Terni

“ There is also a Roman aqueduct in the neighbourhood, eleven Italian miles in length.
We arrived at Terni at three o'clock and immediately hired a calèche (the other travellers and myself) to visit the famous cascade of the Velino, about three miles distant from the town of Terni. The road thither is very rugged, and is a continual ascent on the flank of a ravine. For a long time before you arrive on the brink of the cascade, you hear the roaring of the waters ”

“ The descent on the other side to Terni is still longer: the pass through the mountains is in many places exceedingly narrow, and on each side of the road are lofty rocks; the mountains are wild and mostly uncultivated, and are chiefly covered with dark laurel bushes; on the whole road there is not a village for the poste, and half a dozen houses at Stretura hardly deserve the name of one. ”

“ It is very customary for women to be laboring in the fields.
TO TERNI.—BORGHETTO. May 25th.—We were aroused at four o'clock this morning; had some eggs and coffee, and were ready to start between five and six; being thus matutinary, in order to get to Terni in time to see the falls. The road was very striking and picturesque; but I remember nothing particularly, till we came to Borghetto, which stands on a bluff, with a broad valley sweeping round it, through the midst of which flows the Tiber. There is an old castle on a projecting point ”

“ Gaudenzia Pride of the Palio
CHAPTER I The First Signpost
In a hill town of Italy, close by the Tyrrhenian Sea, lives the boy, Giorgio Terni. He is slight of build but hard-muscled and lithe, with dark wavy hair and amber eyes the color of a young fox's. His town, Monticello Amiata, is named for nearby Mount Amiata. But the countryside that dips down to the sea is known as the Maremma, or "marshy place." It was once wild and desolate, and it bred strong, earthy men who grappled their living from the wetlands. ”

“ Another fellow guest was Doctor Sturgis Bigelow, an enthusiastic admirer of Madame Ternina’s art, who had come to New York especially to be present at all of her appearances. She was to have made her farewell to America in the “Götterdämmerung” and Doctor Bigelow had ordered enough flowers from half a dozen of the florists of Broadway and Fifth Avenue to fill the entire Academy, but unfortunately Madame Ternina became ill and her place had to be taken at the last moment by her rival, Madame Klafsky. ”

“ The slave who had gained his freedom might rise—for it was Terence's own case—to be a successful dramatist himself, and to sit down at table with such men as Scipio and Lælius. The anomaly is that a man who stood in such confidential relations to his master, and with such possibilities in his future, should feel himself every moment liable, at that master's slightest caprice, to the stocks and the whip. ”

“ Terence said, as seriously as O'Grady himself; "and it is unfortunate that you are such an abstemious man, or, as you say, its effects might have been corrected."
"It's me opinion, Terence, my boy, that you are a humbug."
"Then, Captain O'Grady, it is clear that evil communications must have corrupted my good manners."
"It must have been in your infancy then, Terence, for divil a bit of manners good or bad have I ever seen in you; you have not even the good manners to take a glass of the cratur when you are asked."
"That is true enough," Terence laughed. ”

“ While backward, still backward, falls Tenny beside.
We are nearing the turn, the first quarter is past—
’Twixt leader and chaser the daylight is cast.
The distance elongates, still Tenny sweeps on,
As graceful and free-limbed and swift as a fawn;
His awkwardness vanished, his muscles all strained—
A noble opponent, well born and well trained.
I glanced o’er my shoulder, ha! Tenny, the cost
Of that one’s second flagging, will be—the race lost.
One second’s weak yielding of courage and strength,
And the daylight between us has doubled its length. ”

“ Tenney stretched out his hands. He was looking at them, not at Raven.
"I can't git it out o' my head," he continued, in a broken whisper, "there's suthin' on 'em. You don't see nothin', do you? They look to me——"
There he stopped, and Raven was glad he did not venture the word. What had Raven to say to him? There seemed not to be anything in the language of man, to say. But Tenney came alive. He was shaking with a great eagerness.
"I tell you," he said, "a man don't know what to do. ”

