The position of a steward in Italy, if he be an honest man, is
necessarily a position of continual friction in relation to the
tenantry, and above all to those who, as in so many instances, pay in
kind and pay in labour. Their perpetual effort is to cheat, and his to
frustrate their cheating, for even if he be himself a trickster to his
lord, it is not to his interests that their tricks should succeed.
To Cyrille, with his political views, his poetic communism, and his
genuine tenderness of temper, it was a daily torment to mark, track,
and prevent the continual petty thefts and crooked intrigues of those
forest-squatters. More than once he was on the point of writing to
Adolfo Gandolfo, and begging him to tender his resignation to the old
prince. But many reasons restrained him: in the first place, gratitude;
in the second, that natural reluctance of every high-spirited man to
confess himself beaten; besides this, there was always a feeling which
had entered into him of affection for the trees and for the animals,
and a great sense of repose in the dim green solitudes which closed in
around his refuge. If he went away, in impatience and thanklessness,
what could await him? Only the stifling life of cities, the sordid
struggle of intellect with want. Where again if he left Le Selve would
he see the light of morning on the snows of Soracte? Where again behold
the evening’s gold gleam on the line of the sea by Ostia? Where smell
the bourgeonning blossoms of the lime? Where stroke the velvet antlers
of the deer? Where watch the nightingales pluck the small white moths
off the pale azure discs of the succory? Where see the day decline in
pomp behind the hoary boughs of oaks which as saplings saw the armies
of Theodoric and of Constantine pass beneath their sapling shadows; the
spell of Rome held him and the sorcery of Nature; of that Nature which
is eternally young, yet allied with the greatest ages of the earth.
The year did not pass without the warning of the women to him being
verified. Once a bullet whistled past him as he rode, and cut off the
oak leaves at his shoulder. But the forest growth hid the would-be
assassin from his sight; and another night, when he rode over the
wooden bridge often used by him in returning homeward, the planks gave
way beneath his horse’s tread, and the animal and he escaped by a
miracle from a bad fall on to jagged rocks and into deep water; and
when he examined it by daylight it seemed to him that the timbers had
been sawn nearly asunder, so as to give way under vibration. But of
the guilty persons there was no trace. What affected him more was when
his dog, a greyhound of large size and great beauty, sent to him by
Gandolfo, was found dead one noonday stretched out on the terrace, with
all the signs of death, by a poison which the woodlanders extracted
from adders which they caught and robbed of their venom, treating it
as they did also the poison of the night-shade, and the hemlock, and
the corn-crowfoot, in a manner learned by oral recipes handed down from
remote Etruscan times. It was only the eldest living son who received
that teaching from the head of the family, and in turn passed it to
his heir, with many another dark secret of subterranean waters, and
buried passages, and rock tombs and hollow ways in which a fugitive
from justice might dwell safely many a year. Muriella had no doubt as
to who had slain the greyhound; for Alcide was so good-natured, so
industrious, so quiet, by comparison with his ordinary habit, that she
felt sure he had done some evil successfully. Cyrille offered rewards
and made investigations as to the dog’s death uselessly. Concerning
his own danger he said nothing; he sent workmen to mend the bridge,
affecting to take for granted that the timber had been rotten and old.
If any were disappointed by his escape, they kept their chagrin to
themselves and bided their time.
Vengeance is like a good Falernian or Chianti wine; it only mellows
with keeping.
After the pleasure of trapping and shooting, in and out of season,
the main and favourite diversion of the squatters of Le Selve was
smuggling; the smuggling of all kinds of game netted out of season,
of ingeniously-hidden wines, carried across the woods from the Este
districts to the very gates of Rome, or as far as Nepi and Corneto;
of charcoal burned by themselves from the stolen wood of the violated
groves around them, and taken in sacks under the walls of villages and
little towns; even of the very pips of the pine-cones baked in their
ovens they made traffic, and carried them away and sold them for what
they could get; they took everything across the forest by night, with
their poor starved cows or buffaloes harnessed to the wagons; and it
was not only the small gains which were dear to them but the pleasure
in the contraband-dealing, and the relish of cheating the _gabellotti_
at the gates of the capital itself. More than one of them had stabbed a
guard and taken to the hills, where such a fugitive could no more be
traced than if he were an adder under a pile of stones. The ground was
honeycombed with subterranean places, in the past Etruscan sepulchres,
now the storehouses of these men, their entrances known to them alone,
and their retreat safe from discovery.
“Every man may be betrayed, for Christo was,” said Alcide once; “but an
outlaw is almost always safe and welcome.”
It was quite true. There is an universal feeling amongst the people of
fraternal unison against the law and the fiscal agents; and the little
children will carry bread and wine to such a fugitive from justice and
never speak, or tell where they have found him. Whatever feud there
might be between the families in other matters, they are of one accord,
of strict and mutual support concerning their enterprises in smuggling
and in brigandage.
