George Fleming

“ Each slow bright day which passed seemed a long space of painful suspense until he stood cleared in the old fisherman's eyes. 'He may think me a madman if he pleases. He can never think of me again as a coward,' the young man told himself bitterly. Valdez could understand nothing of this sudden change in him.
'You puzzle me, lad—and you lack patience.'
'Patience!' repeated Dino, 'and what for pray? I have read in some book that it is faith, and not prudence, which has power to move mountains. What does anything else matter so long as we have the faith?'
Valdez looked at him very gravely. ”

“ The spring wind blowing over their faces held a magic of its own. 'Come and walk on the grass, Sora Lucia. Never mind the path—there is no place in the world like these downs. The air changes as it blows over the grass; it is like some one breathing; like a breath that comes and goes,' said Dino, taking off his hat and turning to face the wind. 'Look at the sea now. How far it is below us,' said Italia, stopping too and looking back. ”

“ One of the last vendors of cakes and sweetmeats had gone, leaving his torch of tarred stick to flare itself away in the empty piazza. Drea sat rigid, his eyes fixed upon that spot of light. But he was too deeply moved to keep quiet: the old habit of affection was strong upon him; it was stronger than his pride. 'I would not have believed it of you, Dino. But you'll think better of it, lad; you'll think better of it. One thinks that one has only to pick and choose in life when one is young. When a boat is running straight before the wind any fool can steer her. ”

“ The flower of life is a gift, Dino, without money and without price. The supreme gifts of the gods can neither be discussed nor deserved. Believe in happiness; expect it; make room for it in your life. Have faith. Faith moves mountains. And happiness is of the swift-footed immortals, and descends only on the garlanded altars of her worshippers.'
The old man was curiously roused out of his usual reticence and quiet. As they got into the boat again a pale gleam of sunlight pierced through the gray vapour overhead and rested on the distant buildings and spires of Leghorn. ”

“ Dino lay upon the grass and watched him. An insane desire, a fantastic whim, born of no conceivable reason, prompted him to inform this half-brutalised peasant of his real object and intentions. He was seized with a wild craving to explain it all, to tell the shepherd who he was, what he proposed to do, and how he—he, Dino de' Rossi,—that young fellow lying on his back in the sun, that idler in a workman's dress, without a soldo in his pocket, was in very truth a messenger of Fate, a condemned man, the future assassin of a king. ”

“ Good Lord, it must be a matter of twenty years since any one has thought of making me a present.—And I'll tell you what, my girl. It's full moon to-night. If you like, I will take you out in the boat with me, when I go to look after the nets. And so courage, my little one, courage! Lord bless you! it's only in a storm one can find out who's a good sailor. And so cheer up for—what's an old father good for if it isn't to keep those pretty eyes from getting red with crying? And the good God lets a man do, but He doesn't let him overdo. He's no fool, is Dino. ”

“ Dino smiled faintly. 'Well, well, mother! there's no good fretting over what can't be helped. Don't worry yourself, that's the most important.'
'Ah, don't worry! that's a man's way all over. As if one sent out to the market to buy trouble, for fear of not having enough at home! But it's easy work telling your mother not to worry, Dino, when she sees you going about with such a look on your face.'
'Nay, mother, suppose we let my face take care of itself.' He mastered his impatience with an effort, and added, 'If you would only believe me you would not make yourself so unhappy. ”

“ The instinctive conviction that this proposed journey of Valdez's was in some way connected with the disposal of his own future gave Dino a still more intense longing to grasp at present happiness. He knew that he was acting ungenerously; yet, as the girl turned her face shyly towards him,—her red silk handkerchief tied about her head in peasant fashion made a soft shade about her temples and her little ears, coming down in front in a bright silken fold across her low forehead, hiding all her hair, and giving an almost Oriental look to the dark straight eyebrows and the dark lustrous eyes. ”

“ On one occasion Dino saw a face he knew among the cloaked and furred figures whom Gasparo was handing so carefully on board.
There was an unsteady wind that afternoon, and the boat was heavily laden: it was some time before Dino could look away from his task of watching the uncertain half-filled sails, but when at last the breeze struck them fully and the Bella Maria ran out of harbour on a long smooth tack, he could not resist his wish to see if he too had been recognised. ”

“ I don't understand things. But I believe you. Dino, if it were for another man, and not for yourself, that you had to decide this thing——'
He drew away his hand, and looked away from her across the rippling sea. The breeze was freshening a little; there were long rents of darkness overhead where the fog was breaking, and showing the blue of the sky.
'Dino,' the persuasive voice went on, 'you might deceive yourself, not knowing, but you would not deceive me—your old playmate—your little sweetheart, who trusts you—trusts you against all the world. Dino, tell me. ”

“ When one is poor one must learn to make oneself small enough to pass through the cat's hole. That is what I tell my Pio.' She ended with a laugh, a clear ringing bird-like sound.
'Tell me about him,' said Dino, smiling sympathetically, with a sense of pure comradeship in her youth, such as he had never felt before. All that was living and joyous and young asserted its claim over him; he looked across the road at the two middle-aged faces of their companions with an exaggerated perception of what they had outlived. Life, young buoyant life, seemed the one thing to be valued. ”