“ Though possessing more than average strength and power for a youth of his age, Terence knew that, in a strife with the gigantic black sheik, he would not have the slightest chance of being victor.
Should he shout to his companions, and have them all act in concert, as they had already proposed?
No. Such an act would most likely lead to two of them being shot, to the third having his brains knocked out with the butt-end of a musket; and to the fourth, himself, being strangled in the powerful grasp of Golah, if not beheaded with the scimitar in the hands of Fatima. ”

“ The first mile is covered, the race is mine—no!
For the blue blood of Tenny responds to a blow.
He shoots through the air like a ball from a gun,
And the two lengths between us are shortened to one,
My heart is contracted, my throat feels a lump,
For Tenny’s long neck is at Salvator’s rump;
And now with new courage grown bolder and bolder,
I see him, once more running shoulder to shoulder. ”

“ She was still with Raven in the hut, trying to speak his language, follow out his thought for her. She gave a little quick rush across the room and, to Tenney's overwhelming surprise, her hands were on his shoulders, her face so close to his that her sweet breath fanned him. He had never seen her so. She had to be pursued, coaxed, tired out with persuasion before she would even accept the warmth he too often had for her.
"Isr'el," she said, "Isr'el Tenney! if you ever ag'in, so long as you live, think wrong o' that baby there, you'll be the wickedest man on God's earth." ”

“ With his arm round Terence's shoulders, George piloted his chum towards the huge fallen tree, beneath which he designed to pass the night. 'You dear old fellow!' he said heartily, drawing Terence to him. 'Who would have thought of meeting here, and like this? What a mercy I came up in time!'
'Thank God you did!' replied Terence, unable to repress a shudder; for when a brave man has stared death in the face, and the grim Gatherer has passed on, leaving him untouched, he is not, as a rule, flippant about his experience. ”

“ He stepped into the sleigh and, drawing the robe about him, drove off, the horse answering buoyantly. Tira sat, the stillest thing out of a wood where stalking danger lurks, her eyes on her sewing. Tenney was staring at her; she knew it, and could not raise her lids. Often she failed to meet his glance because she so shrank, not from his conviction of her guilt, but the fear of seeing what she must remember in blank night watches, to shudder over. For things were different at night, things you could bear quite well by day. Now he spoke, with a restrained certainty she trembled at. ”

“ What's he going to do then?"
"No," said Tenney quietly, with the slightest glance at Tira in her tremor there by the door, "I ain't goin' to die, not this v'y'ge. If anybody's goin' to, it ain't me."
"O Isr'el!" said Tira. Her voice rose scarcely above a whisper and she bent toward him in a beseeching way as if she might, in another instant, run to him. "You let him go. You an' me'll stay here together, long as we live. There sha'n't nothin' come betwixt us, Isr'el." In this Nan heard a hidden anguish of avowal. ”

“ Such a man would appeal to the whole history of Terence; he would show that he was a diligent translator of the Greek writers of the middle comedy, that his language in every other line betrayed a Grecian origin, that the plot was not Roman, that the scene was not Roman, that the customs were not Roman; he would say, if he had patience to reason with his antagonist, that a fashionable rake, a grasping father, an indulgent uncle, a knavish servant, an impudent ruffian, and a timid clown, were the same at Rome, at Thebes, and at Athens, in London, Paris, or Madrid. ”

“ He got out of the house without meeting even Charlotte, and was about crossing the road on the way to the hut when he saw Tenney coming, axe and dinner pail in hand. Raven swerved on his path, and affected to be looking down the road. He could not proceed the way he was going. Tenney's mind must not be drawn toward that living focus by even the most fragmentary hint. Yet if Tira was still there, she and the child must be fed. After his glance down the road he turned back to the house, nodding at Tenney as he neared. But Tenney motioned to him. ”

“ Tenney," said Nan, "I don't care a scrap whether I'm saved or not, if I can make this world swing a little easier on its hinges." That seemed to her a figure not markedly vivid, and she continued. "It needs a sight of oiling. Don't you see it does? O, Mr. Tenney, think of the poor little boy that's got to live along"—the one phrase still seemed to her the best—"not right, and grow to be a man, and you may die and leave him, and his mother may die. ”

