Peter was walking in the high-road, on the other side of the river—the great high-road that leads from Bergamo to Milan.
It was late in the afternoon, and already, in the west, the sky was beginning to put on some of its sunset splendours. In the east, framed to Peter's vision by parallel lines of poplars, it hung like a curtain of dark-blue velvet.
Peter sat on the grass, by the roadside, in the shadow of a hedge—a rose-bush hedge, of course—and lighted a cigarette.
Far down the long white road, against the blue velvet sky, between the poplars, two little spots of black, two small human figures, were moving towards him.
Half absently, he let his eyes accompany them.
As they came nearer, they defined themselves as a boy and a girl. Nearer still, he saw that they were ragged and dusty and barefoot.
The boy had three or four gaudy-hued wicker baskets slung over his shoulder.
Vaguely, tacitly, Peter supposed that they would be the children of some of the peasants of the countryside, on their way home from the village.
As they arrived abreast of him, they paid him the usual peasants' salute. The boy lifted a tattered felt hat from his head, the girl bobbed a courtesy, and “Buona sera, Eccellenza,” they said in concert, without, however, pausing in their march.
Peter put his hand in his pocket.
“Here, little girl,” he called.
The little girl glanced at him, doubting.
“Come here,” he said.
Her face a question, she came up to him; and he gave her a few coppers.
“To buy sweetmeats,” he said.
“A thousand thanks; Excellency,” said she, bobbing another courtesy.
“A thousand thanks, Excellency,” said the boy, from his distance, again lifting his rag of a hat.
And they trudged on.
But Peter looked after them—and his heart smote him. They were clearly of the poorest of the poor. He thought of Hansel and Gretel. Why had he given them so little? He called to them to stop.
The little girl came running back.
Peter rose to meet her.
“You may as well buy some ribbons too,” he said, and gave her a couple of lire.
She looked at the money with surprise—even with an appearance of hesitation. Plainly, it was a sum, in her eyes.
“It's all right. Now run along,” said Peter.
“A thousand thanks, Excellency,” said she, with a third courtesy, and rejoined her brother....
“Where are they going?” asked a voice.
Peter faced about.
There stood the Duchessa, in a bicycling costume, her bicycle beside her. Her bicycling costume was of blue serge, and she wore a jaunty sailor-hat with a blue ribbon. Peter (in spite of the commotion in his breast) was able to remember that this was the first time he had seen her in anything but white.
Her attention was all upon the children, whom he, perhaps, had more or less banished to Cracklimbo.
“Where are they going?” she repeated, trouble in her voice and in her eyes.
Peter collected himself.
“The children? I don't know—I didn't ask. Home, aren't they?”
“Home? Oh, no. They don't live hereabouts,” she said. “I know all the poor of this neighbourhood.—Ohe there! Children! Children!” she cried.
But they were quite a hundred yards away, and did not hear.
“Do you wish them to come back?” asked Peter.
“Yes—of course,” she answered, with a shade of impatience.
He put his fingers to his lips (you know the schoolboy accomplishment), and gave a long whistle.
That the children did hear.
They halted, and turned round, looking, enquiring.
“Come back—come back!” called the Duchessa, raising her hand, and beckoning.
They came back.
“The pathetic little imps,” she murmured while they were on the way.
The boy was a sturdy, square-built fellow, of twelve, thirteen, with a shock of brown hair, brown cheeks, and sunny brown eyes; with a precocious air of doggedness, of responsibility. He wore an old tail-coat, the tail-coat of a man, ragged, discoloured, falling to his ankles.
The girl was ten or eleven, pale, pinched; hungry, weary, and sorry looking. Her hair too had been brown, upon a time; but now it was faded to something near the tint of ashes, and had almost the effect of being grey. Her pale little forehead was crossed by thin wrinkles, lines of pain, of worry, like an old woman's.
The Duchessa, pushing her bicycle, and followed by Peter, moved down the road, to meet them. Peter had never been so near to her before—at moments her arm all but brushed his sleeve. I think he blessed the children.
