Tales of the Wonder Club Volume II Part 20

"Well, as they have been enjoying a story from which we have been excluded, I see no reason why we should not have a story all to ourselves. What do you say?"

"Oh, by all means," said Helen; "but I am a poor storyteller. Pray do not ask _me_ for one, but if you know of a story, why of course I am all attention."

"Let me see, then," said McGuilp. "What sort of story would you like to hear?"

"Oh, tell me something about Italy. _I should_ like to hear so,"

answered Helen.

"Would you? Then I think I can remember a little circ.u.mstance that occurred in Italy within my experience, which I will relate to you if you will resume your seat, for I have but little time to lose. We can work and talk at the same time. Your colour has now returned, and my story may possibly help to preserve it until the end of the sitting."

Helen then resumed her seat, and McGuilp having seized once more his palette and brushes and placed himself in front of his easel, continued his portrait whilst he related the following story.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Scharfrichter or executioner; literally, "the sharp judge."

[2] The reader is begged to excuse the anachronism. Byron did not write these lines until several years later.

[3] Another name for headsman or hangman.

[4] Philister or Philistine.

[5] The moss. Slang word among German students for money.

[6] Lowen--also money.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER III.

THE THREE PAULS.[7]--THE ARTIST'S THIRD STORY.

During my travels in Italy I happened once to be sojourning for some time in an obscure and sequestered Italian village high up in the Apennines, that chain of mountains which runs through the entire peninsular like the backbone of some antediluvian monster.

They are curious places, those Italian villages, with their tall, narrow houses and small windows, built up the slant of a mountain like steps of stairs. Their quaint roofs, balconies, arches, and b.u.t.tresses, with at every step some rustic shrine containing a rude painting or representation of the Virgin Mary (the Madonna as they call her) or other saint. The narrow, dirty, ill-paved streets, the tumbling-down houses, from the windows of which the picturesque but dirty inhabitants may almost shake hands with one another across the road.

Then the odd nooks and angles in the by-streets that meet the stranger's eye on either hand as he ascends the uneven and slippery path-way leading to the highest point of view, which is generally crowned by some ruined feudal castle or fort built upon a rock and overgrown with ivy.

They have a distinct character of their own, these mountain villages, and are as unlike as possible to anything seen in England. A mere verbal description is inadequate to give the faintest idea of their extreme picturesqueness. They require to be seen, and when this is impossible, a picture or sketch must give the next best idea of them to the mind of the stranger. I have several studies in oil-colour of these places within my portfolio, which you may look at for a moment if you like.

There, you see that it is quite unlike anything you ever saw before.

Look at those figures in the foreground, how picturesque and yet how simple their costume is! Well, but to proceed: the village where I was staying, when the fact that I am about to relate occurred, was one of the sort you see here. Ah! here is a sketch of the very place, and there is the name of it written underneath. I remember that it had a certain celebrity in the country round about it, as the cathedral (!) in the chief piazza or square boasted of a miraculous picture of the Madonna, that had the reputation of turning up its eyes, and in this manner contrived to heal great numbers among the faithful who were blind, deaf and dumb, maimed, halt, or lame.

I cannot say that I ever witnessed one of these miracles, but that may have been from my want of faith; yet the tales that I heard of miraculous cures from persons of some repute, the arch-priest of the parish amongst the number, were most startling.

I had taken up my quarters in a comfortable rustic inn, not in the town itself, but on a separate hill in an isolated spot, being built in its own grounds, fertile with olive trees, which grew up the sides of the hill nearly to the door of the house.

The inn was frequented almost entirely by artists. Sometimes we were a large company, composed of all nations, when we would dine together "al fresco" under the shade of the vine which formed a verandah on one side of the house. At other times I would be left alone in the inn. The hill on which I lived commanded an extensive view of the surrounding mountains, including the township with its old ivy-grown tower overlooking all, and which appeared as if it were sliding down the mountain side.

I experienced an indescribable feeling of delight in rambling alone through this romantic scenery on a hot summer's day, beneath a perfectly cloudless sky, without a breath of wind to rustle the leaves of the shady trees, amidst a solitude like that of the desert, and a silence unbroken save by the chirping of the birds and the chattering of the cicala, or at intervals, perchance, the distant shepherd's pipe, or the wild barbaric chant of the mountaineer. With what rapture, I remember, would I step from crag to crag, trampling the bush and bramble under my feet, and startling away the green lizards in my path! Quaffing the beauties of nature at every step, the dreamy influence of the balmy atmosphere intensifying my feelings for the beautiful to an abnormal degree.

