she said, nodding slowly. "We heard of of the burning, but not the why. Um dead, are they ? Lippo's ill to handle except with gloves." "Please God we'll mishandle him yet, and with naked fists." 132 COLD MARBLE AND WARM BLOOD 133 'Toil, signer ?" At the hard sternness, so foreign from the man, the gravity deepened in her eyes. "But you are bound for Forli, are you not?" "To-day, yes; but before June we shall be back in Brettinoro and then But there's no good talking of it" There the little mother differed. "You know our wine of old, come in, signers both, and try it again." "Not to-day. Forli's far off "Far off? Forli? And it all the way downhill? It's nought of a ride, signers, nought of a ride: you'll be in Forli hours before sunset Come in for old kindness* sake/' she urged. "Not to-day." Fieravanti was firm. Somehow it stuck in his memory that the road to Castel-Cavo had been longer in Vaga's imagination than in reality ; that to Forli might well be reversed, to the profit of the Aquila Nera. "These villain goats, have they strayed since we were here two months ago?" "The goats ?" For a moment she was taken aback, then laughed cheerfully. "Twice or thrice, signer, twice or thrice: but they have their uses, these goats!" and she was still laughing when the two rode on. But the laugh died and, one huge, half -naked arm propped against a door-post, she stood looking into vacancy with depth of thought. Which way lay wisdom that is to say, profit? To warn Lippo that there might be a harrying of his wasp's nest, or to let the harriers go their own way in quietness? If she was any judge of a man's face the harrying would be thorough: there would be an end to Lippo. An end to Lippo? That meant an end to the wandering of goats, and less to go under the hearth- stone for little Gian. That was bad, but there was a possible worse. Rumours of five dead had travelled down from the Brettinoro road ; what if Lippo, unwarned of the threatened Harrying, came 134 A MAKER OF SAINTS to know of her knowledge and her silence? "Mother of Mercy!" she muttered as she shivered with an intake of the breath. In that case little Gian would never handle what lay under the hearthstone. There would be an end to the Black Eagle and its brood, and the Black Eagle was no red Phoenix to rise anew out of fire ! But if she warned him and the warning saved him? Her comely face brightened at the thought, only to cloud afresh. Could it save him? Let the countryside once be roused and yet, who was this maker of saints to rouse the countryside? Pest upon the man ! Why could he not have come in and babbled over his wine ? If she knew anything of a man and a woman she could have had his plans out of him as clean as an empty pocket and he never know it! Then she could have judged whether to warn or not warn Lippo was best; now Yes, what now ? Lippo was oh, a pest upon Lippo too ! Lippo went too far. Five dead, and all for loss of a purse which might or might not have been full : certainly Lippo went too far. In the end she decided to wait for the re- turn from Forli. She might pick his brains then and it would be time enough: wasps' nests, such nests as Lippos build, cannot be harried with bare fists, not by men of sense, and she did not judge this maker of saints to be a fool. Preparation meant waste of time in Brettinoro and Lippo could be warned. Placidly and well content she went back to her cooking-pot. If Fieravanti had received many greetings as he rode out in the early March morning there were yet more to welcome his return when he passed the gates with the sun still high. That these were chiefly from humble folk did not lessen their sweetness, increased it, rather, and rightly. He who can touch the heart of the poor and hold their love is the true king of men, let who may wear the crown. And this love the maker of saints held so securely COLD MARBLE AND WARM BLOOD 135' that a crusade cried against Lippo would have met with an instant response but for Ordelaffi's guards. Not for his own life's sake would Girolamo Ordelaffi dare permit the people to arm at their pleasure, whether against Lippo or any other, lest, having sensed their power, they turn these arms against himself. But many heads were bared, and here and there not a little clamouring arose, as the sculptor, "Tonio following, passed along the narrow, crowded streets to his workshop in the Via dell' Agnello where they found 'Sandro, all unconscious of their coming, disconsolately polishing the lions for the San Agostino pulpit. The roughing-out had been done in a week, and to keep his heart comforted he had finished the job after his own fashion : at the worst it would be but the spoiling of so much marble God, He knows, a small price to pay for ease of spirit through two weary months. But, let it be said, there was no such spoil- ing. To this day 'Sandro's lions, couched but with heads erect, look down the dim nave of the ancient church with their own dumb message of courage, strength and alert guardianship for whoso has the wit to understand. How 'Sandro met the Master and the Master him may be left to the imagination. 'Tonio standing by, sneered in secret at his fellow scarpellino as a slobbering fool because he kissed the Master's hand with more fervour than he would have kissed Pope Clement's, and all the while en- vied him because he could so let his heart out of his breast to sjeak for itself: then, vexedly, told himself it was natural that the Master should love a man of his own race best, till Fieravanti, reading the signs with shrewd eyes, took him by the arm and of the two made three. "He will never tell you, so I must. But for him there iniirlit be no Marco Fieravanti alive to-day. Up there in the hills he risked his life for mine," whereat 'Sandro, in- stead of giving thanks, looked as if, in hia opinion, the 136 A MAKEK OF SAINTS risking should have heen the giving outright. In his jealous love he would have been more grateful to 'Tonio dead than, at the moment, he was to 'Tonio living. It was then that the Agostino lions came in for the praise due to their maker, and with 'Tonio joining in whole- heartedly all three were good friends as of old : 'Sandro's skill as a workman waked no jealousy in Anthony Hawk. Because of his many welcomes Fieravanti's return to Forli could not be hid. Naturally, having his spies in every street, Girolamo Ordelaffi at the Castello was one of the first to hear the news, with the consequence that before noon of the next day Amata Capponi's litter was set down before the workshop in the Street of the little Lamb. This time there was no such exuberance as had wel- comed Luca Melone. But if Forli was not roaring itself hoarse, neither did it rip up the cobbles it would have flung at a bishop who had earned its full-blooded hate. There was reason in the restraint. The Church did not strike back as Girolamo Ordelaffi would have struck, so the crowd in Forli one has but to hold up a wet finger to see how the wind blows to draw a crowd stood lowering in sullen silence, or at most cursed under its breath the woman for whose pleasuring it was ground to the dust~->. ith taxes. The Church ? To Forli the arm of flesh with a rope in one mailed fist and a pike in the other counted for more than all the Church's anathemas. So it lowered and glow- ered but discreetly left the cobbles where the pavior's hammer had driven them, and Amata Capponi, gayer than any parrot in the red silken gown which she knew became so well her dark beauty, looked back the glowering inso- lently from under her black brows. Well she knew the wild beast which lurks hidden in every mob was flexing its claws in itching secret and, being a woman of courage, abated her insolence not one fraction of a jot for the knowl- edge. COLD MARBLE AND WARM BLOOD 137 Nor, being naturally wanton as well as no coward, did It content her to look her insolence. No, she must needs flaunt it, leaning on Ordelaffi's page, who had walked by her litter's side from the Castello, in such a way that the loose-cut robe slipped its sleeves to the shoulder, leaving the rounded, shapely arms bare for all to see. Why not? June was hot in the narrow streets and the flaming red which set off her colouring made the warm air no cooler: a wonderful robe it was, loose-sleeved but fitting close to the bust she knew to be so admirably moulded, and yet so thin in texture that the silk was so like a second skin as hardly to be decent. Again, why not? Was she not going to cajole Marco Fieravanti? Fieravanti, who took women as God made them and shaped saints from his imagination of what they were? Surely the less the imagination and the more the reality the truer the marble would be, to the woman if not to the saint? So argued Amata Capponi, who had not forgotten her two-months'- old rebuff on the night of the dice-cogging. By the time she was clear of the litter 'Sandro had opened the door. It was just as well it was not 'Tonio who gave the service : of the two scarpellini the Italian was the more supple minded. Anthony Hawk might have answered her insolence for she was still insolent accord- ing to its quality; 'Sandro was more politic! "Your Master, is he within? Yes? Then lead the way In his workshop is he? So much the better. It is there I wished to find him." And there, presently, they found him much as His Grandeur had two months before, pressing the lever which sent the Magdalene circling on her turntable. But not as the Church had entered in the person of Luca Melone en- tered Amata Capponi. Brushing 'Sandro aside with her accustomed arrogant impatience she swept past him like the tempest-driven flame she looked. 138 A MAKER OF SAINTS "Ser Marco, Ser Marco, where have you hidden yourself these two months? Is this the famous Magdalene? Phit! she's stone cold ! Where's her hint of dalliance ? Where's her enticement? Where's her allure? By the other Mary! I see none! The Magdalene? Why, she's an ice-block and no true woman, much less that other ! I thought you knew us better? To win men, my friend, one must warm their blood." "To win them for hell; yes, perhaps, though of that I know nothing," answered Fieravanti, easing the pressure upon the lever as he spoke. "No?" The curt word was an insolence. From the marble she turned and looked him up and down as once before in the Castello. Her verdict then had been that he was the handsomest man in the thronged room with its dazzled confusion from a hundred lamps; seen now, in the warm, clear daylight, she found no reason to change her opinion. Curiosity had partly drawn her to his workshop, partly idleness, partly the desire for some new sensation: now, looking him up and down as he faced her in his grey linen gaberdine, idle curiosity hardened into a definite pur- pose. If Girolamo were jealous let him be jealous ; always she had her way with Girolamo, why not now? "And yet, by your looks you should have good blood to warm. Ser Marco, I bring you a commission " "Signora, my hands are full. Already I have prom- ised " "Then unpromise! A promise? Phit! Promises only hold good until something better comes our way. And I bring you ! Saints ? Leave making saints for once and give the world a Venus!" She laughed consciously as she half checked herself at the last words, the sweeping gesture of her arms, white and warm in their loose sleeves, pointing the goddess. Nor did Fieravanti fence. COLD MARBLE AND WARM BLOOD 139 "Signora, you are too tall. By convention in our Italy Venus is small-limbed." "Convention?" she scoffed. "What have I to do with convention ? Too tall ? No, so much the better if one is a goddess every inch. Shall I make a Venus fit for Olym- pus, Ser Marco?" Again there came the gesture as she smiled into his eyes, her own lit with broadening triumph. Amata Cap- poni had no intention of failing in the allure she missed from the Magdalene. "But, signora," answered Fieravanti, smiling back, "how can I be here and in Faldora at the one time?" "Faldora?" she stiffened in displeasure at the hinted difficulty. Hitherto, since grown a woman, to say I will had been reason sufficient and an end to difficulties. "What have I to do with Faldora ?" "Nothing: but I have promised Count Ascanio a Ma- donna for the Faldora chapel." "Then unpromise unpromise," she retorted. "I am sick to death of your cold saints." "Signora, to my sorrow" which was more politic and courteous than true "my word is passed. Already the marble is being made ready for transmission " "The marble, yes! But before the marble comes the clay. If you must hold to your word though I see no need here's a model for your clay here !" For the third time she stretched her arms in that enticement, that dalli- ance, which in her eyes the Magdalene lacked. True, the attitude was hardly that of a Madonna; but as she had said, What had she to do with convention! Besides, she and the Madonna, were they not both alike women? "Impossible, Signora. Already the model is chosen " "Who?" Black browed in very truth she almost spat the word at him. "The Signorina Faldora." 140 A MAKER OF SAINTS "Faldora ?" Intent on her own purpose it was only now that a chord of memory stirred at the repetition of the name. "Faldora! Oh yes!" and she laughed. "Sister, no doubt, to that " But even in her vexed passion she remembered Ordelaffi's strict orders and looked back to- wards the door. But they were alone, 'Sandro had dis- creetly shut himself without. "That false dicer ? A sweet Madonna, by my word, a very sweet Madonna. No doubt they made a pair!" "No sister: a far-off cousin, nothing more." Uncon- sciously Fieravanti spoke curtly, anger sharpening his voice for the first time, so that for a moment she stood silent, then again broke into a laugh. Now, the Amata Capponis of this world do not always laugh pleasantly. "No sister: a far-off cousin!" she mocked. "And that does not please you ! But nothing more ! Nothing more as yet? Oh, I have it; your country wench is to marry this cogger of dice, and that does not please you either? Is she more fit to be a saint of your making?" "She is, I think, fit to be Our Lady the Great Mother." "The mother to the children of a cogger of dice! Ser Marco, I challenge you. Side by side, which would you choose, her or me? Your country wench of a Faldora or Amata Capponi?" With something more than challenge she met and held his eyes. Girolamo Ordelaffi was no green boy to be swept from his feet by the first pretty face that smiled upon him, and from more lips than Ordelam's she knew that in Forli her warm beauty had no rival. Therefore there was an arrogant assumption, an audacious assurance of triumph in the challenge, an insolence, a contemptuous scorn of this unknown Faldora with whom, for her own set purpose, she deigned to compare herself. CHAPTER XTV A CHOICE OF MODELS VERY gravely, like a man who, seriously asked a doubt- ful question, seriously desires to answer it, the maker of saints accepted the challenge. And the forced comparison bore unexpected fruit. For the first time the man in him, not the maker of saints but the man of warm blood Amata Capponi had called him, took a man's thought of the woman who was Lucia Faldora ; thought not of Luca Me- lone's possible saint in the making, thought not of the Madonna who was the Great Mother, but simple thought of the woman who was as God and her own thoughts made her. And since it is inevitable that for such a purpose the mind seizes upon one clear-cut picture which is the essen- tial self to be mirrored in the thought, Fieravanti recalled a garden chequered with light and shade, an open stretch of smooth grass and an ancient sundial by which stood a woman in cool lawn, her hand on his arm, a frank appeal in her eyes as she confessed her pride had wronged him. That, surely, was Lucia Faldora. the woman. Comparison? There was none: contrast, yes, but no comparison. As well say, compare the lily of the Annunci- ation with a flaunting poppy; or snow, new fallen, with a flaming fire which smokes as it flames. Not that Lucia Faldora was cold as snow. No ; there was latent fire ; more than once he had felt the heat which, by a paradox, is found in the very heart of the snowdrift. Courageous, clear-sighted, generous to self-sacrifice, pure as snow yet 141 142 A MAKEK OF SAINTS warm at the heart; truly that was a woman worthy to be Our Lady the Great Mother. Could any man desire more for the blessing of life? Yes Love? Perhaps his grave eyes softened at the flashed thought for, misreading the sign, Amata Capponi cried out in her exultation: "I knew it! Oh, we shall be circumspect, we two: no Eve to a man's Adam, no Venus, lest Ordelaffi grow ill- tempered, but a goddess none the less. You choose me, my Marco, you choose me !" "For a Venus, signora, yes; or a Phryne, a Thai's. For any of these, yes, without a doubt; but for the Mother of God No!" Fieravanti, feeling strongly, spoke more strongly, more decisively than he knew. Almost there was at the last an antagonism, a censure, and again she stiffened in vexed offence. "No? Who your Thai's or your Phryne may be I do not know, but what I want