BY THE LIGHT OF A TORCH.
They came out of their lodging, an hour later, into the deserted
square. Lights were flaring in nearly every window, and in every house
was to be heard the rattling of bottles and plates, and men's voices
calling for more wine. But it was quiet enough out here, under the
stars, in the empty piazza, where the last booths were being closed for
the night.
They strolled over to the lower part of the square, and sat down upon
the parapet; Drea was lighting his pipe.
'Look here, lad,' he began abruptly. The match in his hand went out,
he felt for another in all his pockets, swearing the while at the
mischance.
'May the devil fly away with all fine clothes, say I. For why should a
man change his coat any more than his skin? I've worn this jacket
every festa for the last twelve years, and I never yet could learn the
trick o' its inside.'
'I've got lights,' said Dino.
'Nay, lad, where there's a way out there's a way in. I'll not be beat
by it, thanking you kindly.'
He puffed at his pipe thoughtfully before he spoke again.
'It's a good many years now since the first time I came up here. Lord,
how the years go! I mind me---- Your mother was a young woman then,
Dino; no older than my little girl there, and I was a wild young
fellow. Well, well; it seems more than one lifetime ago. I'm getting
to be an old man now, my Dino. It gave me a start the other night to
hear our young master speak of it, but it's true enough for all that.'
'Perhaps it is. But you never seem old to me, Sor Drea.'
'I've had my turn at it, lad; I can't complain. But maybe the Captain
was right about my settling down; maybe he was right. 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.
'You see, it isn't as if I were leaving her to strangers. But I've
been fond o' you, boy, since you were that high; when you used to come
to play with her in the old boat, and I used to sit and watch you and
wish I had a little curly-headed chap like you, that 'ud grow up and
help me about the nets. My girl's a good girl; but a boy 'ud have been
different.'
He was silent for a moment; then he put his pipe back into his mouth
and gave a slight chuckle. 'There's no basket without its handle;
that's sure enough. I've got 'em both now, girl and boy too. I was an
old fool not to have thought of it sooner; but it's difficult to see
that the children have grown up, when you remember them so high. Well,
lad, I give you joy, I do. She's very fond o' you. There's only one
thing I want to speak to you about. It's all plain sailing before you
then.'
'And what is that?' asked Dino, very quietly.
His face was in shadow, but there was that in his voice which startled
the old man with a foreboding of coming trouble. He leaned forward,
peering anxiously into the darkness. 'Eh? what's that, lad, what's
that you're saying?'
'You say there is one thing you wish to speak to me about
before--before I can be affianced to Italia. I ask you what it is.'
'Nay, my Dino, I said nought about being affianced, if that's what's
troubling you. Not but what I could easily find another husband for
her; there's Maso, now; as honest a lad as ever hauled at a rope, and a
good bit o' money too, all in the bank. But what does that matter?
I've never promised her to you; but it would be but a poor sort o'
friendship that only depended upon words. I've done more than give you
my promise, lad; I've trusted you, I have.'
'Good God!' said Dino, under his breath, looking up with blank eyes at
the clear starlit sky above him.
'There's no need for many words to settle it.' He hesitated; and then
went on with sudden fluency as if the long meditated speech were
forcing its own way out. 'See here, lad. It's not so much more than a
week since you lost your place because o' that infernal tomfoolery of a
procession. I'm not casting it up at you, my boy; not I. But there
'tis; you made a mistake. It might have been a worse one, for you
meant no harm, and as things go it's all turned out for the best. I
wouldn't have cared to marry my little girl to a writing fellow, and
you've got the make of a sailor in you, lad; I always said it. When
God Almighty shuts one door in an honest man's face, if you look about
you you'll see He's opened another. But it might ha' turned out
different.'
He lowered his voice, and added: 'I don't blame you, but I've kept my
ears open, and there are things said about you that I don't like; I
don't like. When a man lets his net down to the bottom he's sure to
catch mud. I saw your father do it. _He_ called himself a republican
too. You must give it up, my Dino.'
'I can't do that,' said Dino, in a very low voice.
The words implied so much to himself that he could scarcely believe in
the reality of things--he felt involved in the fantastic irony of a
dream--when Drea burst out laughing, good-naturedly.