“This contraband carrying is an organised conspiracy,” said Cyrille to
the under-steward, when he had become aware of the practice.
“No doubt,” said Fausto, with a gesture of indifference.
“And you have never attempted to put it down?”
“No; before me nobody ever did. Why should I?”
“Do you think it right?”
Fausto shrugged his shoulders. “I do not say whether it is right or it
is wrong. It has always been done. The people would not like it meddled
with, be sure. They regard it as one of their rights.”
“But it is a bad, dangerous, and dishonest life.”
“They do not see it so. It pleases them.”
“And you connive at it?”
“It hurts nobody,” said Fausto sullenly. “There is no thief so big as
the Revenue.”
Cyrille said no more; but he resolved to make an example of the first
convoy which he could surprise. He saw that Fausto, for some gain of
his own, or out of personal fear, closed his eyes to the practice. He
determined to lie in waiting himself to hear the wagon wheels passing
over the road on the first moonless night after this conversation. He
understood why he had so often heard afar off in the still hours after
midnight the faint grinding of wheels on rutty paths, and the far-off
voices of swearing men. He took up his stand where three woodland paths
met, on the edge of the only road which led across the woods of the
Gandolfo to Montefiascone northwards, and south-westwards to Rome. He
had reason to believe that it was a frequent route with the forest
thieves.
He was alone, for he trusted no one enough to ask their company. It was
pitch dark; the moving of night birds and beasts was audible as they
stirred in branch or brake; a deep runlet of water fell down through
the undergrowth, rippling and splashing. He had a seven-chambered
revolver in his belt; he hoped not to be forced to use it. It was
extremely cold, as nights in February are even in the south; but he
had known what it was to pace up and down on guard on the terraces
of Gatschina when snow was six feet deep around, and the cold of the
Patrimony of St Peter had small terrors for him. He stood immovable,
his back against the trunk of an ilex tree; his repeating watch told
him that five quarters had passed since he came there. He was not sure
that the smugglers were out this night, though he had reason to believe
so. It might well be that he had come there for nothing; but he was
resolved to wait until the dawn.
At last, in the darkness and stillness, he heard the distant sound of
cleft hoofs moving through muddy earth, and springless carts groaning
as the rough wooden spokeless discs of the wheels alone can groan on
their rusty axles. All the soldier in him was roused; he had not felt
so much alive since the day that he had passed the frontier of his
country. They were distant perhaps half a mile. By one of these three
paths fronting him they were forced to enter on the high-road; there
was no other. Nearer and nearer came the creaking of the carts, the
crushing of the soil, the low voices of men: he waited until he could
hear the heavy breathing of the cattle, then he flashed a lantern on
them, and levelled his revolver.
“It is I--halt!” he said in a clear voice.
They instinctively pulled the buffaloes backward, and fell back
themselves one against another. They thought he had guards with him.
The cattle paused willingly, the gasping of their breath, the blowing
of their nostrils, sounding painfully on the stillness.
“Stir not a step, or you are dead men,” he said to them. “You are
carrying contraband.”
He was by no means certain what they had with them, but his venture
sped home. They had crapes over their faces. They had charcoal and
game in their carts. They huddled together in fear, and did not speak
lest he should recognise their voices. There were three carts, yoked
severally to four buffaloes and two cows; the men were but three. They
had no firearms, only their knives. They eyed him evilly, but they were
afraid to strike him. His revolver, they knew, would be quicker than
their steel; and they thought that he had armed force behind him hidden
in the brake. They muttered under their breath dreadful curses against
him, but they did not rebel.
“Take your carts to the Fattoria,” he said. “Go on before me. If you
stir out of the road a bullet will find you.”
Sullenly but timidly they pulled their cattle across out of the
high-road, and into the avenue which led to the house. He walked behind
them, his revolver covering them, as they knew and felt in every nerve
of their spines. Cattle move slowly on the best of roads, and this road
was thick with half-frozen mud, and crossed by runlets of water, and
the beasts splashed heavily through the slush on their leaden-footed
way.
But at last the half-mile of distance was traversed, and the lamp
burning before a shrine on the balustrade before the house shone across
the sward like a beacon. To his infinite surprise, no one of the men
had attempted any rebellion.
He fired a shot in the air, and all the members of the household
tumbled up from their slumbers and came out, as he had bade them do
when they should hear the signal, with arms and torches. He caused
the cattle to be stabled, the carts with their loads locked up in an
outhouse, and consigned the prisoners to one of the strong-rooms made
for such use in earlier ages. When he saw their faces he recognised in
one the peasant Alcide. He was amazed at the extreme ease of his own
victory; what to do with it was more perplexing.
“Take them bread and water, Caterina,” he said to her.
“Not I, sir. Let the rogues fast.”
“If you will not, I must.”
She obeyed, with great reluctance.
“Think of yourself, sir,” she said when she returned. “Get to rest.”