I shall have. Motherhood? Is it that you doubt ? Oh, though I am no milk-maid like your Faldora I'll show you I can play the part. Call Luigi." And Fieravanti, not knowing who Luigi might be but thinking it easier to comply with her order than combat her vexed spleen, did as she bade him. It was the page who answered. ''Bring me some ragged brat of the streets," she com- manded. "The raggeder the better. Say it is I, Amata Capponi, who have need for her for five minutes. Wait, Ser Marco, wait" she went on as Luigi disappeared, won- dering what new freak was on foot; Amata Capponi had little in common with rags that went hungry in the streets. "You know little of women if you think we cannot look a meek and whited tenderness when there is a gain to be won ; but, by Holy Paul ! as Girolamo says, it must be worth the winning." "And, signora, is this worth while?" A CHOICE OF MODELS 143 "Yes, since it pleases me. Do you not know that there is nothing so good in life as the whim of the moment? This Faldora girl, describe her. Is she like that far-off cousin we know of?" "No, thank God!" "Yet he was pretty enough to look at What, Luigi ? Is there no brat in sight ? Then go hunt one ! Hasten, lest you taste the whip on your shoulders not for the first time." "Children in plenty, Illustrissima, but " The lad hesitated a moment betwixt memories of the whip she threatened and a fear of future realities. But an impish yet very human desire to strike back decided him. "They said that by God's grace they would keep their children from the devil." At that the termagant in her woke. "By Holy Paul, they'll smart for that ! The devil, do they say ? I'll prove it true I'll so stir the fires " "Signora," Fieravanti's voice overbore her passion, so authoritative was it. "Would you stir the fires to scorch yourself and all for a boy-fool's malice? Let him taste the whip, and soundly ; it's his deserts. Give me three minutes and I shall fetch a child." Nor did he wait for a reply, but thrusting before him the page, now on the edge of weeping for all his dignity of thirteen years, left her alone. Within his set limits of time he was back, a child in his arms, a solemn, wide-eyed girl of three and not the raggedest out of ragged Forli : poor to privation, but with a mother's careful love writ large upon her poverty in darns and patches. Already Amata Capponi's mood had changed. The vio- lence of her passion was spent, leaving her flushed of face and sullen. Girolamo would do much for her, but cer- tainly he would not set Forli ablaze upon her account Vexed, she had caught the lever and was shifting the statue 144 A MAKER OF SAINTS "back and forth with short, impatient jerks, her eyes bent on the upturned face of the marble. Hearing Fieravanti'g footfall she looked up. "Call that thing a woman!" she said spitefully. "It's what I said at first cold stone and no more. That is the worst of marble, there's never blood in the veins. Give me canvas and warm flesh! Is that the brat? Here! Give her to me. The Great Mother, did you say? Now, Ser Marco, judge judge/' Taking the child roughly, for, though passion had spent its violence there was still the will to hurt what lay near- est, she caught her to her breast with awkward, unac- customed arms from which the loose sleeves had slipped aside and faced him, arrogant in the knowledge of her beauty. But, first to her surprise and chagrin, then to her vexed anger, she read distaste, disapproval, displeas- ure even. Hastily she mended her hand, easing the child more naturally and wrapping her shapely arms in the con- cealing sleeves. "My faith ! I forgot ! It is the mother in me you want, not the woman." Yet, being who and what she was she could not keep the woman out of her eyes, but sought to conquer him by the allure which hitherto had never failed. In her absorp- tion she forgot the child, gripping it so tightly that, pa- tient as the children of the poor must needs be, the pinched face puckered into soundless tears. Whereat Fieravanti shook his head. "Signora, had I a mirror you would see for yourself and understand." "A mirror ?" she cried, all flame on the moment. "God's "name! have you not eyes in your head no, not to look with but for me to see ! There ! take your brat ! a stone to hack a stone from a stone!" she gibed as Fieravanti A CHOICE OF MODELS 145 clasped the child she almost flung into his arms, 'like from like; that's all you are fit for, you and your cold saints. So you choose the dicer's wench, do you? Be sure I'll not forget." "Signora," began Fieravanti as she swung towards the door on her heel ; but she halted to snarl back at him, "Illustrissima to you and your peasant kind, always Illustrissima : remember that, my Praxiteles of the mud.'* With that she went. Soothing the child Fieravanti followed, but not at once. It was wiser to give the litter time to leave the Via dell' Agnello lest she should break out on him afresh, and the folk be less lamblike than was good for their comfort : nor did the small hand go empty when the mother dried the last tears from the pale cheeks. Returning, Fieravanti stood long by his handiwork, turning the lever idly but with no thought for what was still lacking from the pure, cold face. Another face was clear-cut before him, a face no less pure and scarcely less cold. Was he wise to return to Faldora at all? He, one of the peasant kind, no Praxiteles but a simple maker of saints. Of the mud? The phrase was the venom of a vexed woman's spleen, but would Ascanio Faldora not agree? Therefore, was he wise to return? Why not? Because love had meshed him? He knew that now, taught by Amata Capponi's forced contrast and her sneering will to smirch. And when a man of his years, no half-formed passionate boy to dream himself heart-deep in love one day and waken out of it the next, but a man grown to a man's full height and depth His thought stumbled, losing stride. Height and depth of passion? Yes! No stone, but a man as nerved with the fires of passion as ever any son of Adam, a man who these years had looked woman's beauty in the face, aye, and their 146 A MAKER OF SAINTS allure, their enticement, their more than hinted dalliance, without a heart's throb until, now, unsought, against all hope, all reason With a despairing lift of the hands he turned away. Such a man had better go no more to Faldora, the sacri- fice was too great. Then he remembered Carlo Faldora. No, there was no help for it; return he must: nor, on second thoughts, would there be a sacrifice. Suffering there might be must be, but that which love suffers for love's sake can never be called sacrifice; rather it is love's justification. And Amata Capponi? In the flaming heat of their wrath some natures cry, I'll not forget! and cooling, straightway do forget; but not Amata Capponi. Forget? No! With every new day the galling to her wounded vanity rankled yet more rawly. But how to strike back? Through Ordelaffi ? Ordelaffi would laugh at her, tolerantly at first, then, if she persisted, not so tolerantly and for good cause. Marco Fieravanti held the love of Forli ; not even for her sake would Ordelaffi set Forli ablaze, turning that love into a new cause for hate against himself. Besides, she would have to explain, and however well she lied Orde- laffi would scent the truth and laugh yet louder at the thought of Amata Capponi masquerading as the Great Mother hint Venus she would not dare. But when, on the fourth day, Ordelaffi's spies brought word that an ox-cart had arrived from Faldora to be laden with a block of marble from the maker of saints a light broke. Carlo Faldora ! Watching her opportunity she sent for Ordelaffi's secretary. Born not so far from the mud herself she knew nothing of letters, a sign-manual being the limit of her skill with a pen. '^Write this," she ordered curtly, "Mwrco Fieravanti was present in the Castello the night of the dicing, see to yourself." A CHOICE OF MODELS 147 "But, Illustrissima, my lord has forbidden " "He forbids and I bid choose ! But if you refuse, as I live I'll break you like that !" and crumpling one of his quills into flinders she flung it aside. "Now," she went on when he had written, "speak to my lord of this and he will do the breaking!'* So it came about that when, presently, the driver of the oxen returned by the Flaminian Way he had in charge not alone the block of marble, roughly shaped, in his cart, but in his pouch a letter for the young Count, which letter if he lost he might go hang himself lest worse befalL CHAPTER XV BIRDS OF A DARK FEATHER SINCE Giro of the broken head and missing finger, better known as Giro of the dogs, had been too busied of late with the labour on his far-off vineyard to show himself at the Casa, that business following upon Fieravanti's supper on his return from Arzano, it was natural that Carlo Faldora should be more often abroad through the hills. It was, then, the cause of no remark when on the day follow- ing the arrival of the ox-cart from Forli he mounted and rode hillwards. Nor did any connect the fact that he rode earlier than his wont with the receiving of a letter which he had opened carelessly the night before and read with a curse. No; if any gave the letter a second thought it was that the young signer, being the signer and young, had left debts behind him in Forli: now, debts have an uncomfortable habit of following a man wherever he may go, and curses are the cheapest mode of payment yet dis- covered. It was natural, too, and without any apparent connection with the letter, that Carlo Faldora should question the driver of the cart as to the coming of the man who was to chisel the rough-hewn marble into saint-like shape. True, he had rather mocked at Father Bernardo's scheme for rousing the divine spark presumed to be latent in the Bret- tinoro clods, but it is notorious that men at times are prone to hide their finer feelings under a cloak of indifference or worse. Possibly Carlo Faldora was one of such, and in 148 BIRDS OF A DARK FEATHER 149 any case all the Casa was agog to know when this new thing would begin in their midst: there are more Areo- pagites in the world than are to be met with on Mars Hill. But Faldora learned little. The Master, as they called him "down there/' would follow and might arrive on the morrow next day any day. Whereat the sacrifice of a fresh anathema was offered up, no doubt this time on the altar of Brettinoro's cloddish needs. Next morning, as has been said, the young signer rode hillwards while the dew was yet white on the grass. Just where and in what circumstance the threads of Carlo Faldora's life had crossed those of Lippo the Ishmae- lite are not of this story. It is enough that each found a use for the other with a resulting mutual benefit in crowns and ducats. Nor is it hard to conceive the gain such a man as Lippo might derive through the good offices of a friend in the camp of his enemies, while it is even less a strain on the imagination that the cogger of dice in Forli should have no scruple in sharing gains with a cut-purse of the hills. Besides and this, surely, makes for righteousness it was but a temporary alliance. Carlo Faldora had his mind clearly made up once let his position be absolutely assured, that is to say, bluntly, once let him find himself standing in his Uncle's shoes, and there would be a swift end to Lippo: a trap would be set, and the oaks of Bret- tinoro would bear grim fruit as a result. Thereby three things would be achieved, First, the past wiped out; secondly, future peace assured; thirdly, his conscience cleansed from present offence. Meanwhile, conscience troubled him not at all and Lippo had his uses. Whoso knows the hills above Brettinoro knows that they are a crumple of stony ridges and intricate ravines, these latter deep wooded, well watered, sheltered in the winter and altogther admirable for the free life of a gentleman 150 A MAKER OF SAINTS of the road. If danger threatened on the one side, which, so far, it never had, Rome, who was responsible for law and justice, being far off, but if it so threatened there was al- ways a choice of leisurely ways of escape. It was up one of these roads that Faldora drove his horse in no leisurely fashion that June morning, nor, even at this back door to Lippo's comfortable quarters, was he challenged. True, for the last mile eyes had watched him, their presence unsuspected in the thickets upon either side, but the young signor was known as a friend and in any case to challenge a single horseman was pure waste ; it was simpler to let him ride on deeper into the folds of the hills and then, if extreme measures were absolutely necessary, make an end at* leisure. By a seeming paradox, but in reality most naturally, through the very earliness of his visit Faldora found the camp busily astir. With Castel-Cavo a day's journey dis- tant upon the one side, and Arzano as far upon the other, Lippo's possible tides of fortune flowed, like other tides, twice a day in the early morning, as travellers left the hospitable Custom of Brettinoro behind them, or upon their arrival towards sunset. For the first of these, the early morning departure, preparations were in progress with Lippo himself superintending, and into the bustle and stir rode Carlo Faldora. Not all looked up as he passed, but those who did greeted him with respect, not for his own sake, be it said, but for the name he bore. Seeing him approach Lippo beckoned to Giro. "Here comes our rook-pigeon. Take thou command, but wait; he may have news. Good-morning, signor," he went on, meeting Faldora, his tone a subtle blending of respect and bluff equality. "Is there a hunt a-foot?" "You have said it/' answered Faldora curtly. "Bid one of your rascals take my horse, and let that crop-fingered shadow of yours go with us while we talk." BIRDS OF A DARK FEATHER 151 "Shadow? My faith! hut some have found Giro too solid substance to please them/' and Lippo laughed. "His head was solid enough when the Englishman rattled his cudgel on it. Less bone and more brain would have saved his skull and spared us all trouble; but we're as God made us." Lippo grew serious. "Signer, leave gibing Giro: it maddens him, that memory." ''The madder the better: he will strike home the more surely when his chance comes." They had entered Lippo's quarters, Giro, obeying a ges- ture, following. It was one of the group of wooden huta which formed the camp, nor, except for solid walls, was Carlo Faldora himself better housed at theCasa. Little by little Lippo, a luxurious dog, had gathered together furnishings which old Giuseppe might have set before a Colonna unashamed. True, the floor was of beaten earth, the walls of rough-hewn timber instead of mosaic and smooth plaster, but there were warm hangings, bright- hued rugs, a soft bed, padded chairs, and glass and silver of a quality to brighten the eyes of any house-proud woman. Flinging his cap on the bed Faldora seated himself by a table placed in the centre of the hut, motioned hastily to Lippo to uncover lest no leave should be asked and turned to Giro, who, being only jackal to the wolf, stood apart with a suggestion of deference not entirely feigned. "Since you come no longer to the Casa you do not hear the news?" "Not all of it, signer," answered Giro cautiously. "Then here's for you If you would cure the memory of that broken head of yours your chance has come." "Meaning?" It was Lippo who spoke. "Meaning that Fieravanti and his scarpellino will be on the road any day now." 152 A MAKEE OF SAINTS But Lippo shook his head. "Let him come/' he said very seriously. "Though he had broken ten heads, my own among them, he is safe from me." For a moment Faldora stared incredulously, a sudden sinking disappointment gripping his heart; then he laughed, not a loud laugh nor a long, but a laugh with a spur to murder in it. A whole chapter might be written on the influence of men's laughter and two upon that of women. It is to be doubted if words themselves are as heartening or as deadly as laughter: it can comfort sorrow, it can rouse courage, bind up broken faith, waken manhood, shame baseness, stir to generosity, thrill with God's purest hap- piness, turn doubt to assurance, strangle struggling good, spur to heroism, change wholesome blood to gall, damn to despair, goad to murder, heat ten times hotter the blazing fires of hell: because of laughter men have died smiling, have turned their backs on their greater selves, have risen to the very topmost heights of earth's seventh heaven or plunged head-long, cursing, to the eternal pit: there is no limit to the power of laughter. Looking Lippo in the face Faldora laughed. "Dio mio!" he mocked. "A maker of saints they call him Santo Lippo of Brettinoro! Or have you turned coward by any chance?' "Oh, you may laugh, signor, you may laugh if you think it wise ! But better ten broken heads than one stretched neck : when a man's breath is once choked out of him it has a way of staying out. If you have forgotten, I have not, and there is at least one of your name who keeps his word 'Let Lippo beware, if he lays