“ It is true one does not go away from one's own town if one can help it, but a girl before she is married is like a bit of thistle-down, who can tell which way the wind will blow her?' asked Lucia in her subdued voice. She, too, was dressed for the festa, and her neat black gown contrasted with the blue and scarlet of the girl's holiday dress, much in the same fashion as her thin face, with its unvarying look of decent disappointment, served as a background for the young radiance of the face by her side. ”

“ Dino spent the long day in the woods. It was a lovely morning when he first went out, with a touch of April sweetness in the air. It is a wild and silent shore. The flat-topped pines grow to the very verge of the sand-hills. On the sea side the forest ends in a thick undergrowth of dark-spreading juniper bushes, which fill the hollows of the dunes and mingle with the thistles and the tough salt grass. And the wood itself is always filled with the sound and savour of the sea. ”

“ The air was very fresh and cool. The early morning dew was lying thickly on the soft powdery dust of the high road, and on the short crisp turf of the downs. As Dino reached the turning in the path the first red light of the rising sun touched the black belfry above the church, and glittered here and there on some of the higher windows in the village. Far below him, seen between the folding of the downs, a white mist was lying over the motionless gray plain of the sea. ”

“ That's my way of thinking.'
'Ah,' murmured Catarina, drawing her shawl more closely about her.
They had been young together, these two. Catarina could remember a time when to be alone with her, as now, would have been the measure of happiness to the hopeful, ardent young lover whom the slow years had changed into this weather-beaten old man. To a woman's eyes there is always an atmosphere of youth left about any man who has made love to her, no matter how the years have passed since then. ”

“ I don't suppose I can be far off sixty. The old master lived to be seventy-two, he did; but then he lived like a wax image packed in cotton wool. And when a man's knocking about day and night, why, Death needs no lantern to find him.'
He took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at it.
'There isn't much to leave behind me, lad. Only the old boat, and Italia. She'll miss me, will my little girl. She's wonderful fond of her old father. But you'll look after her; you'll be good to her, Dino?'
There was no answer. ”

“ When you're as old as I am you'll find that you can't put one foot in two shoes, boy; it's a good plan to know what you want and be contented with it when you've got it—a rare good plan.'
'If only wanting were enough to get it,' said Dino bitterly.
'Lad, lad! Bisogna dar tempo al tempo—give time time enough to work in. But you youngsters are all alike; you expect to smell fried fish before the nets are even cast into the water.'
'That 'ud be a poor look-out for supper,' observed silent Maso with a grin. ”

“ They were sitting in Dino's own room, and the young man's gaze wandered restlessly over the walls; it seemed as if he were trying to learn by heart the position of each small familiar object.
'Why, it is like a bit of the old days back again, Valdez, to hear you lecture one!'
'Ay, lad.'
The elder man was following out his own train of thought. 'Perhaps I ought not to be so much surprised at the way it is taking hold of you. Until one is two or three and twenty one thinks of oneself: after that one is preoccupied with life, its combinations and its issues. ”

“ But Dino was more deeply affected than appeared on the surface. Like a great many over-sensitive people, who dread and foresee pain, he often denied its very existence; but the pain remained. The idea of Gasparo's growing intimacy with Italia haunted him like an impending sense of evil. A wild plan of warning old Drea, of insisting upon seeing and speaking to him, began to assume more and more of the character of a resolve in the young man's mind. But if he went there to-night Italia would be at home; he could not expose himself to be insulted before Italia ”

“ Italia and I understand one another perfectly.'
'Well, if that's what you and she call a perfect understanding, 'tis a pity you don't try mistaking one another for a little. It might make you both look a bit happier. It was more like a funeral, coming home the other day, than anything else that I could give a name to. Not that I'm ever i' the right.'
Sora Catarina ended with a stifled sob. She had known from the beginning that no good could come of speaking of this matter to Dino. He was like his father; he might act from impulse, but he would never change his purpose for any one's asking. ”

“ And in some natures, growing old, there is left somewhat of this same touch of virginal freshness and charm. I think it is oftenest the case with women who have been unhappy in their youth—who have missed the placid midsummer fruition of content. They bear in their hearts an eternal unsatisfied belief in the spring.
She looked at Italia and Dino walking away across the sunny grass slopes: it seemed not so many years since she too had been walking there, going on the same errand to the same old church. ”

“ Monte Nero itself can hardly be said to deserve its name of a mountain, being nothing in fact but a high grass-grown hill, rising behind the city of Leghorn and commanding a superb view of the sea. Near the top the country presents the appearance of a succession of grassy downs, across which a narrow path takes a short cut from the winding carriage road to the summit, and at this particular moment Lucia and Italia were walking hand in hand along this pathway, while Dino followed on the grass at Italia's side. The old people had remained in the carretella with Palmira. ”