It was on one of these sultry days during my rambles that I was taking shelter from the burning sun under the shade of a wide-spreading oak, reclining lazily on the soft moss, and listening to the chirping of the gra.s.s-hoppers, when my ear was attracted by the sound of the bleating of goats, and shortly afterwards I heard the voices of two peasants which seemed familiar to me. They were discoursing together in the dialect of their own village, a very different lingo from the pure Tuscan, and perfectly unintelligible to one lately coming from Rome, yet a prolonged stay in these parts rendered it familiar to me. I recognised the voices as belonging, one of them to a goatherd who supplied me with milk in the morning, the other to a peasant who possessed a vineyard, a small barrel of whose wine I had bought the day before.

"Ohe! Antonio," cried Guiseppe, the goatherd, to his friend, "so I hear you have sold a _quarteruolo_ of wine to the Signor Inglese (the English gentleman) who lives on the hill."

"Well, Compar,"[8] said his friend, "and what of that?"

"I suppose you made him pay well for it, eh?" demanded the goatherd.

"Well," answered Antonio, "I make my friends pay sixteen pauls the _quarteruolo_, but he, being an Englishman, I charged double."

"What!" exclaimed the goatherd, "thirty-two pauls for a _quarteruolo_!"

"Ay, and he paid me money down without haggling about the price, like one of our '_paini_.'[9] These Englishmen are real gentlemen--they let themselves be cheated without wincing. Those are the sort of men I like to deal with. I was quite angry with myself afterwards at not having asked four times the sum; he would be sure to have paid me."

"_Accidente!_ what a swindler!" exclaimed Guiseppe. "Well, they tell me these English roll in wealth; that gold is as common in their country as beans here. They say the streets are paved with it. How I should like to go to those parts, and come back with my pockets filled with the gold that these idiots throw away like dross. I wouldn't fatigue myself all day long in the mountains for a piece of '_maritozza_'[10] or a dish of '_polenta_.'"[11]

"Ha! ha!" laughed Antonio, "I've no doubt of it. I should like to see _you_ with money, friend Peppe. You'd make a rare use of it."

"_Per Bacco!_ wouldn't I?" answered the goatherd; "you wouldn't catch me sober again until the day of my death. If I could sell my milk to the Englishman at the rate you sell your wine, I'd soon make my fortune."

"Well," said Antonio, "I would try it on if I were you. Perhaps milk isn't to be had in his country."

"Perhaps not," said the goatherd, musingly. "It must be a curious country from all accounts. They tell me they never see the sun from one year's end to the other, and, indeed, how can they, when the sun is here all day? I hear, too, that the fog is so thick that you are obliged to cut it through with a knife as you go along the streets, and that the inhabitants are obliged to burn lamps all day long."

"Yes, I have heard so, too," answered Antonio, "and that they have no wine in their country. Well, upon the whole, I'd sooner live where I am."

"Ah, but the gold that is to be found about the streets," said Guiseppe, "you forget that."

"What would be the good of all the gold, if there is no wine to buy with it?" replied Antonio. "I am very well content to live by the sale of my wine----"

"At the rate you sell it to Englishmen, I've no doubt," broke in Peppe, with a laugh.

"Well, my friend, of course we all try to get what we can, where we can, and how we can," pleaded Antonio. "That's only business. I'd be a fool if I didn't."

"Well, Compar, I suppose we are all much alike in that; but don't you think that after having cheated the Englishman out of all that money, you could lend me three pauls?"[12]

"Ah, Peppe, you rascal, I thought that was coming," laughed Antonio.

"What! lend _you_ three pauls! Why, when do you think you would be able to pay me?"

"Well, I make two pauls a day by the sale of my milk and go halves with my _padrone_.[13] That is a paul a day for us apiece. In three days, therefore, I shall be able to pay you the entire sum. If I can manage to gull the Englishman, I may pay you sooner," responded the goatherd.

"Ah! Peppe," said Antonio, "I know you to be a slippery customer. How am I to be sure you will pay me within that time?"