“ She caught up the child from the couch and stood breathless, listening. It seemed as if the robin knew, and somehow, like Martin, felt like laughing at her.
Tenney was there, at a few minutes after twelve, but dinner was not on time. He came in, washed his hands at the sink and glanced about him. The table was set, and Tira, at the stove, the child on her hip, was trying the potatoes. She did not look at him. If he looked strange, it seemed to her she might not be able to go on. ”

“ Such biographical record as we have of Terence is mainly derived from a source which is very apocryphal. There is a "Life" of him, ascribed to Suetonius, but more probably written by the grammarian Donatus: we do not know what authority the writer had for his details, and the anecdotes which it contains have a suspicious colouring.
Though the name by which he is known—Publius Terentius—is Roman, we are told that he was by birth a Carthaginian, whence came his sobriquet of "Afer" (the African) , and that he was either born in slavery or had become a prisoner of war. ”

“ Life TERENCE.
Terence was born probably at Carthage, reached Rome as a slave-boy, and passed there into the possession of a rich and educated Senator, P. Terentius Lucanus, by whom he was educated and manumitted, taking from him the name of Publius Terentius the African. ‘A small literary circle of the Roman aristocracy admitted young Terence to their intimate companionship; and soon he was widely known as making a third in the friendship of Gaius Laelius with the first citizen of the Republic, the younger Scipio Africanus. ”

“ Surely not, in his rage against Tenney, by Tenney's name. She was "the woman," she was the pitiful type of all suffering womanhood.
There was the house, rather narrow in build, but painted white, with green blinds. The narrowness gave it a look of unwelcoming meagerness, this although it was of a good size. Raven wondered why some minds ran to pointed roofs, inhospitable to the eye. This looked to him like Tenney, his idea of him. The barn was spacious, and beautiful in silver gray, and the woodpile, Raven decided ironically, a marvel of artistic skill. ”

“ He walked away, swinging his dinner pail, down across the meadow to the lower woods, and Raven, after the fringe of birches had closed upon him, hurried off to the hut. He did not expect to find her. The pail in Tenney's hand was sufficient evidence, even if the man's going to his work were not. Tenney would never have abandoned his search or his waiting for her, and if he had, he would not have delayed to pack a dinner pail. The hut was empty of human life, but the bricks were warm. She could not have left until the early morning. Mechanically he piled kindling near the hearth. ”

“ This was the individual whom fate had ordained to cross and thwart Terence in his designs upon the heart of Miss Biddy O’Brannigan, and upon whom that young lady, in sport or caprice, bestowed a large dividend of those smiles which Terence imagined should be devoted solely to himself.
The man of small wares was, in truth, a dangerous rival, from his very insignificance. Had he been a man of spirit or corporal consideration, Terence would have pistolled or thrashed him out of his audacious notions ”

“ He was brought up in the household of a Roman senator named Terentius, and, as was not uncommon among slaves when they obtained their freedom, took the name of his patron. That under these circumstances he should have had a liberal education need not discredit the story; for in many Roman families we know that such young slaves as showed ability were allowed ample opportunities of instruction. But other opportunities are said to have fallen to the lot of Terence such as few in his position could have hoped for. ”

“ As he grew a little older, he never could be got inside a church. Father Duffy had never even seen him, except when he came to the house while he was still a baby, and then Terence would scream and kick so, when the good priest came near him, that he never dared touch him. The first time that he came, Ellen told him about Mrs. O'Brien's christening the child, and asked him if it was right for her to do it. ”

“ Setting aside those which are but occasional visitors to the British Islands, six species of Terns may be regarded as indigenous, though of them one has ceased from ordinarily breeding in the United Kingdom, while a second has become so rare and regularly appears in so few places that mention of them must for prudence sake be avoided. This last is the beautiful Roseate Tern, Sterna dougalli; the other is the Black Tern, Hydrochelidon nigra, belonging to a genus in which the toes are only half-webbed, of small size and dark leaden grey plumage. ”