“Where are you going?” the Duchessa asked, softly, smiling into the girl's sad little face.
The girl had shown no fear of Peter; but apparently she was somewhat frightened by this grand lady. The toes of her bare feet worked nervously in the dust. She hung her head shyly, and eyed her brother.
But the brother, removing his hat, with the bow of an Italian peasant—and that is to say, the bow of a courtier—spoke up bravely.
“To Turin, Nobility.”
He said it in a perfectly matter-of-fact way, quite as he might have said, “To the next farm-house.”
The Duchessa, however, had not bargained for an answer of this measure. Startled, doubting her ears perhaps, “To—Turin—!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, Excellency,” said the boy.
“But—but Turin—Turin is hundreds of kilometres from here,” she said, in a kind of gasp.
“Yes, Excellency,” said the boy.
“You are going to Turin—you two children—walking—like that!” she persisted.
“Yes, Excellency.”
“But—but it will take you a month.”
“Pardon, noble lady,” said the boy. “With your Excellency's permission, we were told it should take fifteen days.”
“Where do you come from?” she asked.
“From Bergamo, Excellency.”
“When did you leave Bergamo?”
“Yesterday morning, Excellency.”
“The little girl is your sister?”
“Yes, Excellency.”
“Have you a mother and father?”
“A father, Excellency. The mother is dead.” Each of the children made the Sign of the Cross; and Peter was somewhat surprised, no doubt, to see the Duchessa do likewise. He had yet to learn the beautiful custom of that pious Lombard land, whereby, when the Dead are mentioned, you make the Sign of the Cross, and, pausing reverently for a moment, say in silence the traditional prayer of the Church:
“May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the Mercy of God, rest in peace.”
“And where is your father?” the Duchessa asked.
“In Turin, Excellency,” answered the boy. “He is a glass-blower. After the strike at Bergamo, he went to Turin to seek work. Now he has found it. So he has sent for us to come to him.”
“And you two children—alone—are going to walk all the way to Turin!” She could not get over the pitiful wonder of it.
“Yes, Excellency.”
“The heart-rending little waifs,” she said, in English, with something like a sob. Then, in Italian, “But—but how do you live by the way?”
The boy touched his shoulder-load of baskets.
“We sell these, Excellency.”
“What is their price?” she asked.
“Thirty soldi, Excellency.”
“Have you sold many since you started?”
The boy looked away; and now it was his turn to hang his head, and to let his toes work nervously in the dust.
“Haven't you sold any?” she exclaimed, drawing her conclusions.
“No, Excellency. The people would not buy,” he owned, in a dull voice, keeping his eyes down.
“Poverino,” she murmured. “Where are you going to sleep to-night?”
“In a house, Excellency,” said he.
But that seemed to strike the Duchessa as somewhat vague.
“In what house?” she asked.
“I do not know, Excellency,” he confessed. “We will find a house.”
“Would you like to come back with me, and sleep at my house?”
The boy and girl looked at each other, taking mute counsel.
Then, “Pardon, noble lady—with your Excellency's permission, is it far?” the boy questioned.
“I am afraid it is not very near—three or four kilometres.”
Again the children looked at each other, conferring. Afterwards, the boy shook his head.
“A thousand thanks, Excellency. With your permission, we must not turn back. We must walk on till later. At night we will find a house.”
“They are too proud to own that their house will be a hedge,” she said to Peter, again in English. “Aren't you hungry?” she asked the children.
“No, Excellency. We had bread in the village, below there,” answered the boy.
“You will not come home with me, and have a good dinner, and a good night's sleep?”
“Pardon, Excellency. With your favour, the father would not wish us to turn back.”
The Duchessa looked at the little girl.
The little girl wore a medal of the Immaculate Conception on a ribbon round her neck—a forlorn blue ribbon, soiled and frayed.
“Oh, you have a holy medal,” said the Duchessa.
