THE SINFUL VILLAGE OF SPELLINO
This was the story we told, and there was not a face among the audience
that did not blanch, and in that village there were undoubtedly some who
that night did not sleep.
Now, the success of the story of the Seven Dead Men was great,
surprising, embarrassing. For as soon as we ceased the children ran off
to their homes to bring their mothers, who also had to hear. So we had
to tell as before, without the alteration of a word.
Then home from the meadow pastures where they had been mowing, past the
ripening grain, the fathers came, ill-pleased to find the dinner still
not ready. Then these in their turn had to be fetched, and the story
told from the beginning. Yea, and did we vary so much as the droop of a
hair on the wet beard of the drowned man as he tumbled in the swirl of
the lagoon where the Brenta meets the tide, a dozen voices corrected us,
and we were warned to be careful. A reputation so sudden and tremendous
is, at its beginning, somewhat brittle.
The group about the well now included almost every able-bodied person in
the village, and several of the cripples, who cried out if any pushed
upon them. Into the midst of this inward-bent circle of heads the
village priest elbowed his way, a short and rotund father, with a frown
on his face which evidently had no right there.
"Story-tellers!" he exclaimed. "There is no need for such in my village.
We grow our own. Thou, Beppo, art enough for a municipality, and thou,
Andrea. But what have we here?"
He paused open-mouthed. He had expected the usual whining, mumping
beggar; and lo, here were two well-attired _forestieri_ with their packs
on their backs and their hats upon their heads. But we stood up, and in
due form saluted the father, keeping our hats in our hands till he,
pleased at this recognition and deference before his flock, signed to us
courteously to put them on again.
After this, nothing would do but we must go with him to his house and
share with him a bottle of the noble wine of Montepulciano.
"It is the wine of my brother, who is there in the cure of souls," he
said. "Ah, he is a judge of wine, my brother. It is a fine place, not
like this beast of a village, inhabited by bad heretics and worse
Catholics."
"Bad Protestants--who are they?" I said, for I had been reared in the
belief that all Protestants were good--except, perhaps, they were
English Episcopalians. Specially all Protestants in the lands of Rome
were good by nature.
The priest looked at us with a question in his eye.
"You are of the Church, it may be?" asked he, evidently thinking of our
reverence at the well-stoop.
We shook our heads.
"It matters not," said the easy father; "you are, I perceive, good
Christians. Not like these people of Spellino, who care neither for
priest nor pastor."
"There he goes," said the priest, pointing out of the window at a man in
plain and homely black who went by--the sight of whom, as he went, took
me back to the village streets of Dullarg when I saw the minister go by.
I had a sense that I ought to have been out there with him, instead of
sitting in the presbytery of the Pope's priest. But the father thought
not of that, and the Montepulciano was certainly most excellent. "A
bad, bad village," said the father, looking about him as if in search of
something.
"Margherita!" he cried suddenly.
An old woman appeared, dropping a bleared courtesy, unlike her queenly
name.
"What have you for dinner, Margherita?
"Enough for one; not enough for three, and they hungry off the road,"
she said. "If thou, O father, art about to feed the _lazzaroni_ of the
north and south thou must at least give some notice, and engage another
servant!"
"Nay, good Margherita," answered the priest very meekly, "there is
enough boiled fowl and risotto of liver and rice to serve half a score
of appetites. See to it," he said.
Margherita went grumbling away. What with beggars and leaping dogs,
besides children crawling about the steps, it was ill living in such a
presbytery--one also which was at any rate so old that no one could keep
it clean, though they laboured twenty-four hours in the day--ay, and
rose betimes upon the next day.
As the lady said, the place was old. Father Philip told us that it had
been the wing of a monastery.
"See," he said, "I will show you."
So saying, he led us through a wide, cool, dusky place, with arched roof
and high windows, the walls blotched and peeling, with the steam of many
monkish dinners. The doors had been mostly closed up, and only at one
side did an open window and archway give glimpses of pillared cloisters
and living green. We begged that we might sit out here, which the priest
gladly allowed, for the sight of the green grass and the tall white
lilies standing amid was a mighty refreshment in the hot noontide.
Sunshine flickered through the mulberry and one grey cherry-tree, and
sifted down on the grass.
Then the priest told us all the sin of the villagers of Spellino. It
was not that a remnant of the Waldenses was allowed to live there. The
priest did not object to good Waldensians. But the people of Spellino
would neither pay priest nor pastor. They were infidels.
"A bad people, an accursed people!" he repeated. "I have not had my dues
for ten years as I ought. I send my agent to collect; and as soon as he
appears, every family that is of the religion turns heretic. Not a child
can sign the sign of the Cross, not though I baptized every one of them.
All the men belong to the church of Pastor Gentinetta, and can repeat
his catechism."
The priest paused and shook his head.
"A bad people! a bad people!" he said over and over again. Then he
smiled, with some sense of the humour of the thing.
"But there are many ways with bad people," he said; "for when my good
friend, Pastor Gentinetta, collects his stipend, and the blue envelopes
of the Church are sent round, what a conversion ensues to Holy Church!