“No, I shall remain up; I do not altogether trust our household. There
is a great deal of tribal feeling in your woods.”
“Is that why you went alone, sir?”
“Yes.”
Caterina groaned aloud. “’Tis sheer madness. I wonder they did not
knife you like a sheep. You trust too much to that little steel
honeycomb of yours.”
“One can only die once,” said Cyrille, and thought: “I died when I left
my love and my country.”
He remained the rest of the night awake and armed; seated by the
kitchen fire, where he could hear the slightest movement which might
take place in any of the long stone passages and basement chambers.
There was no sound anywhere till the cocks crowed at dawn. An hour
after sunrise he had the men whom he had captured brought before him.
In one he recognised, as he expected to do, the peasant Alcide; the
other two were neighbours of his, young, unintelligent, ill-looking
boors who had followed Alcide’s lead.
The dark-browed, lean, unwashed man scowled at him as he had done in
the death-chamber of the old Adamo; his eyes were like jewels and
scintillated dangerously. He had been disarmed when brought there, but
his fingers fingered nervously at his hairy breast seeking the poignard
which was always used to lie within his belt. Cyrille cross-questioned
him minutely, but failed to get any confession out of him.
“You took me in the act,” he said sullenly. “Make what you can of that.”
In his own mind Alcide was certain that his niece had betrayed him;
but he would let no word escape him which could be construed into
confession or facilitate condemnation.
The theft of the charcoal and game, and the intent to run them
contraband, were evident, and he did not deny them; but he did not
admit either. He left his accuser to collect evidence as he could.
There was enough of it to justify Cyrille in sending him and his
companions to the nearest guardhouse, which was a dozen miles on the
other side of the woods.
It would have been the wisest course to pursue, and Alcide would have
had a year or more of prison; his companions, more excusable, as
tempted by him, perhaps less.
But his present judge was a man who held the creeds of Tolstoi;
who abhorred the eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth of modern
legislation; who had infinite compassion for the poor and ignorant, and
even for the most vicious. He took a course which he thought would be
just both for his employers and to the thief.
“I could send you to take your trial,” he said in conclusion, “and your
trial would undoubtedly end in your conviction. I perhaps shall do
wrong if I spare you. But my employers leave me large discretion, and
I shall exercise it in your favour. I confiscate the stolen charcoal;
it is the property of my masters; and the game I shall send to the
hospitals of Rome; but I will restore to you your carts and cattle, and
I will set you free. All I ask of you is to offend no more.”
Alcide’s face did not change; he shrugged his shoulders slightly; the
other two offenders fell on their knees and blessed the saints, and
swore their willingness to lead a cleanly life.
“Of what are you thinking, Alcide?” said Cyrille, looking at the dark
savage, sunburnt face of Muriella’s uncle, with its glittering eyes
and its deep lines of dirt and smoke.
“I was thinking that you have not learned much since you have come
here!” replied the man in tones of rasping contempt.
“You mean that I am a fool to spare you?”
Alcide showed his white even teeth flashing in his swarthy face with a
grin of satirical scorn. He did not answer in words.
“I fear that I am,” said Cyrille. “But I have given you my word. I
cannot withdraw it now. If any hear of this matter it will not be from
me. Go. You are free. Your knife will be given back to you. Treat your
cattle decently if you know how; and if I take you, when engaged in
this work, a second time, I shall not spare you.”
Alcide turned on his heel, and went out of the chamber without a word
of gratitude.
“The girl betrayed me to him,” he thought. “Thank him? Not I! What does
he here? Interloper, and spy, and meddler. He drew me before him last
night as if I had been an ox. I will be quits with him before long.”
“He dealt better with you than you deserve, you gallows-bird,” said
Caterina, as he went across the courtyard. Alcide showed his white even
teeth again like a wolf’s, and grinned in her face.
No one had betrayed him. Cyrille’s own observations had alone furnished
him with indices which he had followed up to proof. But the Italian
always believes betrayal to be the cause of all disaster, public or
private, and these men were convinced that they had been betrayed;
their suspicions settled, naturally, on Muriella. “She was ever an
unnatural, ill-feeling wench,” said Alcide. “Always caring for birds
and beasts and reptiles, and frowning where we laughed. It is but of a
piece with her to serve the stranger and rob us all.”
But he did not let her see his suspicions since he had no confirmation
of them; he, indeed, went out of his way to be civil and flatter her.
“If you can make our poor girls like yourself we shall thank you,” he
said more than once. “’Tis those good ways your mother taught you; they
were never in our wild blood.”
Muriella weighed his compliments at their right worth, and distrusted
all he said; but she did not know how passionately he hated her. He was
a bad man, she knew, but after all he was her father’s brother, and had
given her a home, such as it was. It was miserable in many ways, and
made more so than it need have been by filth and want of thrift; but it
was a home; it saved her from that errant and lonely life which brings
down on any woman so much contempt and derision, and in a rough way
they estimated her use to them and feared to lose her.