CHAPTER I
THE OLD TOWN
The setting sunbeams slant over the antique gateway of Sorrento,fusing into a golden bronze the brown freestone vestments of old SaintAntonio, who with his heavy stone mitre and upraised hands has forcenturies kept watch thereupon.
A quiet time he has of it up there in the golden Italian air, inpetrified act of blessing, while orange lichens and green mosses fromyear to year embroider quaint patterns on the seams of his sacerdotalvestments, and small tassels of grass volunteer to ornament the foldsof his priestly drapery, and golden showers of blossoms from somemore hardy plant fall from his ample sleeve-cuffs. Little birds perchand chitter and wipe their beaks unconcernedly, now on the tip of hisnose and now on the point of his mitre, while the world below goes onits way pretty much as it did when the good saint was alive, and, indespair of the human brotherhood, took to preaching to the birds andthe fishes.
Whoever passed beneath this old arched gateway, thus saint-guarded, inthe year of our Lord's grace ----, might have seen under its shadow,sitting opposite to a stand of golden oranges, the little Agnes.
A very pretty picture was she, reader,--with such a face as yousometimes see painted in those wayside shrines of sunny Italy, wherethe lamp burns pale at evening, and gillyflower and cyclamen arerenewed with every morning.
She might have been fifteen or thereabouts, but was so small of staturethat she seemed yet a child. Her black hair was parted in a whiteunbroken seam down to the high forehead, whose serious arch, like thatof a cathedral door, spoke of thought and prayer. Beneath the shadowsof this brow lay brown, translucent eyes, into whose thoughtful depthsone might look as pilgrims gaze into the waters of some saintly well,cool and pure down to the unblemished sand at the bottom. The smalllips had a gentle compression, which indicated a repressed strengthof feeling; while the straight line of the nose, and the flexible,delicate nostril, were perfect as in those sculptured fragments of theantique which the soil of Italy so often gives forth to the day fromthe sepulchres of the past. The habitual pose of the head and facehad the shy uplooking grace of a violet; and yet there was a gravetranquillity of expression, which gave a peculiar degree of characterto the whole figure.
At the moment at which we have called your attention, the fair head isbent, the long eyelashes lie softly down on the pale, smooth cheek; forthe Ave Maria bell is sounding from the Cathedral of Sorrento, and thechild is busy with her beads.
By her side sits a woman of some threescore years, tall, stately, andsquarely formed, with ample breadth of back and size of chest, like therobust dames of Sorrento. Her strong Roman nose, the firm, determinedoutline of her mouth, and a certain energy in every motion, speak thewoman of will and purpose. There is a degree of vigor in the decisionwith which she lays down her spindle and bows her head, as a goodChristian of those days would, at the swinging of the evening bell.
But while the soul of the child in its morning freshness, free frompressure or conscience of earthly care, rose like an illuminated mistto heaven, the words the white-haired woman repeated were twined withthreads of worldly prudence,--thoughts of how many oranges she hadsold, with a rough guess at the probable amount for the day,--andher fingers wandered from her beads a moment to see if the last coinhad been swept from the stand into her capacious pocket, and hereyes wandering after them suddenly made her aware of the fact thata handsome cavalier was standing in the gate, regarding her prettygrandchild with looks of undisguised admiration.
"Let him look!" she said to herself, with a grim clasp on her rosary;"a fair face draws buyers, and our oranges must be turned into money;but he who does more than look has an affair with me; so gaze away, mymaster, and take it out in buying oranges!--_Ave Maria! ora pro nobis,nunc et_," etc., etc.
A few moments, and the wave of prayer which had flowed down the quaintold shadowy street, bowing all heads as the wind bowed the scarlettassels of neighboring clover-fields, was passed, and all the worldresumed the work of earth just where they left off when the bell began.
"Good even to you, pretty maiden!" said the cavalier, approaching thestall of the orange-woman with the easy, confident air of one secureof a ready welcome, and bending down on the yet prayerful maiden theglances of a pair of piercing hazel eyes that looked out on each sideof his aquiline nose with the keenness of a falcon's.
"Good even to you, pretty one! We shall take you for a saint, andworship you in right earnest, if you raise not those eyelashes soon."
"Sir! my lord!" said the girl,--a bright color flushing into her smoothbrown cheeks, and her large dreamy eyes suddenly upraised with aflutter, as of a bird about to take flight.
"Agnes, bethink yourself!" said the white-haired dame; "the gentlemanasks the price of your oranges; be alive, child!"
"Ah, my lord," said the young girl, "here are a dozen fine ones."
"Well, you shall give them me, pretty one," said the young man,throwing a gold piece down on the stand with a careless ring.
"Here, Agnes, run to the stall of Raphael the poulterer for change,"said the adroit dame, picking up the gold.
"Nay, good mother, by your leave," said the unabashed cavalier; "I makemy change with youth and beauty thus!" And with the word he stoopeddown and kissed the fair forehead between the eyes.