so much as a finger on a guest of Faldora's he'll hang, Church or no Church.' Your memory that night, signor, was not good; you forgot to tell us of Count Ascanio's oath. But BIRDS OF A DARK FEATHER 153 we heard, oh yes, we heard as it was meant we should, and by Saint Lippo of Brettinoro I'll heed." "Phit!" jeered Faldora. "A dotard's frothing! Does that fright you?" "I am free to admit that the uncle frights me more than the nephew. And now that that's settled, signer Carlo, Giro had best go about his business. This maker of saints is safe for me." "But are you safe for him? There are more oaths in the world than those sworn over a supper-table." "Meaning, signer?" "That this meddling chiseller swore on Margotti's bones " "Oh, that ? So that tale has reached you too ? Let him swear! What can he do, he and his chisel. Keep thou clear of him, Giro : it's an order." But though a nod dismissed the jackal he lingered ir- resolutely, then broke out, "Signers both, if I meet that cudgeller, what then ?" "Nothing! Have patience and, faith of Lippo! I promise you he'll wish he were Margotti. Do I ever for- get?" This time Giro obeyed the unspoken order. Margotti? The children with the mother were proof Lippo did not forget. Beyond the door they heard him whistle up his dogs. Left together Lippo, the laugh still jarring his ears, touched Faldora lightly on the arm. "What is your quarrel with this maker of saints?" "Quarrel? I? No quarrel. What quarrel could I have?" "Why not a dicer's. Mayhap, he refused to play with you. He's of Forli, is he not ? "A dicer's? Of Forli? What what " But before 154 A MAKER OF SAINTS the jeering, dry significance in Lippo's ironic smile Fal- dora's bluster trailed into silence ; then passion shook him, that shrewish passion which is the refuge of the weak man, all bubble and froth. White faced, a lip uplifted, dog-like, over bared teeth, he broke into a snarl. "So that tale has reached you? It's a lie a lie!" "Softly, signor, softly," said Lippo tolerantly. "Lie or truth is all one to me. Suppose it a lie, there's an end of it; suppose it true what matters? Nought to me! It's just that we are two of a trade with this difference I take toll of a stranger, you drink with a friend and then um, what shall I say ? then dice with him ! Either way it fills the pockets." "A lie," repeated Faldora, but with less force, "a lie a lie!" "Granted, but here's the point. Supposing this Forli chiseller whispers the lie to Count Ascanio and bids him send to Ordelaffi?" Down came Faldora's clenched fist on the table between them. "Suppose? Suppose? He will! Yet you, who might make an end to his whispers, refuse " "Softly, signor, softly" repeated Lippo. "The making an end to his whispers would make an end to me. That's settled. Count Ascanio swore no dicer's oath that night at supper! And there is this why should I rake your hot chestnuts out of a fire of your own making? Let us be men of sense, signor. Clearly, so far he has whispered nothing, and if not so far then why whisper at all? At least, why in any haste? Now comes this saint making for how long? Weeks, if not months? Here is my ad- vice: Hasten the marriage we know all about it, signor hasten it all you can. Dio mio! in your place I would not find it hard to be ardent myself ! Then, while whist- ling young Cupid down the wind make your opportunity and pick your own chestnuts out of the fire. How? You BIRDS OF A DARK FEATHER 155 wear a sword, don't you, and what is he but a chiseller? But haste that is the essence of it all, haste and then more haste.*' His passion flat out of him as froth falls flat Faldora, a thumb-point between his nibbling teeth, sat listening in silence. That Lippo should venture to be thus familiar vexed that pride of race in him which resented encroach- ments from below, yet failed to keep his own feet out of the mud ; but he dared not openly rebuke the presumption. Lippo would have his uses yet, and Carlo Faldora was not the man to fling away a tool because it cut his fingers. Besides, the advice was sound. These two months he had recognised the soundness, but apart from the Church's objection to Lenten marriages this cleft stick pinched him the very pressing on the marriage, creating a stir in Forli, might bring the Castello story to Ascanio Faldora's ears, and so he had let the days drift. Now that must end. To make haste was less dangerous than to drift. Fieravanti? There, too, Lippo was right. If, so far, he had not spoken, why should he speak at all? In a word, what would speaking profit him? That, to Carlo Faldora, was at all times the touchstone of action what did a man gain? This maker of saints, for example? Gain? So far from gaining anything he might lose! There would be an end to this priest's folly of Father Bernardo's : As- canio Faldora's pride would never house the man who There the sequence of thought snapped: it led to too unpleasant realities. If Ascanio would not house the man who laid bare the blot on his name, what toleration would he show the causer of the stain? Hastily Carlo Faldora knotted the broken thread further back No! it would not pay Fieravanti to speak. But was it wise to trust even that far? Would the silence of of a Margotti not be safer ? Yes ; there Lippo was again right. The risk ? Little risk, chisel against sword! and at the thought his 156 A MAKER OF SAINTS sour spleen dissolved in a laugh as he met his fellow rogue's gaze frankly. "Be it so ! Haste and a quarrel ! Nor, now I think of it, need there even be a quarrel. More than one of Tri- balda's men owes me a good turn and will pay it for the asking: the cudgeller I leave to Giro." Lippo nodded as both rose. "Giro will not forget. He has his methods, has Giro." But as Faldora mounted Lippo laid a familiar hand on his knee, nor, for all his pride, was it shaken off as it would have been a week before. "Signor Carlo, after all, perhaps this Fieravanti knows nothing. If not, why burn your fingers in a fire where there are no chestnuts?" Very thoughtfully Faldora rode homewards down the winding valley. The letter said Fieravanti had been at the Castello; it did not say Fieravanti knew. Which way lay the truth? There was clear wisdom in Lippo's last words; to sell one's self to the devil for nothing is the poorest bargain the world holds. And such a selling it might be if, holding bread and salt sacred, the Grand Seigneur in Ascanio Faldora resented the killing of a guest. What then? This for one thing assurance was wisdom: how much or how little did this accursed Fiera- vanti know? But how reach assurance? Though Carlo Faldora rode slowly as he pondered his problem he had found no light by the end of his journey. CHAPTER XVI "THEY ABE NOT MY FOLK" WHEN, three days later, Fieravanti and his two scarpel- lini reached the Casa they found another guest more hon- ourable than they to fill the seat at Faldora's left hand. This was no chance comer by way of the Custom but Fausto Alidosi, Lord of Imola, who, travelling with but a small company to Rimini, had ridden by way of the mountain road rather than pass near Forli. Therein he was wise. Ordelaffi and Forli had this one bond in com- mon they hated Imola and the Alidosi. A dungeon in the Castello, or a yet narrower lodging, was the only hospitality Fausto Alidosi could expect at the hands of the Tyrant of Forli. Seated next him, as they ate and drank leisurely, was the maker of saints, and talk turning on the hazards of the road Fieravanti, very briefly, told the story of Mar- gotti's warning with its tragic sequence. And as he spoke a silence fell the length of the long table, such a silence as had fallen that night when old Faldora had hailed the coming of young feet to his empty stairs the coming of life and the passing of life, what is there in the world that matches their gravity? Life itself? Hardly. In it there are lights to break the shadows into their due proportions, but who can tell for certain what lies beyond the opening or the closing of the door? So there was a silence, and a double line of faces converging on Marco Fieravanti as, with that unconscious art which is born of deep feeling, 157 158 A MAKER OF SAINTS he made clear even to the dullest eye that pitiful small heap of blackened stones, a charnel rubble where orlce love had housed and the poor of their poverty given bread to the stranger. There is a great power in quietness. Always the divine is less in the thunder than in the still small voice. Though Fieravanti spoke bitterly he spoke slowly, dispassionately and without tricks of rhetoric, leaving the grim tragedy to compel its own effects. And they differed, these effects. Below the salt were women who went white, men who clenched teeth and fists as they listened: others, both men and women, who stared open mouthed but untouched, mere Brettinoro clods; yet others, men these, who after the first glance sat back in their settles, chin on breast, though at the last one or two took fire and leaning suddenly forward cursed softly under their breath. From the table-end Count Ascanio's eyes, fierce with the haggard fierceness of the very old when moved by passion, never shifted from Fieravantfs face; on the flat of the table one lean hand gripped and ungripped in shift- ing spasms : into Lucia Faldora's eyes the tears had sprung, hung large an instant then rained softly, unheeded if not unknown as she listened; opposite, Fausto Alidosi, three years the sculptor's elder and as dark of face as Fieravanti was fair, nodded a grave head from time to time, his fingers absently playing with what lay nearest as if he said it was to be deplored that such things were, but there they were and that was an end to it. That, too, seemed Carlo Faldora's philosophy as, his shoulders shrugged, his finger-tips drumming carelessly, he sat with eyes lowered lest Count Ascanio should catch and wither the ironic smile which would not be suppressed: as for Father Ber- nardo, his lips moved silently in God alone knew what agony of prayer, and shame that such things should be. "THEY ARE NOT MY FOLK" 159 "The children with the mother, the little, little children. Surely God's mercy was about them in that last awful hour, for man had none." "Surely, surely/' whispered the priest. "The little chil- dren, ah, dear God ! the little children," and below the salt a woman sobbed. "God's mercy?" Fieravanti roused himself, meeting Ascanio Faldora's stern fierceness with a look hardly less stern. "Mercy? Yes, But what of the justice He leaves to men? Illustrissimo, what of justice I ask? What of justice ?" "They are not my folk. They once were, but not now." Faldora's lips had gone dry and the words came roughly as if from his throat. "Whose then? The Church's? Father, will the Church move a finger? No ! Rome is far off! A statue for their souls' good but let their bodies burn ! God's mercy, then, not the Church's ! Illustrissimo," this time it was Alidosi to whom he turned, "you have power authority men, you could crush " "And fall foul of the Church in the crushing? No! Every cock to his own dunghill, Messer Fieravanti." "Then it is indeed a dunghill !" "Now you are not courteous. But how should such as you understand? Let us be frank. It is true I have power authority men, but why waste these and them?" "Waste?" There was no shift to courtesy in Fieravanti 's voice, only the same indignant scorn and challenge of contempt. "To do justice is waste!" "I said you could not understand. It is waste to throw away a greater for a lesser. These peasants must shift for themselves. Men? Soldiers? See, I shall be frank. The first duty of authority is to protect itself lest it ceaae to be authority. Soldiers are more necessary to power 160 A MAKER OF SAINTS than peasants. God, He knows, the one is harder to find than the other, these times. You find it so, Captain Tribalda?" But Fieravanti refused to be set aside. His oath sworn by the roadside drove him. Knowing his own impotence and goaded by his extremity he allowed no time for Tri- balda to reply but appealed to Carlo Faldora. "Signor, here is a deed to stir a man's soul and put his past under his feet. Will ydu not raise " "As my uncle says, they are not our folk." "Oh !" At the reply Lucia drew in her breath like one who takes a hurt, then cried in a half sob, "Would God I were a man ! Oh, would God I were a man !" "Would God you were !" retorted her grandfather. "But being only a woman it would be better if you held your tongue though that is not always the woman's part!" "Not our own folk," repeated young Faldora. "And if not ours, still less Count Fausto's." Then, for the life of him, he could not refrain from a gibe. "You are a maker of saints, Ser Marco, but you will hardly make such saints of Count Fausto's men that they will risk life for a handful of clods. Make saints? Faith of Faldora, here's a way out of it ! Make a saint of Lippo, Ser Marco, make a saint of Lippo." "No saint, but as God lives I'll yet make a spirit of Lippo, or he of me." "How? With a chisel-edge?" "Be silent!" thundered Faldora, suddenly loosing the passion he had so hardly held. Vexed in soul at himself for his refusal he was not sorry to find a vent for his rage. "Such devil's work as this is no jest for any man, least of all for you, a Faldora. There are times, nephew, when I half doubt the blood. If they are not our folk they once were and it is no fault of theirs they are not Faldora's to this day." "THEY AEE NOT MY FOLK" 11 "IllustriBsimo !" With prayer in his voice Fieravanti caught at a hope "for the sake of that once, for memory of these ancient ties, yes, and for a greater than these for God and His justice Madonna, you, too, are a Fal- dora, will you not plead " "Leave our women out of it," said her grandfather harshly. "If I cannot do a thing for its own sake will I do it because a girl whines?" "Then for its own sake " But as old Ascanio cut him short with an imperative gesture of a shaken hand in a finality which could not be misunderstood the sculptor's voice hardened. "No? Then every man to his conscience and I to mine. Illustrissimo, give me leave to raise a troop, I have already two " "Chisellers," began Carlo as Fieravanti's hand on 'Tonio's arm made clear his reference. But Faldora put an end to the discussion. "I'll hear no more ! If we are here to sup, in, God's name let us sup. Count Fausto, did you know that Messer Fieravanti had just set the Arzano defences in order?" Was it a courteous host's desire to make amends for a rebuff to a guest so much his inferior that courtesy was the more necessary ? Perhaps. But Fieravanti was in no mood to respond when Alidosi, roused to interest, followed up the hint. Arzano? Yes, he had spent nearly two months in the city, but, naturally, what passed there was private to the Duke. Whereat Count Fausto, a soldier like all his class and something of a leader of men but not notorious for liberality, turned his shoulder on him, vexed that he might not pick the brains of a shrewder man than himself for nothing, and except between Alidosi and his host there was silence at the upper end of the table. Fieravanti asked nothing better than to be left to his thoughts, though the clearing away the rubble of a man's ruined hopes is, at the best, but a sorry business. Yet 162 A MAKER OF SAINTS cleared away they must be if there was to be a rebuilding, nor was the sculptor a man to be daunted by failure. But he had failed, and only now that the ruin lay about him was he clearly aware how high he had built his hopes of success; surely, he had argued, this Grand Seigneur and very perfect gentleman would be moved to elemental jus- tice? Upon that he had built, forgetting that other side of Ascanio Faldora's character against which His Grand- eur had spoken warning the pride of all the Faldora's from the days of Adam ! Not for an hour would his for- bears, those dispensers of high and low justice in the great hall, have endured a Lippo at their doors; but since the Church had shouldered Faldora from his place, let the peasant folk sense the difference between a near-by Faldora and a Borne far off. With the loss of his old-time power had gone the old-time responsibility: the folk were no longer his folk ! So had he reasoned, not without justice. And because of that reasoning Fieravanti had failed. Overborne by memory, feeling anew the grip of the child- less woman's hold upon his knee, hearing against the sob in her throat, the wailing cry of "the children, the little innocent Maria, who ran in and out my door," he had even appealed to Carlo Faldora to show by some greatness in him that the shame of Forli might be redeemed, wiped from remembrance by a generous upholding of the highest law, sacrifice for another. But there, too, he had failed, and not there only. He had failed with Count Ascanio, failed with Alidosi. failed with No ! thank God ! not with Lucia Faldora ! His heart leaped within him, driving the warm blood tingling through his veins as he recalled her cry, "Would God I were a man!" Here was a Faldora who set God and right above her pride. At that he raised his