'Why, lad, you don't understand me? Where are your wits? I am
speaking Italian, _mi pare_. It isn't to oblige me I want you to give
up that confounded club of yours, and all the nonsense that goes with
it. It's so that you can marry Italia. Why, lad, one would think that
I was torturing you instead of telling you how to marry your
sweetheart. _You_ one o' those damned radical rogues, my Dino, the
little chap I taught how to handle an oar? Come, come, lad, drop the
nonsense. It's being shut up between four walls that put it into you,
I'll go bail. Politics! Lord bless you! a capful o' wind will soon
blow 'em out of you. They're like weevils in a biscuit, they eat all
the good; you can't get rid o' them too quickly.'
'Drea, it is you who will not understand. You are unjust; you have
always been unjust to my father. But his ideas are mine. I will
not----' he stopped, with a horrible sense of sinking at his heart.
What were these ideas to which he professed himself so willing to
sacrifice all the rest? But it was imperatively necessary to make Drea
understand the situation. 'I cannot give up my--my convictions. For
no reason in the world. Not even to marry Italia.'
There was an instant of terrible silence.
'Are you mad, boy?' demanded Drea, in a sort of subdued growl.
'I am not mad,' Dino answered.
It was a relief to look forward to an explosion of the old man's anger;
anything--anything rather than that tone of affectionate trust.
'I am not mad. I don't know why I'm not. I'm unhappy enough for that,
or for anything else,' he said, wearily.
'Unhappy----!'
The old man checked himself, breathing hard.
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. Later on you begin to find out that things have their own
consequences; you might as well ask for a fish without its bones as for
a life without trouble. I didn't expect this, though. If it were
anybody but you, lad; you that I've knowed from a boy.'
'I--I can't stand this,' said Dino, huskily.
He got up to his feet and walked away a few paces. The old man
followed him.
'Lad!----'
He laid his heavy hand upon Dino's shoulder. ''Tis easier to make
wounds than to heal 'em. I don't want to be hard on you, God knows.
I'll give you another chance, lad. Perhaps you've gone too far with
those scoundrels to break off short i' this way--without with your
leave or by your leave. Perhaps I was unreasonable to expect it. For
the devil shows a man plain enough how to get into a mess like that,
but he leaves him to steer his own way out. You might feel it upon
your honour not to break wi' them without a word o' warning; and
honour's a delicate stuff, if you handle it you soil it in the
touching. I've been an old fool; I ought to have thought of all that
sooner. But I'll give you another chance, lad. Look here. We'll let
things stay as they are for the present. I won't keep you from seeing
her; and I'll give you three months' time to free yourself from all
this black business. _Perdio!_ 'tis a fair offer. Promise me that in
three months you will come and ask me for Italia, and there's my hand
on it. Why, lad, I couldn't have trusted my little girl to any man but
you.' He spoke in the old cordial voice again, with a cheery ring in
the brave words.
'Oh my God,' said Dino, turning away from him, 'what am I to do to make
this man understand?'
Andrea's arm fell to his side. He groaned, and put up his other hand
to his forehead as if he had received a blow. 'It can't be, lad--I
tell you it _can't_ be,' he said in a broken voice.
A party of holiday-makers came out of a house at some distance,
crossing the piazza at its farther end. The women were laughing and
chattering as they went by. A young man called loudly for silence, and
began to play the refrain of a love-song upon his mandoline. The
swift, audacious tripping of the music came back to them from a long
distance through the stillness of the night, and then again all was
quiet.
Andrea took a quick step forward. He seized the blazing remnant of the
torch from its hole in the wall, and waved it suddenly before Dino's
eyes. The young man gave an involuntary start backwards.
'Oh, don't be frightened,' said Drea, with an odd laugh, 'I am only
looking at your face. I feel as if I had never seen it properly. I
want to remember the look of a man who cares more for the good opinion
of a pack o' lying scoundrels than he cares for his oldest friends; a
man who could teach my girl to love him; who could steal her heart from
her; who could bear to look on at all her pretty little ways, and she
all the while not knowing. I'm an old man, and perhaps I don't
understand,' he said, with bitter simplicity, 'But I have lived sixty
years in this world, and I've been honest. I never betrayed a trust.'
He let the torch fall on the stones between them. The light shone full
upon his white hair.
'I loved you like my son, Dino. I would not change places with you
to-night.'
As he turned away Dino sprang forward with some passionate inarticulate
ejaculation of despair. 'Andrea!--Drea--don't, don't leave me like
this. Drea! you are the oldest, the best friend I've ever had; you
can't believe.--You must be mad not to see how I love her----'
The old man half paused, then shook his hand with a gesture of unbelief.
'If it had been anybody but _you_, lad--you, that I've knowed from a
boy----'
He entered the darkened house, shutting the door behind him.
It had only taken a few minutes; the voices of the women were still
audible, and the sound of the mandoline.