Lo, there is a crucifix in every house in Spellino, save in one or two
of the very faithful, who are so poor that they have nothing to give.
Each child blesses himself as he goes in. Each _bambino_ has the picture
of its patron saint swung about its neck. The men are out at the
_festa_, the women not home from confession, and there is not a _soldo_
for priest or pastor in all this evil village of Spellino!"
Father Philip paused to chuckle in some admiration at such abounding
cleverness in his parish.
"How then do you live, either of you?" I asked, for the matter was
certainly curious.
The father looked at us.
"You are going on directly?" he said, in a subdued manner.
"Immediately," we said, "when we have tired out your excellent
hospitality."
"Then I shall tell you. The manner of it is this. My friend
Gentinetta;--he is my friend, and an excellent one in this world, though
it is likely that our paths may not lie together in the next, if all be
true that the Pope preaches. We two have a convention, which is private
and not to be named. It is permitted to circumvent the wicked, and to
drive the reluctant sheep by innocent craft.
"Now, Pastor Gentinetta has the advantage of me during the life of his
people. It is indeed a curious thing that these heretics are eager to
partake of the untransformed and unblessed sacraments, which are no
sacraments. It is the strangest thing! I who preach the truth cannot
drive my people with whips of scorpions to the blessed sacraments of
Holy Church. They will not go for whip or cord. But these heretics will
mourn for days if they be not admitted to their table of communion. It
is one of the mysterious things of God. But, after all, it is a lucky
thing," soliloquised Father Philip; "for what does my friend do when
they come to him for their cards of communion, but turns up his book of
stipend and statute dues. Says he--'My friend, such and such dues are
wanting. A good Christian cannot sit down at the sacrament without
clearing himself with God, and especially with His messenger.' So there
he has them, and they pay up, and often make him a present besides. For
such threats my rascals would not care one black and rotten fig."
"But how," said I in great astonishment, "does this affect you?"
"Gently and soothly," said the priest. "Wait and ye shall hear. If the
pastor has the pull over me in life, when it comes to sickness, and the
thieves get the least little look within the Black Doors that only open
the one way--I have rather the better of my friend. It is my time then.
My fellows indeed care no button to come to holy sacrament. They need to
be paid to come. But, grace be to God for His unspeakable mercy, Holy
Church and I between us have made them most consumedly afraid of the
world that is to come. And with reason!"
Father Philip waited to chuckle.
"But Gentinetta's people have everything so neatly settled for them long
before, that they part content without so much as a 'by your leave' or
the payment of a death-duty. Not so, however, the true believer. He hath
heard of Purgatory and the warmth and comfort thereof. Of the other
place, too, he has heard. He may have scorned and mocked in his days of
lightsome ease, but down below in the roots of his heart he believes.
Oh, yes, he believes and trembles; then he sends for me, and I go!
"'Confession--it is well, my son! extreme unction, the last sacraments
of the Church--better and better! But, my son, there is some small
matter of tithes and dues standing in my book against thy name. Dost
thou wish to go a debtor before the Judge? Alas! how can I give thee
quittance of the heavenly dues, when thou hast not cleared thyself of
the dues of earth?' Then there is a scramble for the old canvas bag from
its hiding-place behind the ingle-nook. A small remembrance to Holy
Church and to me, her minister, can do no harm, and may do much good.
Follows confession, absolution--and, comforted thus, the soul passes; or
bides to turn Protestant the next time that my assessor calls. It
matters not; I have the dues."
"But," said I, "we have here two things that are hard to put together.
In a time of health, when there is no sickness in the land, thou must go
hungry. And when sickness comes, and the pastor's flock are busy with
their dying, they will have no time to go to communion. How are these
things arranged?"
"Even thus," replied Father Philip. "It is agreed upon that we pool the
proceeds and divide fairly, so that our incomes are small but regular.
Yet, I beseech thee, tell it not in this municipality, nor yet in the
next village; for in the public places we scowl at one another as we
pass by, Pastor Gentinetta and I."
"And which is earning the crust now?" said I.
The jovial priest laughed, nodding sagely with his head.
"Gentinetta hath his sacraments on Tuesday, and his addresses to his
folk have been full of pleasant warnings. It will be a good time with
us."
"And when comes your turn?" cried Henry, who was much interested by this
recital.
"There cometh at the end of the barley harvest, by the grace of God, a
fat time of sickness, when many dues are paid; and when the addresses
from the altar of this Church of Sant Philip are worth the hearing."
The old priest moved the glass of good wine at his elbow, the fellow of
the Montepulciano he had set at ours.
"A bad town this Spellino," he muttered; "but I, Father Philip, thank
the saints--and Gentinetta, he thanks his mother, for the wit which
makes it possible for poor servants of God to live."
The old servant thrust her head within.
"Tonino Scala is very sick," she said, "and calleth for thee!"
The priest nodded, rose from his seat, and took down a thick
leather-bound book.
"Lire thirty-six," he said--"it is well. It begins to be my time. This
week Gentinetta and his younglings shall have chicken-broth."
So with heartiest goodwill we bade our kind Father Philip adieu, and
fared forth upon our way.