eyes, to find hers bent upon him in speculation: not at once did they shift but held his gaze steadily for a time, then, unhasting, they shifted to "THEY ARE NOT MY FOLK" 163 Fausto Alidosi in the same speculation. Once again he had perplexed her, this peasant-born maker of saints who but for his chisel would have sat below the salt and never drawn a second thought. Now, be it said, it was not be- cause of his saint-making that she searched out what manner of man he was: that outer shell of curiosity had been shed and a deeper kernel reached. At first unconsciously, but now deliberately, she was weighing him against the man who had turned his shoul- der upon him as upon something negligible, a slight which had offended her without the cause of offence being clear. And, as between her and Amata Capponi so now, it was again a contrast rather than a comparison since, save that each was a man good to look upon as a man, they had not one jot in common. From their skin inwards they dif- fered, these two, differed body, soul and spirit, differed in ideals as in birth, and it was with an as yet misunderstood exultation stirring in her that Lucia Faldora told herself the contrast was not in any respect to the advantage of Alidosi of Imola. The cruel tragedy of the Margottis had moved her to her depths. Innocent blood, the children with the mother, cried to God and man for vengeance: yes, and for some- thing finer than vengeance, for justice in righteousness, and only this maker of saints had ears to hear or a hand to perform God's work upon earth. It was true that the Faldora pride wrapped her as in a mantle, but beneath the mantle beat that heart of tender womanhood which, drawing near to the divine, suffers with those who sorrow. A handful of clods! For the first time the easy con- tempt vexed her, rousing both her resentment and her scorn. What had been an uneiamined habit of thought now seemed less a truth than a contemptible hiding of cowardice behind a contempt for which there was insuf- ficient justification. Nor had she failed to hear Fiera- 164 A MAKER OF SAINTS vanti's pleading with Carlo Faldora a deed to stir a man's blood and put his past under his feet. Pleading? It was more than a pleading, more than the stirring of a man's sense of manhood, it was an offer of condonation, an opening of a way to rehabilitation, and Carlo Faldora had rejected plea, offer and open way alike. Only this peasant-born maker of saints, this stranger, had heard the call, not Faldora of Pesaro, not Alidosi of Imola, not Carlo who was to call her wife. Little wonder she had cried, "Would God I were a man," as the generous in- stincts of her woman's nature rose against the barriers which held her helpless, or that gratitude, admiration went out in flood to the man who, untrained in arms, no soldier and with no splendid tradition to maintain, should yet be ready to take his life in his hand in the cause of the poor. Now, it is bad for a man when the woman he is to call wife weighs him dispassionately and finds him wanting, worse when there is no love to set in the scale as a make- weight, and yet worse still when, so weighing, she finds some other man all that the husband-to-be is not. Therein lies much food for dumb thought, but it was not because Carlo Faldora recognised this worse than bad that he sat silent. No! That there should be a contrasting at all was to him unthinkable, still less was it possible that the chiseller should win a second thought from a woman of Faldora blood, but his vexed suspicions, his malicious will to hurt, had over stepped the bounds of wisdom, losing him a golden opportunity of forcing a double silence. Now, too late, he recognised that instead of sneering down the man he counted dangerous he should have aided him, thereby setting him at Lippo's throat to his own great advantage in making an end of both. And now, all for the sake of a "THEY ARE NOT MY FOLK" 165 gibe he had flung the chance away unless unless Yes, later, in a day or two he might mend his hand, pointing out that he could not oppose his uncle at his own table. Yes, that was reasonable and an excuse ready to his hand. Meanwhile Lippo, having his spies even at Faldora of Pesaro's supper table, hearing he had been loyal would be less on guard. Perhaps, on the whole, the sneer had done no harm but, he told himself, he must not push an- tagonism too far lest he stir up spleen and Fieravanti should retaliate. But what did Fieravanti kno.w? That he must discover, but how? how? And so there was silence at the upper end of the table except between As- canio Faldora and his chief guest. From Arzano and its defences their talk had drifted, by what channels or of whom they spoke Fieravanti never knew, but presently Faldora's raised voice broke in upon his ponderings. "Does his wealth better him? I cannot see it. Land, blood, and the Church, these are equals; but wealth? riches? No! Any Genoa or Venice huckster, and Jew trader, may grow rich. I'll have none of them ! Let the mud of the world stay where God placed it." "But the Church is of the people at times?" "Yes, but it does not stay of the people. And there is this, Count Fausto, the Church cannot marry our daugh- ters. Did you hear that we shall have a wedding shortly ? Now that Lent has passed there need be no delay," and he laid a hand on the girl's arm. "All happiness, Madonna! And the bridegroom?" "A Faldora!" It was old Ascanio who answered: ex- cept that her face grew expressionless the bride-to-be gave no sign that she had heard. "Praised be God! the old name shall not die out. We must look to our prinkings, my girl, eh? How soon do you pass this way again, 166 A MAKER OF SAINTS Count Fausto ? In a month ? Well, we shall see, we shall see. Much may he done in a month where there is a will." A month? Two had passed without exposure, could he risk a third? It was natural that at the question Carlo Faldora should turn in speculation to the man from whom he most feared danger. But Fieravanti's answering look baffled him: it, too, was full of speculation. A month? No! To linger through a month in uncertainty was not to be endured, he must lay his doubts to rest one way or the other. How? On the whole Lippo's way was best; the risk was small yet suppose the man knew nothing? Why run a risk if there was no need? While certainly no coward Carlo Faldora was careful of himself as every man should be who loves the one life he has to live. CHAPTER XVII THE FINDING OF AN INSPIRATION "You need a child for the Madonna's arms/' 'Tonio had said that day on the Castel-Cavo road. That, too, had been Fieravanti's first conception the Great Mother with a child caught to her sheltering breast, the small head warm in the hollow of an arm : not the Christ-child, the Christ-child would draw the thought from the central purpose; always where He is He must come first, and so no Christ-child but a nursling of the poor. But upon second thoughts the maker of saints had set aside the conception. For one thing, it was too conven- tional, and he was not a man who loved convention for convention's sake; for another, clods might misconstrue. To them, because of convention, any child in the Madonna's arms must needs be the Christ-child; but also, and most compelling reason of all, it would limit the expressiveness of pose. A prettiness there might be but at the expense of vigour of life. Therefore the iron frame to support the clay, a skeleton of gaunt bars prepared beforehand in Forli under the Master's watchful eye, thrust out a grotesque nakedness before it to right and left, a nakedness presently to be rounded into arms of invitation. The hands, slender yet strong, motherly capable hands, exquisitely moulded if truo to their living model, would be open to receive, com- fort and caress, and looking down between the outstretched arms he conceived a grave, sweet face where tender love and no less tender pity should seem to whisper a "Come 167 168 A MAKER OF SAINTS unto me," through the curved lips of the strong yet gentle mouth, confirming the smiled welcome of the eyes. Yearning Mother-love, deep-hearted pity from a sor- rowful foreknowledge of sorrow because of the sword which must strike through her own heart, these, surely, were the dominant characteristics of the Great Mother? For the rest, the pose should be one of welcome, an eager gathering to the sheltering arms, bare from the elbow downwards for beauty's sake, and upon the half-bent head the thin folds of a wimple by way of concession to tradi- tion. That was the conception and never, as the sensitive fingertips worked his will upon the wet clay, had Fiera- vanti's heart been so fired within him. To the glory of art? to that greater glory, the glory of God in quickening in the Brettinoro clods the divine spark latent in every soul? Something there was of these but they were not dominant. No, chiefly it was to the glory of the woman Amata Capponi had taught him he loved. He would pass and she would pass, but this would remain, and genera- tions to come, seeing it, would say, That was Lucia Fal- dora; while those with the blessed gift of imagination would add, If the cold marble be like this, what must God's creation not have been? So it was his heart that strove after expression in the realisation of perfection rather than his brain. And, perhaps for that reason, it failed him, since the heart of man is conscious of heights and depths where the mind neither soars nor plumbs. The accustomed touch of genius was there in lines and curves of beauty but the supreme conception evaded him. Beauty? Beauty was not enough. There had been beauty in the Magdalene; His Grandeur had admitted the beauty and yet, missing something greater, had said, It is not finished? No, beauty was not enough. THE FINDING OF AN INSPIRATION 169 And yet, strive as he might with sensitive touch and delicate graving tool, the crowning glory of the concep- tion eluded capture; always there was failure failure his fired imagination realised in despair though it seemed hidden from others. Father Bernardo might whisper "In- spiration ! A miracle !" over clasped hands, as the strong, pure face grew out in beauty from the clay; old Faldora might thaw for an instant into unwonted enthusiasm, and even Carlo admit, grudgingly, that it was good, but upon the soul of Marco Fieravanti there lay the chill sense of failure across whose blackness there struck no warmth of hope. Beauty? Oh yes ; with that calm, cold living face turned patiently to his, the head bent as it should be, the eyes veiled, he would himself have been a clod if there had not been the beauty of youth and womanhood, but that much and no more was failure. 'Tonio and 'Sandro, quitting their roughing-out of the marble when left alone, might lift the damp cloth and draw in their breath Never had the Master done better! But Fieravanti, entering be- hind from a side door, would lay a hand on the shoulder of each and shake his head in silence. Luca Melone was right; the marble without a soul remains cold stone, and how can cold stone quicken the fire of heaven in clods? Only three days had passed since the return from Forli. With the fires of enthusiasm flaming within him Fiera- vanti had laboured hour by hour over the face and pose of the bent head, laboured and failed : upon the fourth day a change came in this wise. Through the forenoon Lucia had sat as usual, but at the noon dinner had begged excusal for the remainder of the day, giving no reason. Nor had Fieravanti regretted the break. With rest the paralysing sense of impotency might pass. It was just possible that, by a paradox, through over much thought clearness of vision was being blurred. 170 A MAKER OF SAINTS That the break might be the more complete, he left the scarpellini to their chiselling and took the road to the vil- lage. Lippo was not forgotten. Having failed with Fal- dora might he hope to rouse Brettinoro? But midway a bush by the wayside wakened a memory of Piero which turned his feet towards the lad's house. Nor was it the memory only when sick of heart or sorry there is no such medicine as some greater need, or a sorrow which is yet more sorrowful. The house more hovel than house was one of the poorest in the poor outskirts of the little town, a single room with a garret overhead. It was of a type known of old to the maker of saints, himself born to poverty the wide bed where more than one generation had passed the gates of life and of Greater Life would stand in one far corner, raised a foot or two above the floor of beaten earth ; there would be a rude table, a rough bench or two, a stool maybe, a charcoal brazier with its swung cooking- pot, an oaken chest, though to poverty that was doubtful, a cupboard against the wall and, possibly, hanks of dried herbs hung from the ceiling. The broad door, which was also the sole window ex- cept for a small grating high in the wall, stood wide open and Fieravanti would have entered without the ceremony of knocking had not Lucia Faldora's voice stayed him on the threshold. She was singing softly, a crooning, rush- ing song, soothing sound rather than words; then, very quietly, very gently, with hardly a break in the crooning note, he heard her speak. "She sleeps, I think." "Always you could quiet her, Madonna." The answer- ing voice was less soft but no less subdued. "Sleep's her medicine, and not even I could rock her to rest. If she lives, Madonna " "But she will ehe must. Oh pray God, yes yes," and THE FINDING OF AN INSPIRATION 171 again the quiet, hushing wordless song, infinitely gentle, infinitely soothing, reached Fieravanti as he crept for- ward. With the sun to the west he cast no shadow through the south-turned doorway, but the strong light left no part of the square room unsearched, revealing the bare needs of life he had pictured in his mind. But neither the bare- ness, nor the scrupulous care which gave the bareness that dignity which the most pinching poverty can always assert, were heeded: even the mother, leaning forward from the corner of a settle, her hands clasped between her knees, her lined face set in the stress of anxious suspense, held his gaze only for an instant. How else, when Lucia Faldora faced him in just such a pose, just such a grouping, as his first conception of the Great Mother ? There was the watchful face stooped above the child of his imagining, the small head caught in the hollow of an arm, the small body in the patches of the poor held comforted against the warm breast: Lucia Fal- dora, but a new Lucia, a Lucia he had never yet seen, a Lucia scarcely even imagined, a Lucia with the ice melted from the heart of tender, womanly sympathy and the stony mask of pride loosed from the face. A saint in the making? Better than that, greatly bet- ter a soul that did not know its own saintlikeness, a spirit that forgot itself in the needs of another, a deep-hearted mother-yearning worthy to guide small feet to greater heights than up the empty stairways of life, a woman meet for a man's love. The first conception must return; he would throw aside his four days labour, the labour that had failed, and out of this reincarnation Then, as the child in her arm stirred, sighing the deep breath of con- tented weariness as she slept, there broke across the stooped face a sudden exquisite softness, the full, strong lips trembled in response to some deep chord within, trembled 172 A MAKER OF SAINTS and fell into form as if they whispered, "Come unto me," and a smile tender and pitiful, a smile which was less a smile than a light upon the face, made a glory whose revelation set the heart of the maker of saints shivering. The first conception? No ! There should be no change! He knew now where he had failed, he knew now how to catch that soul of motherhood which is love, and yet some- thing more than love in its tender wistfulness, and so fix it in the marble that no clod could be so cloddish as to be unmoved. Shaken, he stirred and the girl glanced up, unhasting and with no break in the watchful care. Nor was there any confusion in her eyes as they met his, the wistful tenderness still lingered and again Fieravanti shivered to the very heart. Carlo Faldora ! God in heaven ! he cried dumbly, what should he do that a Carlo Faldora might not wreck the tenderness, nor set a careless foot on the love which gave it strength ? "A summer fever," she said softly. "For two days she has not slept, the poverina, but now I think at last all's well." Duller of ear, the mother had not heard; now she turned, staring. "The signor of the gold piece," she whis- pered. "Signorina, you heard of it? This is the signor himself/' "Yes, I heard." Such a smile as Fieravanti had never yet seen broke over her face, so friendly-warm was it. "It was well done, Ser Marco." "If so, what of this?" answered Fieravanti, his gaze shifting to the sleeping child. Whereat the mother, in the hot-blooded impulse of her race, laid a hand on the girl's knee as she cried, always softly: "It is life, signor, life. Nothing I, the mother look you, nothing I could do would soothe her. Always she moaned and wailed, tossing, tossing, tossing; yet look now ! Look !" THE FINDING OF AN INSPIRATION 173 "The Great Mother," said Fieravanti, and at the un- conscious warmth in his voice the girl stooped again above the child in her arms. Why? She could not have told; but there are instincts in nature which are obeyed without being understood. "The Great Mother!'