“Yes, noble lady,” said the girl, dropping a courtesy, and lifting up her sad little weazened face.
“She has been saying her prayers all along the road,” the boy volunteered.
“That is right,” approved the Duchessa. “You have not made your First Communion yet, have you?”
“No, Excellency,” said the girl. “I shall make it next year.”
“And you?” the Duchessa asked the boy.
“I made mine at Corpus Christi,” said the boy, with a touch of pride.
The Duchessa turned to Peter.
“Do you know, I haven't a penny in my pocket. I have come out without my purse.”
“How much ought one to give them?” Peter asked.
“Of course, there is the fear that they might be robbed,” she reflected. “If one should give them a note of any value, they would have to change it; and they would probably be robbed. What to do?”
“I will speak to the boy,” said Peter. “Would you like to go to Turin by train?” he asked.
The boy and girl looked at each other. “Yes, Excellency,” said the boy.
“But if I give you money for your fare, will you know how to take care of it—how to prevent people from robbing you?”
“Oh, yes, Excellency.”
“You could take the train this evening, at Venzona, about two kilometres from here, in the direction you are walking. In an hour or two you would arrive at Milan; there you would change into the train for Turin. You would be at Turin to-morrow morning.”
“Yes, Excellency.”
“But if I give you money, you will not let people rob you? If I give you a hundred lire?”
The boy drew back, stared, as if frightened.
“A hundred lire—?” he said.
“Yes,” said Peter.
The boy looked at his sister.
“Pardon, Nobility,” he said. “With your condescension, does it cost a hundred lire to go to Turin by train?”
“Oh, no. I think it costs eight or ten.”
Again the boy looked at his sister.
“Pardon, Nobility. With your Excellency's permission, we should not desire a hundred lire then,” he said.
Peter and the Duchessa were not altogether to be blamed, I hope, if they exchanged the merest hint of a smile.
“Well, if I should give you fifty?” Peter asked.
“Fifty lire, Excellency?”
Peter nodded.
Still again the boy sought counsel of his sister, with his eyes.
“Yes, Excellency,” he said.
“You are sure you will be able to take care of it—you will not let people rob you,” the Duchessa put in, anxious. “They will wish to rob you. If you go to sleep in the train, they will try to pick your pocket.”
“I will hide it, noble lady. No one shall rob me. If I go to sleep in the train, I will sit on it, and my sister will watch. If she goes to sleep, I will watch,” the boy promised confidently.
“You must give it to him in the smallest change you can possibly scrape together,” she advised Peter.
And with one-lira, two-lira, ten-lira notes, and with a little silver and copper, he made up the amount.
“A thousand thanks, Excellency,” said the boy, with a bow that was magnificent; and he proceeded to distribute the money between various obscure pockets.
“A thousand thanks, Excellency,” said the girl, with a courtesy.
“Addio, a buon' viaggio,” said Peter.
“Addio, Eccellenze,” said the boy.
“Addio, Eccellenze,” said the girl.
But the Duchessa impulsively stooped down, and kissed the girl on her poor little wrinkled brow. And when she stood up, Peter saw that her eyes were wet.
The children moved off. They moved off, whispering together, and gesticulating, after the manner of their race: discussing something. Presently they stopped; and the boy came running back, while his sister waited.
He doffed his hat, and said, “A thousand pardons, Excellency-”
“Yes? What is it?” Peter asked.
“With your Excellency's favour—is it obligatory that we should take the train?”
“Obligatory?” puzzled Peter. “How do you mean?”
“If it is not obligatory, we would prefer, with the permission of your Excellency, to save the money.”
“But—but then you will have to walk!” cried Peter.
“But if it is not obligatory to take the train, we would pray your Excellency's permission to save the money. We should like to save the money, to give it to the father. The father is very poor. Fifty lire is so much.”
This time it was Peter who looked for counsel to the Duchessa.
Her eyes, still bright with tears, responded, “Let them do as they will.”
