly be acquainted with Princess Montefiano."
"Are you acquainted with her?" asked Don Agostino, somewhat abruptly.
"No," replied Silvio, "except by sight. My father lives in Palazzo Acorari in Rome – we have the second floor."
Don Agostino said nothing, and they walked on for some minutes in silence. The heat of the sun was by this time becoming considerable, and both of them felt that they would not be sorry to arrive at their journey's end. Twenty minutes more brought them to the little piazza in front of the church, and here Don Agostino paused.
"I must say the mass at once," he said; "the people will have been waiting half an hour or more. There," he added, "is the house. You can go through the garden and wait for me if you do not care to assist at the mass."
Silvio, however, declared that he wished to be present, and Don Agostino led the way into the church. Half a dozen peasant women and one or two old men formed the congregation, and Silvio sat down on a bench near the altar, while Don Agostino disappeared into the sacristy to vest himself.
The mass did not take long, and at its conclusion Don Agostino beckoned to his guest to follow him into the sacristy, whence a passage communicated with the house. By this time Don Agostino was fairly exhausted. He had eaten nothing since the evening before, and his long walk and sad vigil through the night had left him weary both in body and mind. His mass over, however, he was at liberty to eat and drink; and the caffè e latte, fresh-laid eggs, and the rolls and butter his housekeeper had prepared were most acceptable. Even Silvio, who had already breakfasted on figs and bread, needed no pressing to breakfast a second time.
The food and rest quickly revived his host's strength, and very soon Silvio could hardly believe that he was sitting at the table of a parish priest in the Sabina. Don Agostino proved himself to be a courteous and agreeable host. He talked with the easy assurance of one who was not only a man of God, but also a man of the world. Silvio found himself rapidly falling under the spell of an individuality which was evidently strong and yet attractive. As he sat listening to his host's conversation, he wondered ever more and more why such a man should have been sent by the authorities of the Church to live, as he had himself expressed it, among peasants and pigs in a Sabine town. He was scarcely conscious that Don Agostino, while talking pleasantly on all sorts of topics, had succeeded in quietly eliciting from him a considerable amount of information concerning himself, his profession, and, indeed, his personality generally. And yet, so it was. Monsignor Lelli had not occupied an official position in the Vatican for some years without learning the art of being able to extract more information than he gave.
In this instance, however, Don Agostino's curiosity concerning his guest was largely due to the favorable impression Silvio's good looks and frank, straightforward manner had made upon him; as well as to the fact that he was the son of a man for whose learning he had a deep admiration, and with whom he had in former years been very intimate.
The more he talked to Silvio, the more he felt his first impressions had not been wrong. He would have liked very much to know, all the same, why this handsome lad was wandering about the neighborhood of Montefiano. He shrewdly suspected that a few birds and a possible hare were not the true inducement; and that, unless he were hiding himself, this young Rossano must have some other game in view.
The expression which had passed over Silvio's face on hearing that he was not acquainted with the owners of Montefiano had not escaped Don Agostino's notice. He had observed, moreover, that his young guest more than once brought the conversation round to Princess Montefiano, but that he never alluded to her step-daughter. Monsignor Lelli had been young himself – it seemed to him sometimes that this had happened not so very long ago – and he had not always been a priest. As he talked to Silvio Rossano, he thought of the days when he had been just such another young fellow – strong, enthusiastic, and certainly not ill-looking. Meeting the frank glance of Silvio's blue eyes, Don Agostino did not believe that their owner was hiding from anything or from anybody. He felt strangely drawn towards this chance acquaintance, the only educated human being, the only individual of his own class in life with whom he had interchanged a word for months – nay, for more, for it was now more than two years since some private business had taken him to Rome, where he had seen one or two of his old friends.
Their light breakfast over, Silvio Rossano presently rose, and thanking the priest for his hospitality, was about to depart. Don Agostino, however, pressed him to remain.
"I do not have so many visitors," he said, with a smile, "that I can afford to lose one so quickly. You will give me great pleasure by staying as long as you can. It is hot now for walking, and if you are returning to Civitacastellana, you can do that just as well in the evening. I have a suggestion to make to you," he added, "which is, that we should smoke a cigar now, and afterwards I will have a room prepared for you, and you can rest till mezzogiorno, when we will dine. When one has walked since dawn, a little rest is good; and as for me, I have been up all the night, so I have earned it."
Silvio hesitated. "But I cannot inflict my company upon you for so long," he said. "You have been already too hospitable to me, Don Agostino."
Don Agostino rose from the table, and, opening a drawer, produced some cigars. "I assure you," he replied, "that it is I who will be your debtor if you will remain. As I say, I seldom have a visitor, and it is a great pleasure to me to have made your acquaintance. I think, perhaps," he continued, looking at Silvio with a smile, "that it is an acquaintance which will become a friendship."
"I hope so, monsignore," replied Silvio, heartily, "and I accept your invitation with pleasure."
"That is well," returned Don Agostino; "but," he added, laughing, "at Montefiano there are no monsignori. There is only the parroco– Don Agostino."