* he repeated. "Madonna, you need sit no more all's caught beyond forgetting; nature is greater than any man's imaginings. Mother, is there aught needed for the little one?" "With the Madonna here ? No, signor, no ! Pray God, we'll see her own in her arms some day!" But if either of the listeners echoed the prayer neither said Amen ! Certainly Fieravanti, as, after a few more whispered words of cheer and thankfulness, he returned to the Casa more swiftly than he had come out, and with a new riot of blood through his veins, had no such prayer in his heart. How was it possible, with the shadow of Carlo Faldora black across the path? Having turned both 'Tonio and 'Sandro out from the work-room he stood a long five minutes before the clay with closed eyes, recalling with all his strength of will and memory that revelation which would turn failure into consummate achievement, then, the vision clear, the mental grasp strong and firm, the conception of the Great Mother, motherhood incarnate, motherhood whose heart of love overflows in wistful, solicitous pity, and yet tastes through foreknowledge of suffering the sorrows which must be while it gives praise for the joys, took life in the clay under the subtle touch of comprehension. Nor with, as it were, the foundations laid was it so long in the doing. Here the smoothing of a hardness, there the rounding of a curve, the widening of a nostril, the shortening of a lip, the deepening of a line, touches so little in themselves that each was nothing, or almost nothing, and yet the whole a transformation, the miracle of a soul breaking through clay to life. TJnhasting he 174 A MAKER OF SAINTS worked, unceasing save for a stern reckoning of effect, a yet sterner matching with the vision always clear before his mind, and when at last he ended he knew that it was good. More than that. If opposites teach so do similitudes. He knew now where his Magdalene had failed. There, too, there had been, there was, beauty cold as there had been cold beauty in this clay; but Luca Melone was right, the soul is the last of life to be born, and neither with the fingers nor the chisel had he caught the soul of the woman who had loved much. There had been the failure: that which had worked the Magdalene's redemption was miss- ing, the tenderness which needs must come through loving much. Now through Lucia Faldora he had found it as Melone had said he would. To give a soul to the marble would be less easy than to this clay ; but it could be done : His Grandeur would yet say, "It is the Magdalene's self in saintship," and no longer have any reservation of doubt. CHAPTER XVIII "TO SAVE MADONNA LUCIA* His hands locked, with chin on breast and brows drawn, the Maker of Saints studied the face looking downward into his from under the thin wimple whose folds, falling to the shoulders as yet scarcely suggested, merged into the clay mass. The birth of a soul? here in the clay? the Magdalene's in the marble? Yes, it was no less a miracle, but how wrought ? Through his art? his inspiration ? De- cisively Fieravanti said No, to both. Whence, then? "She loved much!" Through love? Yes; there the Magdalene found both herself and her redemption, but while that was true of her what of Lucia Faldora? Yes, and of Lucia Faldora also, since only through love is that greatness we call soul stirred to life, but love of what? of whom? The child, the little Marietta caught to her breast? "She is good to the poor she comes sometimes," Piero had said. Sometimes? Does such a stirring to life come through the haps and chances of a sometimes? Scarcely; and yet and yet "Dio mio!" It was Father Bernardo's voice at his shoulder. "Dio mio, Dio mio," he said three times over and stood silent as Fieravanti stepped aside. Then, "Lucia ! Yes, it is Lucia herself and yet not Lucia, it is more than Lucia, greater than No, not greater than Lucia but greater than I dreamed she was. Ah, Ser Marco, we do not always know our dearest. That is Lucia and The Mother? Yes, yes, yes, but the Mother-to-be, the Mother of the Annunciation. Wait here my son, wait until I 175 176 A MAKER OF SAINTS bring Count Ascanio to see this miracle for which God be thanked!" But he had scarcely left the workshop when the door was pushed open and left open that was Carlo Faldora's way. Always it had been a fret to the sculptor that he could not reckon on being left alone with his labour; at any moment some one or other might break in: it had been the priest, now it was Carlo Faldora. Crunching noisily underfoot the marble chips scattered by the scarpellini in their roughing out of the block he stood a moment before the clay with pursed lips. Always the model stirred the unclean spirit in him, at times to some ironic sarcasm, some sourness which in its itch to hurt hinted more than the carping words, or else to a tolerant patronising approval which Fieravanti found yet harder to endure with patience. Now remembering the purpose which had brought him to the workroom, he strove to put a curb upon his temper. "Um! Good, yes, good but is it Madonna Lucia? Never have I seen her like that ! You are more fortunate, Ser Marco, but then you are " Hastily he checked the accustomed gibe, substituting smoother words, "You are the Seer, the maker of saints " "I see nothing which is not there for all to see." "Um perhaps not; no! of course not." Eemembering suddenly that there was a point to be gained he grew friendly, laying a familiar hand on Fieravanti's arm with the intimate gesture of one who grows confidential. "If that is the true Lucia well ! a saint has her use for clods in a chapel, but for a man's wife, day in day out, the Great Mother would be Ah ! I see ! the mother of one's chil- dren? Yes, yes, that is different and explains everything. A little saintship is no harm for that, and there are al- ways warmer-blooded women in the world." "In Forli, for instance?" Fieravanti's cold distaste was "TO SAVE MADONNA LUCIA" 177 profound, but Faldora, intent on his yrn purpose, failed to note the censure. He had been raking his brains to find excuse for such an intimate association as might lead to the salving of his doubts. Now, stirred by Fieravanti's last words, a method suggested itself which, with char- acteristic shameless audacity, he seized upon. "Forli? Yes, in Forli. For instance, were I of your trade I would choose Amata Capponi as my model. By Holy Paul ! there's little of the saint in Amata Capponi. Ser Marco, you have been mewed up long enough in this workshop of yours. Come and throw a cast of dice with me and while we play we'll talk of the Castello and Amata Capponi." "No, Signor Faldora." With an abrupt movement Fieravanti shook off the hand still lying on his sleeve. "Neither one nor the other. Your luck with dice is too notorious." "Notorious? Notorious?" Faldora drew back. Almost the wish being father to the thought he had persuaded himself that the exposure at the Castello was unknown; now, in the surprise of the disillusion, there was more fear than wrath in his blustering protest. "Do you dare to hint do you presume By my name, Messer Fiera- vanti" "Swear by something you have not dishonoured, some- thing you have not dragged in the mud for all the world to spit contempt upon, but see you swear no lie." "Lie?" In a flash Lippo's advice and his own secret jest, sword against chisel, came back to him. Here wa* his quarrel ready made. Not even so punctilious a host as his uncle could complain if the lie direct were met with a sword-thrust. Why, the honour of his House demanded it ! With a jerk ho half drew the blade at his hip then drove it ringing into its sheath again. "By all the devila you'll answer me for this!" 178 A MAKER OF SAINTS "No ! Let him answer me !" From the open door, be- yond whose frame stood Father Bernardo, his soutane a blotch of darkness in the shadows of the passage, Count Ascanio strode forward. "Our name in the mud? Ser Marco, if you were not a guest, old as I am I would drive the lie " "Illustrissimo, this is between Signer Carlo and me." "But I say no! I am Faldora of Pesaro, and while I live the honour of our name is in my keeping. Being who you are and what you are I cannot lay my own hands upon you, but for the lie my scullions " "But if it is no lie?" A maker of saints, but no meek saint himself, Fieravanti's voice rose in turn as he again broke in upon the hot torrent of indignant passion. "Lie? Take care, Illustrissimo; the word is hard to swallow." "Yet swallow it!" "You mistake. It is you you, Faldora of Pesaro who must swallow it when you know the truth." "The truth? In God's name, man, what truth?" "Ask Girolamo Ordelaffi." "Ordelaffi ? I ask an Ordelaffi if my honour, the honour of Faldora, stands where it stood in Forli? Impossible! But what should such as you know of what belongs to my own respect ! What truth, I say, what truth ?" "Ask Signer Faldora." "Carlo?" Eound he swung, his fierce old eyes aflame, passion hot in the patches of dull red burning the cheek bones of the lean face. Then as he read defiance rather than indignation in Carlo Faldora's scowl he drew back a step, breathing hard, and there was silence until he whispered to himself "In the mud? Our name in the mud? Carlo 'Carlo, what is this he says?" "A lie," answered Carlo Faldora, but sullenly and with- out assertion and again there was silence. Presently As- canio Faldora broke it. "TO SAVE MADONNA LUCIA" 179 "Fetch Lucia," he said, speaking curtly across his shoul- der to Father Bernardo in the background. "Xo, Illustrissimo, no," protested Fieravanti, "This is between man and man: why force our quarrel on the Madonna ?" "Leave us to cleanse our honour our own way. Between man and man? No! It touches my grand-daughter as it touches me. Either she marries Carlo Faldora to-day or Go, Father, go as I bid you." Nor did he or either speak again until the priest returned, bringing Lucia Faldora. Closing the door he stood aside, ready to intervene when intervention would be service. A wise man, Father Bernardo, he knew there are times when men's passions are best left to burn themselves out, let scorch what they will, times when peace-mongering is fuel to fire or a blast to spread the flames roaring yet more fiercely. For the mo- ment, silence was his truest friendship. As to the girl, she looked uncomprehendingly from one to the other but, if any had had eyes to see, it was on Fieravanti that the troubled questioning rested longest. To him Ascanio Fal- dora turned. "Xow, your accusation and your proof?" "As I said before I say again, for both ask Ordelaffi." The answer was as curt and as cold as the question. "Ask Ordelaffi ! Oh, yes, ask Ordelaffi ! Ordelaffi is in Forli !" and Carlo Faldora laughed, jeering. Catching at his one straw of hope he had decided on his line of ac- tion. To kill the truth was impossible, but he might choke it silent for four days and in four days much might happen much might happen that very hour. "It is for me to speak." His uncle's voice had lost nothing of its cold curtness. "Leave Ordelaffi aside and put your accusation in plain words, Messer Fieravanti." "This, then when in Forli in March last he played 180 A MAKER OF SAINTS with cogged dice at the Castello, had them broken before his eyes and was flung out into the street as a cheat." "A lie," said young Faldora, this time between shut teeth. "A lie a lie." "Ask Ordelaffi," repeated Fieravanti. "How did you know this?" If possible Faldora's voice was colder, sterner. "I was present in the Castello, heard Conti inform Ordelaffi, saw the door close." "In March? If this be true you have known it almost three months and yet have kept silence why?" "I was a stranger. Even now it is surprise that has dragged it to light. For one reason only would I have spoken." "And that reason?" "To save Madonna Lucia." Four words curtly dropped, spoken harshly even, yet they set the girl's heart fluttering. Vigilantly, perplex- edly, she had been following the give and take of brusque question and no less brusque reply, now the unexpected use of her name startled her. So this was what was in his mind that day by the sundial when, as he had said, she had so scourged him with her scorn that he was driven to protest that Lucia Faldora was nothing to him? At the/ moment that had seemed natural, necessary ; it was self-evident, a matter of course that a Faldora could be nothing to a Fieravanti in the sense in which any woman is much to any man, but now the memory hurt. Not that it was any less a matter of course, not that a Marco Fiera- vanti could ever be anything to a Lucia Faldora, but but she had never met just such a man, and Lifting her eyes to his she faced him steadily. With the air so charged with passion it was natural that a flush should warm her cheeks, but did love truly come first ? before land and blood and pride of race ? Instantly, "TO SAVE MADONNA LUCIA" 181 and it was all, as it were, in the illumination of a flash which flares its revelation for an instant then dies to darkness, she brushed aside the question unanswered, or if there was an undetermined answer it was that to a man who held her as nothing love certainly did not come first ; not the pride of race but the pride of her womanhood made that clear. Yet he had taken thought for her : that far she was in his debt. "Thank you, signor," she said, as softly and yet as dis- tinctly as, at the supper-table, once before she had used the words. Ascanio Faldora allowed no opportunity for reply. "Leave Madonna Lucia's name aside. Now that I use your words surprise has dragged this this assertion to light, what proof have you?" "My word, Count Ascanio." "Urn your word against Carlo's? Your word against " "My oath," said Carlo Faldora, clinging to his hope of four days respite. "A lie," he asserted, his voice firmer. "By our name, a lie !" "That oath does not hold. How could it? If this vile story be true you are swearing by that which you have fouled. No ! Swear by the Holy Rood of Loreto, whereon who swears falsely is damned, and I shall believe you your oath against a guest's word." There was a pause as Carlo Faldora hesitated, shooting a glance at Count Ascanio's set face. Passion had passed or was held in check, but the lines scored by time upon forehead and temple seemed deeper, notably deeper, than an hour before, and the lean face thinner at the mouth; then he raised an open hand. But before words came Father Bernardo spoke : as he had once said ; he knew his Carlo a little. "Not alone that : but whoso swears falsely on the Holy 182 A MAKEK OF SAINTS Rood dies within the year; that is well known and proved a score of times. Now swear, my son." For a moment the open hand wavered in the air, ghak- ing, then it fell slowly. "You have my oath already I'll swear no more." Through the silence Faldora drew a heavy sigh, so heavy it seemed to pass from him in a shudder; but no new storm of passion swept him. If he stirred at all it was to stiffen yet more rigidly upright as a greyness stole creeping across the weather-bitten tan of his cheeks; once or twice he swallowed as if some dryness in the throat choked him, once or twice, too, his fingers gripped and loosed a fold of cloth at his thigh. Slowly he turned to Father Bernardo, who stood nearest the door. "Father, of your courtesy order Signor Roverella's horse to be made ready. He is leaving without delay/' Then he turned his back on Carlo Faldora. Eoverella? Roverella was the name of Carlo Faldora's mother before her marriage; never again did Faldora of Pesaro speak of his nephew by the name he had stained. Not for an instant did the priest hesitate. If, before, silence had been wisdom to attempt a patching now was to pull the rent wider. But Carlo Faldora, as he followed from the workshop, paused and turned as he had turned at the door of Ordelaffi's reception hall. "There's an end to your Great Mother !" he said, sneer- ing, "but not an end to Faldora of Pesaro. I'll be that yet! Great Mother? Perhaps that too! But she may thank God if men call her wife!" and with a fling of the hand he was gone. Ignoring the outburst as if it had never been Count Ascanio turned to the clay. "An inspiration, Ser Marco," he said, slowly nodding a grave approval. "Surely it is the Great Mother herself surely surely." Thus, after the manner of strong men, he retied his "TO SAVE MADONNA LUCIA" 183 broken threads. But Fieravanti, standing silent by his side, asked himself, What of the small feet which were to waken the echoes of the empty stairs? The grey, stern face of Faldora of Pesaro gave no reply to the question: though the hopes of his House lay wrecked beyond all possibility of rebuilding he gave no sign. But that was Faldora of Pesaro. CHAPTER XIX REVELATION WHEN Fieravanti