"For shame, sir!" said the elderly woman, raising her distaff,--hergreat glittering eyes flashing beneath her silver hair like tongues oflightning from a white cloud. "Have a care!--this child is named forblessed Saint Agnes, and is under her protection."
"The saints must pray for us, when their beauty makes us forgetourselves," said the young cavalier, with a smile. "Look me in theface, little one," he added; "say, wilt thou pray for me?"
The maiden raised her large serious eyes, and surveyed the haughty,handsome face with that look of sober inquiry which one sometimes seesin young children, and the blush slowly faded from her cheek, as acloud fades after sunset.
"Yes, my lord," she answered, with a grave simplicity, "I will pray foryou."
"And hang this upon the shrine of Saint Agnes for my sake," he added,drawing from his finger a diamond ring, which he dropped into herhand; and before mother or daughter could add another word or recoverfrom their surprise, he had thrown the corner of his mantle over hisshoulder and was off down the narrow street, humming the refrain of agay song.
"You have struck a pretty dove with that bolt," said another cavalier,who appeared to have been observing the proceeding, and now, steppingforward, joined him.
"Like enough," said the first, carelessly.
"The old woman keeps her mewed up like a singing-bird," said thesecond; "and if a fellow wants speech of her, it's as much as his crownis worth; for Dame Elsie has a strong arm, and her distaff is known tobe heavy."
"Upon my word," said the first cavalier, stopping and throwing a glancebackward, "where do they keep her?"
"Oh, in a sort of pigeon's nest up above the Gorge; but one never seesher, except under the fire of her grandmother's eyes. The little oneis brought up for a saint, they say, and goes nowhere but to mass,confession, and the sacrament."
"Humph!" said the other, "she looks like some choice old picture of OurLady,--not a drop of human blood in her. When I kissed her forehead,she looked into my face as grave and innocent as a babe. One is temptedto try what one can do in such a case."
"Beware the grandmother's distaff!" said the other, laughing.
"I've seen old women before," said the cavalier, as they turned downthe street and were lost to view.
Meanwhile the grandmother and grand-daughter were roused from themute astonishment in which they were gazing after the young cavalierby a tittering behind them; and a pair of bright eyes looked out uponthem from beneath a bundle of long, crimson-headed clover, whose richcarmine tints were touched to brighter life by setting sunbeams.
There stood Giulietta, the head coquette of the Sorrento girls, withher broad shoulders, full chest, and great black eyes, rich andheavy as those of the silver-haired ox for whos
e benefit she had beencutting clover. Her bronzed cheek was smooth as that of any statue,and showed a color like that of an open pomegranate; and the opulent,lazy abundance of her ample form, with her leisurely movements, spokean easy and comfortable nature,--that is to say, when Giulietta waspleased; for it is to be remarked that there lurked certain sparklesdeep down in her great eyes, which might, on occasion, blaze out intosheet-lightning, like her own beautiful skies, which, lovely as theyare, can thunder and sulk with terrible earnestness when the fit takesthem. At present, however, her face was running over with mischievousmerriment, as she slyly pinched little Agnes by the ear.
"So you know not yon gay cavalier, little sister?" she said, lookingaskance at her from under her long lashes.
"No, indeed! What has an honest girl to do with knowing gay cavaliers?"said Dame Elsie, bestirring herself with packing the remaining orangesinto a basket, which she covered trimly with a heavy linen towel of herown weaving. "Girls never come to good who let their eyes go walkingthrough the earth, and have the names of all the wild gallants ontheir tongues. Agnes knows no such nonsense,--blessed be her graciouspatroness, with Our Lady and Saint Michael!"
"I hope there is no harm in knowing what is right before one's eyes,"said Giulietta. "Anybody must be blind and deaf not to know the LordAdrian. All the girls in Sorrento know him. They say he is even greaterthan he appears,--that he is brother to the King himself; at any rate,a handsomer and more gallant gentleman never wore spurs."
"Let him keep to his own kind," said Elsie. "Eagles make bad work indove-cots. No good comes of such gallants for us."
"Nor any harm, that I ever heard of," said Giulietta. "But let me see,pretty one,--what did he give you? Holy Mother! what a handsome ring!"
"It is to hang on the shrine of Saint Agnes," said the younger girl,looking up with simplicity.
A loud laugh was the first answer to this communication. The scarletclover-tops shook and quivered with the merriment.
"To hang on the shrine of Saint Agnes!" Giulietta repeated. "That is alittle too good!"
"Go, go, you baggage!" said Elsie, wrathfully brandishing her spindle."If ever you get a husband, I hope he'll give you a good beating! Youneed it, I warrant! Always stopping on the bridge there, to have crackswith the young men! Little enough you know of saints, I dare say! Sokeep away from _my_ child! Come, Agnes," she said, as she lifted theorange-basket on to her head; and, straightening her tall form, sheseized the girl by the hand to lead her away.