“No, it is not obligatory—it is only recommended,” he said to the boy, with a smile that he could n't help. “Do as you will. But if I were you, I should spare my poor little feet.”
“Mille grazie, Eccellenze,” the boy said, with a final sweep of his tattered hat. He ran back to his sister; and next moment they were walking resolutely on, westward, “into the great red light.”
The Duchessa and Peter were silent for a while, looking after them.
They dwindled to dots in the distance, and then, where the road turned, disappeared.
At last the Duchessa spoke—but almost as if speaking to herself.
“There, Felix Wildmay, you writer of tales, is a subject made to your hand,” she said.
We may guess whether Peter was startled. Was it possible that she had found him out? A sound, confused, embarrassed, something composite, between an oh and ayes, seemed to expire in his throat.
But the Duchessa did n't appear to heed it.
“Don't you think it would be a touching episode for your friend to write a story round?” she asked.
We may guess whether he was relieved.
“Oh—oh, yes,” he agreed, with the precipitancy of a man who, in his relief, would agree to anything.
“Have you ever seen such courage?” she went on. “The wonderful babies! Fancy fifteen days, fifteen days and nights, alone, unprotected, on the highway, those poor little atoms! Down in their hearts they are really filled with terror. Who would n't be, with such a journey before him? But how finely they concealed it, mastered it! Oh, I hope they won't be robbed. God help them—God help them!”
“God help them, indeed,” said Peter.
“And the little girl, with her medal of the Immaculate Conception. The father, after all, can hardly be the brute one might suspect, since he has given them a religious education. Oh, I am sure, I am sure, it was the Blessed Virgin herself who sent us across their path, in answer to that poor little creature's prayers.”
“Yes,” said Peter, ambiguously perhaps. But he liked the way in which she united him to herself in the pronoun.
“Which, of course,” she added, smiling gravely into his eyes, “seems the height of absurdity to you?”
“Why should it seem the height of absurdity to me?” he asked.
“You are a Protestant, I suppose?”
“I suppose so. But what of that? At all events, I believe there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in the usual philosophies. And I see no reason why it should not have been the Blessed Virgin who sent us across their path.”
“What would your Protestant pastors and masters do, if they heard you? Isn't that what they call Popish superstition?”
“I daresay. But I'm not sure that there's any such thing as superstition. Superstition, in its essence, is merely a recognition of the truth that in a universe of mysteries and contradictions, like ours, nothing conceivable or inconceivable is impossible.”
“Oh, no, no,” she objected. “Superstition is the belief in something that is ugly and bad and unmeaning. That is the difference between superstition and religion. Religion is the belief in something that is beautiful and good and significant—something that throws light into the dark places of life—that helps us to see and to live.”
“Yes,” said Peter, “I admit the distinction.” After a little suspension, “I thought,” he questioned, “that all Catholics were required to go to Mass on Sunday?”
“Of course—so they are,” said she.
“But—but you—” he began.
“I hear Mass not on Sunday only—I hear it every morning of my life.”
“Oh? Indeed? I beg your pardon,” he stumbled. “I—one—one never sees you at the village church.”
“No. We have a chapel and a chaplain at the castle.”
She mounted her bicycle.
“Good-bye,” she said, and lightly rode away.
“So-ho! Her bigotry is not such a negligible quantity, after all,” Peter concluded.
“But what,” he demanded of Marietta, as she ministered to his wants at dinner, “what does one barrier more or less matter, when people are already divided by a gulf that never can be traversed? You see that river?” He pointed through his open window to the Aco. “It is a symbol. She stands on one side of it, I stand on the other, and we exchange little jokes. But the river is always there, flowing between us, separating us. She is the daughter of a lord, and the widow of a duke, and the fairest of her sex, and a millionaire, and a Roman Catholic. What am I? Oh, I don't deny I 'm clever. But for the rest? ... My dear Marietta, I am simply, in one word, the victim of a misplaced attachment.”
“Non capisco Francese,” said Marietta.
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