had said to Lucia Faldora, You need sit no more, he had overrun the truth in the enthusiasm of the moment. For the face, no; but there yet remained much to be done in the modelling of the outstretched arms and hands of invitation especially the hands. These, with their slender grace, their hint of power, their beauty in strength, must be as revealing as the face of the Madonna herself; and so through the days which followed the sittings continued as before. Yet not quite as before. No such crisis could come and go and leave life as it had been. Therefore there was at once a new bond and a new barrier; but of the full bond neither was conscious, each believing the other free, while the woman was stone cold as never before. That was natural since two things shamed her grievously that she, Lucia Faldora, should love a peasant born Marco Fiera- vanti was bad, but that she should love a man who gave her no second thought, love him even after he had said, What is Lucia Faldora to me ! was infinitely worse, sham- ing both her Faldora pride and her womanhood. So, being at least honest to herself and not denying that love had stolen on her unawares, the ice froze as never before lest through the warmth of the comprehension born out of little Marietta's need it should thaw into revelation. It was a strange situation, each stirred to the depths by the other's nearness but only in the depths; each passion- 184 REVELATION 185 ately aware of the other's clearness yet coldly choking back the knowledge lest even for an instant it should look out o' window, and dishonour that reserve which each held to he true honour. So, coldly, indifferently, with neither apparent interest nor open repugnance, she submitted her hands to his touch, holding her breath the while lest, quickening, it should betray how that touch thrilled her ; and he, on his part, touched so lightly, so indifferently, that the reluc- tant finger-tips hinted distaste, the compulsion of a neces- sary task, fearing every instant that control might slip and the passing touch quicken to the caress he hungered after yet steeled himself against. That there should be a Fieravanti pride as strong as any Faldora arrogance of birth would have astonished her, but so it was. And these repressions were the more difficult, the more needful, be- cause they were now alone as never at the first; 'Tonio and 'Sandro having roughed-out the marble as far as the Master would permit there was nothing to keep them in the workshop. But for the draperies no sitting was required, and so Fieravanti was solitary when, on the fifth day after Carlo Faldora's exposure, Tribalda closed the door of the work- shop behind him with care unusual in the Captain of the Guard. A close friendship had grown up between these two, so close and understanding that Fieravanti, with the acuteness of perception which lay so near to the roots of his power, ceasing work waited expectantly. "Bad news?" "The worst Young Faldora has joined Lippo." Wiping his hands with a cloth which had lain across a shoulder Fieravanti flung it aside. The action was me- chanical, but to Tribalda it carried a significance. "To Lippo ? Then at last he has turned honest" "Honest, do you call it ? With Lippo, and honert?* 186 A MAKER OF SAINTS "To be an open scoundrel is a kind of honesty. To Lippo? Then less than ever can I hope that Count As- canio will make an end of that cruel devil, as Margotti truly called him. Margotti ! God's name, Tribalda, think of it under the stones of their own burnt roof because Lippo said, Leave them there! and neither the Church nor Faldora of Pesaro will stir a finger!" "I am not so sure." Tribalda spoke slowly. Clearly he was very troubled. "But how can he, now that Carlo Faldora " "Just because of Carlo Faldora. I know the Illustris- simo as you cannot. Pride, Fieravanti, pride may move him. Why? To show the world that Faldora of Pesaro sets justice before his own flesh." "That is why you said your news was the worst pos- sible?" "No, not just that" Tribalda paused, the lines deepen- ing on his grave face. Commonly he took life lightly, did Tribalda, but now the burden lay heavy upon him. "Why then? Oh, if it is Faldora's private affairs say nothing." "If there is cause for fear at all it will not be private for long! I always thought Carlo Faldora had the com- ing years in his mind, the time when he would lord it in his uncle's place fill that place he never could but now now I am wondering if of late, since that damning night at Forli, he has not been preparing for what may come." "And what may come? and where?" "Lippo here." "Lippo? Here? And Carlo Faldora preparing it?" Uncomprehending Fieravanti shook his head. "I do not understand you, Tribalda." "Carlo Faldora was to succeed his uncle, Carlo Faldora was to marry Madonna Lucia: is Carlo Faldora the man to lose not the Madonna, there was no love there, but to REVELATION 187 lose Faldora and all Faldora stands for? By all your saints, Fieravanti, no! And now he has Lippo at his back Lippo who burned the children with the mother." "Lippo? You know how I have tried to rouse Brctti- noro against him and failed, but let Lippo touch Faldora and from Arzano to the sea, from Imola to Ancona, all Romagna would rise " "Let it rise ! With such a bribe as Carlo Faldora could pay if he succeeded Lippo and all his scoundrels could disappear with full pockets. Disappear? There would be no need! There's a score of lordlings, great and small, who would hire them and keep them busy in this cockpit of ours." "If he succeeded yes! But Faldora is no peasant's house to be burnt at the end of a night's ride. How many men have you?" "That's not the question, but How many can I trust? Always we know Lippo had his spies among us : you heard the Count himself at the supper-table? Then, as I said, Carlo Faldora has been busy of late. God may know who is loyal, I do not ! Not for certain, that is. Some, oh yes, some I can count upon, but, Fieravanti, it rots the very spirit to know there's treason at your elbow." "But let us have sense, Tribalda, let us have sense. Carlo Faldora would damn himself. Suppose he failed " "Yes," said the Captain of the Guard grimly, "Without doubt he is damned if he fails. In our cockpit failure is the unforgivable offence! Failure damns! But if he succeeds? Think, Fieravanti, think. Is there a single city strung along the Via Emilia which has not changed rs through blood and violence? Not one! Son st father at times, and who has made protest against the parricide? No man! Come nearest home. Take Forli? Is it twenty years since Ordelaffi Ordelaffi with no more claim to hold Forli than I have to hold Faldora 188 A MAKEK OF SAINTS is it twenty years, I say, since Ordelaffi drove out Faggi- uola? Who protested? Who drew sword for Faggiuola? No man! No! From Arzano to the sea, from Imola to Ancona, we are too busy holding what we have, but what is not ours, to care an obolus whether a Carlo succeeds an Ascanio at Faldora let Faldora look to himself ! Lippo ? Yes, they would hang Lippo or hire him to cut another throat!" Answering nothing Fieravanti turned to the open win- dow and stood looking out across the garden's flecking of sun and shade. Answer? What answer but the one was possible? Tribalda was right, terribly right. From Ri- mini to the great river in the north the Emilian Way was strewn with proof. Nor was stronger proof possible than that which his own city flung in his face. Forli? How often in a hundred years had Forli changed its over- lords not with its own consent! Mestaguerra, Pagano, Faggiuola, all had gripped power in turn and all in turn been flung out in blood. Ordelaffi? Tribalda was right. Ordelaffi had no more claim to rule in Forli than he had less ! since Ordelafli was not even Forli born. Would Ordelaffi lift a finger to avenge Ascanio Faldora if, with Lippo's help, Carlo seized the shrivelled lordship? Not he! Would Alidosi? No, nor Alidosi! Alidosi had his own grip to hold. Cesena, then ? No again ! Cesena was in the hands of another Ordelaffi who dared no peradven- ture beyond his gates lest they should be shut on his back, and as swift and vile an end be made of all his blood as had befallen Margotti. What then? This for its salvation Faldora must look to Faldora. That Tribalda had grounds for his fears Fieravanti never doubted. Carlo Faldora was doubly damned and only by some such success, the success of brutality and murder which passed uncensured and un- challenged because these breathed the very spirit of the REVELATION 189 times : only by some such success could he find rehabilita- tion. Let him seize and hold Faldora, hold it with a strong hand, and sufficient of his world would condone the past, accept the present and smooth the future to make life tolerable. Nor could it be forgotten that, cheat and dishonourer of his name though he was, no man called Carlo Faldora coward. Rash? Reckless? Foolhardy? No, none of these; cautious and calculating but yet no coward. With little to lose and all to gain he might be trusted to play Lippo as boldly as he had played his cogged dice. What else had his final threat meant as he had flung out of that very door. At the recollection Fieravanti went suddenly hot until his scalp prickled. At the time it had seemed nothing worse than coarse vapouring, a braggart covering of an ignoble retreat, but not now, not now. Carlo Faldora was that kind of scoundrel. Faldora must look to Faldora. Better the flaming roof should bury their bones as it buried Margotti's, the children with the mother, than that Carlo Faldora should wrest and hold possession Carlo Faldora with his accursed will to be vile. Turning abruptly he faced Tribalda. "Let Faldora look to itself! You are right; I see no other way. Have you warned Count Ascanio?" "No. And is it necessary? Why fret him? Cannot we two " "It is his right. It is no longer Faldora against Lippo it is Faldora against Faldora and his right to know. My advice is, Go to him and at once." "Come, then," said Tribalda. "Let us both go." But Fieravanti shook his head. "Would he thank me? You ? yes, for it is your duty, but who is Marco Fieravanti that he should thrust his fingers unasked into Faldora's affairg? It would be an offence. And, listen, Tribalda 190 A MAKER OF SAINTS there is time to root out traitors and put honest men in their place. Urge it." But when, having told his news news which was re- ceived without one word of surprise, anger, denunciation or even simple comment Tribalda urged a riddance of those whom he thought doubtful in the little garrison, and an augmentation of strength in their place he was met by a flat refusal. "Treason? Are you sure?" "Sure enough to be doubtful, signer." "But not sure enough to hang them?" "No, signor, but we rid ourselves ' " "To rid ourselves is to strengthen signors Lippo and Eoverella : rogue would join rogue. As for augmentation, would you have me go in fear of cut-purse thieves? We have fallen I grant, Tribalda, but, praise God ! not so low as that!" "Then, signor, let us be the first to move: let us at- tack this Lippo while he is unprepared." "Lippo? Do not omit Signor Eoverella, I beg. But again, no! What? Have five lain buried under Mar- gotti's ruins these many weeks while I stirred no finger, and would you have me move now? Can I fight in my own uncertain quarrel when I would strike no blow for the helpless? No ! What I said at the first I say now : let Lippo touch the honour of Faldora with but a finger-tip and I'll strike, but not till then. Let the Church cleanse its own house." "Then, signor, what orders do you give me?" "None, Tribalda, none. Let all be as all has been." "May I talk with Messer Fieravanti, signor?" "Why should you. What is all this to him?" "Two things," answered Tribalda bluntly. "His life is at hazard as much as ours and the responsibility for the EEVELATION 191 defence lies on me, and, frankly, signer, I am afraid." "Talk to him whom you will," answered Faldora testily. "Since every scullion knows all that is to be known why not this Fieravanti?" Which did not exactly mean that in his own mind he ranked the maker of saints with the scul- lions, though the outburst savoured that way. With that Tribalda was forced to be content, but out of so much that was negative two or three truths emerged by inference That Faldora refused to admit that Signer Roverella's joining Lippo touched the Faldora honour; that he did not doubt Carlo would venture all to gain all, never once was that suggestion combatted, and, clearest truth of all, the Faldora pride had abated no jot of its assertive arrogance. And Count Ascanio's permission that the maker of saints might be consulted openly had one most unlooked- for result. It was in the late afternoon that Tribalda had brought his news to the workshop and next morning Madonna Lucia gave the sculptor a sitting for the shaping of the arms. Commonly they spoke little when thus alone, Fiera- vanti assuming an absorption in his work and the girl finding a refuge from danger in the coldness of silence: even indifferent speech leads at times to self forgetfulness, and in forgetfulness the mask may slip. But now, pausing in the moulding of a rounded arm just free from its loose sleeve, Fieravanti spoke. "Madonna, you have been very patient with the sculp- tor, would you be as patient with the man if he presumed to advise as a friend? Do not go to the village; better still, do not go abroad at all." "Why?" "Signorina, is it necessary to explain at large? cannot a friend advise ?" 192 A MAKER OF SAINTS "Oh," said she, defence driving her to exaggeration and beyond reason, but smiling the while that she might not let it be seen that it was defence, "are there not friends and friends?" "I rank myself no nearer than I dare," he answered. "Madonna, keep to the Casa garden, I beg." "Why? I am no child to be bidden do this or that for my own good and no reason given." "There is danger from Lippo." "From Lippo? When there is danger from Lippo my grandfather will warn me." Again defence drove her to exaggeration. Almost there was reproof in her voice, rebuke, a bidding him mind his own business, which was to make saints out of marble and not watch over a woman who, he had avowed, was nothing to him. But Fieravanti went too much in fear to be silenced as she had silenced him in the garden; only the very coldness put him off his guard. "Think of me how you will," he answered, "but I would be less than a man if, with so much at hazard, I did not risk displeasing you. Madonna, for the love of Christ, keep yourself guarded. Would you break all our hearts? Count Ascanio does not understand as as we do." "Oh," she said lightly, mockingly even, since for the moment mockery was defence, "hearts are not so easily broken." His answer was a gesture of the hands flung out apart, then caught together as he turned from her as if in de- spair. But she had caught the pain in his eyes, had un- derstood the unconscious revelation, and in that instant one of her two causes for shame was plucked out wholly by the roots. If she had given love unasked it had not been love undesired or unreturned. But even while the woman in her triumphed, glorying as she trembled a little, looking aside to hide the surrender REVELATION 193 of her eyes, the custom of a life-time came upon her in a flood. Did love come first? Land, blood and the Church were equals. Already, within the week, a Faldora had failed Faldora; was she no truer to the traditions of her name? "Messer Fieravanti," she said sharply, "do we finish to-day or do we not?" "To-day, signorina," he answered, and they spoke no more as he worked. But the request he made Tribalda, that when Madonna Lucia went abroad she should be close guarded whether she would or no, need not have been urged. Perhaps it was the summer heat, now flaming to its fiercest, but the shade 4 of the garden contented her that day and onwards. CHAPTER XX THE KITES GATHER "THERE are two kinds of fools in the world," said Lippo, "two kinds amongst many, you understand the fool who grasps more than he can grip and so loses everything, and he who does not grasp at all. Now, which would I be, I wonder ?" "Neither/* answered Carlo Faldora, "neither ; you would be the wise man who grasps and grips." "So you say, because it suits you to say it. But al- ways with respect, of course I have less confidence in your wisdom than I once had. And with reason, you'll admit. There you were, a Faldora to be sure but a Faldora of nothing at all, and Count Ascanio lifts you out of your nothing to be Faldora of Pesaro in God's good time or earlier, if you saw your way to a hastening. But you were not content. No! A purse, passing lean, per- haps, compared with your capacity for spending, but still a purse of a sort, filled the empty pocket; a wife with all Faldora in her shoes waited for the priest and his book, but you were not content. You must needs rattle the devil's dicebox down in Forli " "Let that be, Lippo. That is past " "By your leave," said Lippo, breaking in without cere- mony, "but that is where you are wrong. Nothing is ever past so long as its consequences remain, and one con- sequence is that you may whistle for your bride, and, what is worse, whistle for her shoes but neither will come to 194 THE KITES GATHER 195 heel. And so what's past is mose damnably present which brings us where we were. You must needs, I say, rattle cogged dice to make the lean purse fatter, and so for the sake of a hoof you lose your bullock, hide, horns and all. "And there is more than that. There you were, fair warned that ruin lay behind the door, yet you did not slam it shut, lock, bolt and bar it while you might. What? In these three months were there not ways, whether by the priest and his book or a careful anticipation of God's good time accidents befall in this uncertain world which would have made all safe? But no! You bite your fingers, you hem, you haw, you stand first on one leg then on the other, until both legs are tripped up and you in the mud ! And now you cry, Tiippo crack your skull, the only skull you have, against the great door of Faldora, all be- cause I was a fool!* No! To my sorrow I have less confidence in your wisdom than I once had; and so, by your leave I'll take thought lest one fool should make many." All through the sour humour of the long monologue Carlo Faldora sat silent, literally biting the fingers Lippo had seen him gnaw in metaphor. Always the thief had treated him with doubtful respect, but already he was learning the difference between Carlo Faldora, heir pre- sumptive, and Carlo Faldora outcast and disowned: the doubtful respect had passed in a stride to no respect at all, hardly even was there a show of equality. Respect? Equality? No! There was open contempt and scarcely less open insolence, nor dared he resent either. To quar- rel with Lippo was to quarrel with his one hope of re- gaining all his folly had flung away. Yes, folly was the word. And yet, should he blame himself ? What had led to it all ? Those accursed cogged dice? But that had seemed so simple. Who would sua- 196 A MAKER OF SAINTS pect Faldora of Pesaro? Why, his very name was a safe- guard. But yes, there had been a folly. Because of the safeguard it had been too simple, too easy, too sure, and he had allowed security to lure him into an unwise frequency of winning. That, he saw now had seen it ever since that damned night in the Castello, that truly had been folly. Then, too, Lippo was right over the waste of the last three months. There should have been an accident and yet, no! That would not have served either. The mar- riage first, the accident after, or Lucia might have cried off and the accident bring him nothing but its risk. The marriage first, yes : but was it his fault that Lent had been late? that there could be no marriage until Easter had passed? True, he should have been more ardent, more lover-like. He paused in his backward cast of thought and grinned with bared teeth. Lover-like? Let him per- suade Lippo to this venture and she would find him lover- like ; oh yes, by Holy Paul ! she would find him lover-like ! But through these three months he had been unwise. Had he importuned, grown passionate, sworn devotion, urged oh, urged many things and played the fool as lovers do, old Ascanio would have fixed the marriage for the first day the Church approved. Then let the accident come! Fieravanti and his "To save Madonna Lucia?" Bah ; at the worst he would have bought Fieravanti. Such cattle are always for sale. He might have had to bid high but it would have come cheaper than Lippo. Well, he had been a fool, let that be admitted. Now the only cure was to mesh Lippo and through him grip all his folly had lost but without the burden of a bride with sour milk in her veins instead of red blood. And then? Then to rid himself of Lippo would not, at least should not, be difficult. For the rest, he knew his world. Success would be a swift repairer to a cracked reputation. THE KITES GATHER 197 A whitener? More than a whitener, a gilder of foul smirches, so thick a gilder that not one trace of the mud would show through ! But first Lippo must be won. How? From under his bent brows Faldora glanced across the table at his com- panion's face and the insolence in the cruelly hard eyes drove him to a decision. Boldness was his best hope and, be it remembered, Carlo Faldora was no coward where caution would not serve him. "Fool? Fool is easily said," he declared brusquely. "But it is you who will be the fool if you refuse. Come now, I'll be as frank as you were. What are you? A road pick-purse nothing more! And what will the end be? The end of all your trade six inches of steel in the ribs or a rope under the nearest tree! Oh, you may glower; but it's true, and you know it. Now here is your way out. With five hundred ducats in your pouch who will question Signor Filippo What-name-you-will ? Never a soul! The risk? Who is denying the risk? Not I, since I share it! But any day in a roadside brawl for a fistful of copper sols you may find that steel in your ribs and there's an end to you. That, for the risk !" and Faldora snapped his fingers. "Fool, say you? Fool yourself, say I! Come, Lippo, we have been comrades, you and I, why not again, if for the last time?" That it would be the last time he had clearly decided. Once the success of the assault was assured, why Lippo himself had said that accidents be- fall in this uncertain world. "Comrades? Yes, I have taken my risk of steel in the rihs, you your share of the fistful of copper sols!" But though Lippo epoke sourly there was less of the aggressive insolence in his tone. The truth was he had long since decided upon the venture but, according to the cunning of his kind, hid his decision that he might drive a harder bargain. He saw eye to eye with Tribalda. 198 A MAKEK OF SAINTS Let him succeed in this and he would pass in one stride from a wayside thief of copper sols to the ranks of the condottiere with a sword to sell to the highest bidder. But meanwhile he had his bargain to drive, and so grew almost civil; an abatement of insolence would smooth the way lest Faldora take offence. "Not that you have not done all I've asked," he went on, conciliation clearer with every sentence. "But for your warning I would have mishandled a wasp's nest more than once. We will call the past even, Signer Carlo. Now comes this venture of yours; but a fistful of sols by the roadside is one thing and to sack Faldora " "Sack Faldora? I'll have no sacking, Lippo. Your pay is your pay." Lippo whistled derisively, "What? We crack the shell and you eat the kernel? Do you call that comradeship? Crack the nut for yourself, Signor Carlo, I'll have none of it," which, it will be remembered was just Lippo's way of driving his bargain. "And with the kernel gone, of what use would the cracked shells be to me? Now you are the fool who grasps too much and so grips nothing." "But," remonstrated Lippo, "my lambs must be fed, and they have no small appetite. Double the five hundred ducats and I'll begin to think of it/' For the moment Faldora made no reply. That he must crush grapes before he could drink wine he knew, but the wine would have to be shared and so the fewer he crushed the more he would have left for himself. Such a sum as Lippo demanded would sorely cripple Faldora. Then he remembered the accident which would happen: so paid, the quittance would be as easy for a thousand ducats as for five hundred, and at the comforting thought the frown lifted. "Be it so; I was never one to haggle with a friend," THE KITES GATHER 199 he said with geniality. "And, Lippo, let all go well and I will add something over and above: we must part in peace, we two. Is all agreed?" "Not so fast, signor, not so fast. Risks are my trade and I count them as nothing; but there's one risk we dare not face and that is failure. Let us fail and what happens? I hang and you are damned! We shall need more men, and within a week I'll lay my hand on them. Now, what following have you in the Casa itself?" "Ten or a dozen out of Tribalda's thirty-four." "Ten certain?" "Certain." But though Faldora's reply was positive Lippo shook his head. "No offence, signor," he said civilly, "but you have tattered your own affairs to such rags that I doubt your patching now. How can you be certain?" "There are four I could hang " "That goes for nothing. Let them throw you over and they are safe. Ascanio Faldora would never hang men who risked life for him." "Seven I have bought and not paid for yet." "Bought how?" "Promises. They know me." Again Lippo shook his head doubtfully. Would he trust Carlo Faldora's promises? Not for five minutes! But he knew his man better than these seven did, and so "Perhaps that will hold yes, perhaps, and the rest?" "Three owe Tribalda a grudge, and at least six " "But that reckons twenty?" "And so, to be on the safe side I say ten or a dozen," and Lippo nodded thoughtfully. As they sat silent, each speculating how best to use the other, climbing across his back to some advantage, the quiet was broken by the yapping of dogs and a yelping snarl as a tooth nipped home in savage play. 200 A MAKER OF SAINTS 4|^B "Giro !" said Lippo. "Let us have Giro in. He knows Tribalda's men better even than you." "Then let him leave his accursed mongrels outside. The brutes will do a man a damage some day." "Not unless Giro bids them/' answered Lippo as he rose. "They know as well as he that here in camp their first bite would be their last." Opening the door he whistled, and presently Giro appeared, his five dogs trail- ing at his heels. Mongrels they were, but being mongrels through whose veins ran the wild blood of fighting ancestors they had none of a mongrel's cowardice; only in size were they de- generate from their wolfish sires of bygone generations. And in size and bulk they varied. As Giro stood, some reached his knees, some fell short by six inches, but all were alike deep chested, deep mouthed, strong of limb, their rough coats shaggy and bristling, the heat slaver trickling from their jaws as they snapped at one another with bared fangs. But savage though they were they had learned discre- tion. In all their restless shifting, never for an instant quiet, they showed their wisdom by never venturing so much as a paw across the threshold, though one, a hideous red-eyed beast of a dirty white, meeting the aversion of Faldora's eyes, snarled with such a sudden venom of rage that, half involuntarily, Lippo would have thrust the door shut had not Giro protested. "No need, no need," he cried. "The signer's as safe as in a church. Not even Pluto there," and he pointed to a wicked-eyed black-haired beast, "not even Pluto would shake a rat until I give leave." "And then?" "Then," said Giro, "There would be no rat. Down on your bellies, all of you down down!" Then, as they THE KITES GATHER 201 obeyed the imperative gesture of his open hand, he stepped inside the hut, closing the door behind him. "Touching our little visit of ceremony to Faldora, hear what's planned," said Lippo. "There are ten ducats for every man, and fifty for you: Signer Carlo pays," nor, as he paused did Faldora protest. After all, the accident would leave the cost small. "The young signor claims ten or a dozen upon his side in the Casa; what do you say?" "More," said Giro promptly. "But, signor," he went on, turning apologetically to Faldora, "they are more on their own side than on yours. Ifs not not just love, you understand." "So best ! Who fights for himself has a sure paymaster," said Lippo, and laughed, well pleased. As, indeed he had the right to be. Who, at a pinch, his own skin at stake, would fight for love of Carlo Faldora? Never a soul in this world! But for his own pocket? Yes! fight, and fight like Giro's Pluto if need be ! "So much for maggots in the kernel ; now for cracking the nut. There is a small postern, Giro, is there not " "That will not serve," broke in Faldora. It had vexed his sense of his own importance that he should, as it were, have been elbowed aside while all that touched him most nearly was under discussion ; here he could set them right, speaking with authority. "I know that postern: it is of four-inch oak, triple-banded and stronger than the great door itself." "By your leave, signor, by your leave," said Lippo toler- antly. "I don't doubt it is all you claim, but we will first hear what Giro has to say. What of the postern ?" "Yes, it is all the signor says, but" and again Giro turned in deprecation to Faldora, "the hinges, signor, are nothing but wooden pegs " 202 "The devil! What, you dog? You dared! You dared!" "Softly, signor." It was Lippo who replied. "Would you have had Giro lose his time? Wise men look ahead, and you might not always have been the good comrade. The postern, Giro?" "Just this a push of the shoulder and it is off its hinges." But Carlo Faldora was no longer listening. His pride was bitterly offended. In the complexity and contradic- tion of human nature he could dice away his honour, share with a Lippo the profits of petty theft, plot the murder of the man by whose side he broke bread, and yet resent a cunning deception which, in the outcome, was to turn to his own advantage. Grimly he decided that when Lippo went out of this uncertain world, to his own place by way of an accident, he should not go alone! Then his good comrade's voice, harsh with suspicion and challenge aroused him. "You said Tribalda had thirty-four under him ; Giro de- clares there are fifty ?" "Both are right. Tribalda's thirty-four are trained men, the rest are scullions, lackeys and their like. They count for nothing." "I am not so sure of that! Then there are three from Forli?" "Chisellers !" scoffed Faldora. "Though, by my faith, one carries a cudgel, does he not, Giro?" "Better a cudgel than a dicebox," said Lippo. "Leave Giro to pay his own debts ! A week will see quittance in full. Give me a week to add twenty to our thirty and I'll risk it." CHAPTER XXI LUCIA LEARNS THE HIGHEST LAW EVENTS are often like the breaking up of a dyke, or the slipping of a stone down a mountain side. At first there is but a sweating on the outer surface of the bank, then a drip through a hidden crack, a seeping out of moisture by way of a hair-line so fine that the eye misses the portent, next a trickle, a thin spouting under pressure, a swift broadening of the stream and with a roar the flood is frothing through the breach. Or, little by little, the soft earth cut from under it by the rains, the stone slips, gathering force with every yard until, toppling over some petty decline its impetus is loosed from all restraint and in mighty leaps it thunders to the valley, drawing a spreading trail of destruction after it. So it was through this last week, though, differing from the flood and avalanche, the cumulative and accumu- lating forces passed unnoticed. First, an urgent express came from Arzano summoning Fieravanti to a conference with the Duke upon some diffi- culty which had arisen in the execution of the plans for the city's defence. Nor was he loth to go. Faldora held little pleasure for any man these days, and less than little for him, except in the putting life into the clay. Everywhere there was the sense of storm, either of tempest past, but with the ruin left in its track not yet scarred over, or of a brooding thunderbolt slowly gathering force. If old Ascanio was still the courteous host it was with a difference. His lean, eagle face was leaner and fiercer, 203 204 A MAKER OF SAINTS spells of silence possessed him and often, now, he drank the strong wine of Brettinoro beyond his wont; not to excess, be it understood, save in so far as excess spelled an exaggeration of the man's instincts. For one thing, never had the Faldora pride been so strongly in evidence as since the day Carlo Faldora had humbled it. Of Madonna Lucia Fieravanti saw less and less. Now that the actual modelling was completed, and she no longer a necessity for the progress of the statue, she avoided the workroom with a directness which openly avowed her in- difference to statue and sculptor alike. Best so, Fiera- vanti told himself, and in the same breath watched the door in an eager hope that the worst might befall ! But, to the great indignation of 'Tonio and 'Sandro, she never crossed the threshold unless she found the door open and the room empty! Then, being a woman and certain she was unseen, she would slip inside, colour warm- ing cheeks which had grown whiter than ever before in the heat of summer. It was strange, but it was not the statue which drew her. No, but with lingering fingertips she would touch this or that which he had touched, then set them sharply down, these innocent graving tools, as if suddenly they had scorched her, and, being still a woman, return, stiffly erect to the silence of her own apartments, there to tatter her weakness with talons of scornful self contempt but, being always a woman, never failing to meet the maker of saints with such a level of indifference that an open rupture would have been more tolerable. No, Fieravanti had no regrets at obeying the summons to Arzano. But, however sore at heart, he abated neither thought nor caution on her behalf. Why should he? All love is proved by sacrifice and what greater sacrifice than self can there be? So Tribalda was warned afresh and 'Tonio and 'Sandro bidden watch with ceaseless vigilance lest Lippo swoop unawares. LUCIA LEARNS THE HIGHEST LAW 205 "He is a clever rogue, is Lippo. He has his spies in the village and will hear I have taken the Arzano road. Why? To ask help from the Duke? He may think so and the fear spur him on to strike at once ! Go amongst the folk, you two ; learn all you can from their gossip but, on your lives, tell them nothing!" a double injunction which in time bore fruit. Fieravanti being gone, next, in the gathering forces of the week's happenings, there came a guest to Faldora by way of the Custom. "Above the salt, Madonna," said Joana, the maid who brought Lucia the information. "I heard no name, but he is no great lord like Count Fausto." "Old or young?" "Oh, very old, Madonna, old and bent, and with the sorrowfullest face in all the world." Then, being young and having lived all her life in Brettinoro or the Casa, and therefore privileged, she went on, "I shivered to see him. His eyes seemed the only thing alive in a face that's as grey as death, and they are sorrowfullest of all." Xor, pausing a moment unnoticed as she crossed the threshold of the receiving-room, could Lucia Faldora dis- pute the truth of the description except in one particular. Bent? Yes, but as he faced her from midway across the room, where he stood by the side of his host, it seemed to the girl that it was weight of the years' sorrow and not their number which had stooped the narrow shoulders. Stooped they were; Ascanio Faldora, a generation older, topped him as a lance tops a strung-bow. For the rest, Joana was justified, though the long and colourless face, furrowed by brooding care and lean with ascetic thought, was splendidly redeemed from unhappi- ness and discontent by the luminous, full eyes. They held her fascinated, these eyes, so virile were they and yet so sorrowful. It seemed as if out of them looked the gentle 206 A MAKER OF SAINTS spirit of a poet dreamer, surprised to find itself flung naked into a harsh world of tragedy. Yet, looking closer, there were signs that the spirit was not always gentle, not always the pledged ascetic, the mild and contempla- tive dreamer. The thin, acquiline nose had more than a hint of old Faldora's fierce pride, nor could the thick, crisp beard, once black, now heavily streaked with grey, hide the stern determination of the firm chin. For the rest, the skin was that of an Italian of the plains, swarthy rather than sallow, and from the full-lipped mouth the lower lip hung prominent. A dreamer ? Perhaps ; but once aroused he would be an ill man to move from his matured opinions. As Lucia moved forward Faldora turned, a courteous hand on his guest's shoulder. "We are in debt to the Custom, my girl. I present to you Messer Dante Alighieri. This is the last of my race, signor; we have rotted to one solitary distaff branch, we Faldoreschi." "Surely budded, rather." He smiled as he spoke the three words and on the instant the sad austerity of the ascetic face dissolved into a gentle softness infinitely kindly, infinitely winning. "It is the heritage of age, signorina, to live in two lives its memories and the youth of those it loves." "Memories? God send us something less bitter!" said Faldora with grim bluntness. "We know something of your story and by report you would rather be bound for Florence than Ravenna if you were sure of a welcome! How long is it since they shut the gates on you ? A dozen years ?" "Fifteen." "Yet you talk of happy memory! Bleak as my own memories are, by Holy Paul, I would not change them with those of an outcast " LUCIA LEARNS THE HIGHEST LAW 207 "No, Count Ascanio ! An exile for the right ! No man is ever outcast who carries a clear conscience." "The right? There Florence differs; and, to be honest with you, I think with Florence! But here comes Giu- seppe and supper. By your leave, Messer Dante, we will talk no more of Florence. You are Guelf and hold by the Pope, I am Ghibelline and have been robbed by the Pope; but for to-night we are host and guest and may leave policies and politics to their father, the devil. Lead the way, Giuseppe/* Nor, with the guest of The Custom seated in Fiera- vanti's vacant place did talk halt for the leaving aside of these two sons of their sire. Both being men of the great world, there was ample common ground upon which their antagonisms did not clash. There they met, the one bring- ing to their talk vivid and clear-cut recollections of the great days of more than sixty years earlier when Empire and Papacy strove in death grips for supremacy, to the dire hurt of both ; while the other, through his fifteen years of eating bitter bread and weary climbing of alien stairs, had gained much sorrowful knowledge of men and the ways of men. Across their interchange, like shadows on a dim-lit stage, flitted at times the sinister figure of an Innocent, at times the greatness of an emperor hailed even by his foes as Stupor Mundi, or it might be the holy influence of the gentle, saintly Coelestine. Next the talk would turn upon Charles of Anjou, the bloody ghosts of the Sicilian Vespers haunting his steps, or Can Grande, the great Scaliprer, to whom the poet owed a refuge in his direst need, these and a score more, with vivid careless hints of battles lost and won, of cities sacked and sieges raised, of embassies to Rome, the gay splendour of Courts which had filled thrir little day and were no longer. Ascanio Faldora 208 A MAKER OF SAINTS had lived through fifteen Papacies; Tuscany, Eomagna, TJmbria, The Marches, there was not a great city in their length and breadth which the exile, poet, philosopher and stateman, did not know. No ! Opposites though they were and trenched in separate camps they had much in common, these two, and as they talked all other talk died. Now, it is just in such intimate talk that men reveal themselves. Under the stimulus the bent figure oppo- site Lucia Faldora straightened in its chair, the austere, sorrowful face glowing at times and at times glooming, the full, clear eyes now mild in vision, now flashing as scorching an indignation as ever flamed from old Fal- dora's bitterest scorn. All the many sides of his multiple nature broke bounds in turn, but through the swift, be- wildering shifts of mood the fascinated girl saw only the man who, rumour whispered, had walked through hell, had burst the bars of purgatory and looked with living eyes upon the glories of heaven's highest paradise. Eumours they were, or little more than rumours, tales which, no doubt, had grown in the telling as tales will. But at times Marco Fieravanti had quoted lines which refused to be forgotten, and through the tales were blent uncertain echoes of a stupendous drama across whose stage there passed the living and the dead, tormented souls and spirits of divinest happiness, devils, saints, angels, with, far off exalted, remote yet near, the greatest glory of imagination, Eternal God Himself, effulgent beyond all understanding. "Yesterday Gubbio, to-morrow Kavenna," he was say- ing, "I am a vessel without sail or rudder, driven here and there by every dry wind that springs from dolorous poverty." vr But surely," answering the bitter spirit rather than the bitter words, Father Bernardo broke his silence im- pulsively, "surely after fifteen years Florence, upon your LUCIA LEAKNS THE HIGHEST LAW 209 petition, would receive give back would would- His voice trailed into dumbness as the Florentine turned slowly and looked him in the face. "Florence? When did Florence, being wrong, show amnesty to those who had offended, being right? Never! And now least of all ! Some hearts, blessed by prosperity, expand their overflow in gentleness never Florence ! En- vious, malignant, stony-hearted : to love liberty is in Flor- ence the one sin unforgivable. Petition Florence? For what? That I may graciously be granted pardon for my innocence? absolution for a sin never committed? that being guiltless guilt may be forgiven and my clean soul excused its infamy ? You speak as a priest, not as a man ! No! Never by that road shall I return to Florence. If only by the gate of an infamous confession can Florence be re-entered, then, God's my witness, never again shall I tread the stones of the dear city." "The dear city which you love," said Lucia, as the sonorous voice slipped from its pregnant scorn to gentle- ness. "God, He knows yes, Madonna. In spite of all yes ! And so loving Florence I ask no more but that she open her doors to me. What more is needful? I have suffered bitter wrong? Yes, but love that cannot pardon is no true love : it loves its pride better than the beloved. Love that sets self aside, finding its divinest good in sacrifice, is God in the flesh. The world holds nothing greater; it is the keystone of the arch of life, it pardons all offence, it sets the lowly by the highest and draws all men into the divine equality of heaven ^ "Aye, aye, aye," said Faldora impatiently. "That is true in heaven, maybe, but, Messcr Dante, we who are on earth must live after our kind; and I say to you and to all, there are some offences never to be forgiven." "Then was there never love," answered Dante, and 210 A MAKER OF SAINTS Faldora shrugged indifferently. It is to be doubted if all his long life he had known the heights and depths of love: certainly there had been no love for Carlo Faldora. "May be, may be; but to me it seems you talk of what you do not understand. A grace, Father, since supper's ended," and with that all rose. It was the unwritten law of The Custom that an over- night's guest should depart after breaking fast on the morrow. The reasons were twofold and plain to under- stand none might trade upon his welcome, and there might be need to make way for some other chance way- farer : not all who hung their rings on Brettinoro's marble pillar had the space of Faldora at their disposal. But the needs must of nature is a greater power than any custom, and with the morning it was clear that the over-night's guest must rest a day lest he fail by t"he road. Nor was there for one instant any thought of demur, but, as Count Ascanio was busied easing his sore heart with much active doing of very little, the entertaining through this further day fell to Madonna Lucia. "See to him, my girl," Faldora said as he made ready to mount. "No doubt he was a man once, but now he is more a woman than a man and so falls to your share." "And you? You will take care that Lippo " But he cut her troubled anxiety short with a laugh new to Ascanio Faldora, so bitter-toned was it. "Lippo? Signer "Roverella, you mean! Yes, Tribalda has ten of a guard waiting for me beyond the gate. My God! to think of it! I must go abroad hedged, lest my own flesh and blcod stab me in the back as he has! as he has!" "But, grandfather, if you would deal with Lippo as as Captain Tribalda advises " "When he touches Faldora, yes. Till then let the LUCIA LEARNS THE HIGHEST LAW 211 Church that has robbed me of my people see to my people !" Seated in the saddle he paused, looking down at her from under puckered brows. "We must marry you and soon. For safety's sake it is that or a convent. But to whom that's the question ? Thank heaven ! it will not be Signor Roverella! You and I are in Fieravanti's debt there. But now, to whom ? Perhaps Alidosi will return this way ; we'll see!" and with a nod, stern and hard of face, he rode out to where the ten waited to guard his back lest Carlo Faldora should stab the flesh as he had stabbed soul and spirit. Alidosi? Or if not Alidosi, some other? And it must be soon? The hateful thought seemed to grip her heart and shake it as in a shut fist, driving the blood to the brain in hot waves. Alidosi or another? That would be intolerable a sacrilege. Though she had had no love for Carlo Faldora yet to marry him had seemed no hardship until three months ago: he had even been repugnant to her, yet to marry, and marry the heir to the name, thus linking name and heritage, had been so much a duty and a matter of course that not even repugnance had made wifehood a hardship until three months ago. Not even when repugnance grew into loathing, rousing a rebellion of spirit and flesh no less fierce for being sup- pressed, had she had any thought of pleading for her freedom. Of what use? The duty and the matter of course remained the same. Nothing was changed but If, and in Ascanio Faldora's eyes she counted for nothing at all, or only as the mother of Faldoras yet to be. And what could she have pled? Not repugnance, not loathing: what did these matter in one whose sole use was to mother Faldoras? Nothing at all: they would have been brushed aside as immaterial. What then? Could she plead that she loved No! and again no! Loved whom? Marco Fieravanti the half 212 A MAKER OF SAINTS peasant ! Marco Fieravanti who had said, "Wh&t is Lucia Faldora to me!" Better Carlo Faldora and her cup of loathing to the brim than a confession which shamed her pride and abased her womanhood. More than that. So to have pled would have been waste. The marriage would have been pressed on in haste and in the volcanic eruption of men's passions God alone knew what might have be- fallen Marco Fieravanti. Death almost certainly. To clear him finally from the path would be safest. No, she could have pled nothing. Then had come Carlo Faldora's exposure, and with his outcasting had been cast out the fear of all she dared not form in clear thought, the fear bred of loathing. Nor did comfort end with that freedom. Unconsciously Fiera- vanti had revealed himself, and the love of the woman knew that the answering love of the man would have poured out its passion were it not held in as stern a check as her own. Why? Without a doubt her grandfather had given the reason by anticipation. "Land, blood and the Church are equals. But riches? No! Any huckster may grow rich. Let the mud of the world stay where God placed it." And if wealth great enough to seek marriage with Fal- dora remained the mud of the world in Count Ascanio's eyes, what would he not say to a simple peasant-born maker of saints, who called himself nothing more than a trader? Yes, there came the pinch-despisal, a pinch that nipped her own pride till it cried out in protest. Despisal of the man? No! never that, as God lived, she told her- self, never that. From her soul she gloried in the man; not Carlo Faldora, not Alidosi, could compare with him. What, then, did she despise? Truly, herself and yes, his birth, but with the despisal of custom rather than of any incisive conviction. All her life she had accepted the inferiority of the mud of the world as she accepted the LUCIA LEARNS THE HIGHEST LAW 213 dogmas of the Church, giving no analytic thought to either: but as between the two, herself and his peasant blood, she despised herself most, mistaking a passive ac- customed pride for the more active contempt: that the man in whom she gloried might have a spirit the equal of her own never crossed her thought. But of late these cross currents had troubled her little: they had been turned aside as of no consequence once the shadow cast by Carlo Faldora had lifted. Life could drift on; life was not unhappy, it was even good! Not passionately good as she knew life might be if only Marco Fieravanti were what? With Ascanio Faldora's, "We must marry you, my girl," ringing in her ears the question was folly. Marco Fieravanti could be nothing to her and Alidosi would pass that way within the month. Busied with her tangled thoughts she passed through a side door, opening from the inner court where Faldora had mounted, into the garden; there, under the welcome shade, she found the exiled Florentine pacing slowly back nnd forth. "You have had Marco Fieravanti with you?" he said, after the first morning courtesies had passed. "It grieves me deeply that we have not met." "He will reckon it his loss," she answered sedately, giving no sign of the tremor which surged through her at the unexpected mention of the name. Then, eager for his praise, but slowly, lest she should reveal the eagerness, she went on, "You have seen his work his carvings?" "All Romagna knows and honours them ! They are an inspiration and a promise. Truly God was good to men when he put His fire into a Marco Fieravanti. We have no other like him to preach the highest law as not even a priest can preach it. Madonna, with all my heart I say, God be thanked for Marco Fieravanti !" "The highest law?" So shaken was she, so thrilled from 214 A MAKEK OF SAINTS head to foot by the outspoken, generous enthusiasm, that to speak at all was difficult : the three words were no better than a stammer. "Love, Madonna. And it is the highest law because if it be true to itself it compels us to the highest in us. And what is that highest? Let every soul answer to God, but it cannot be a denial of love which is born of God." "Oh/' she answered, still trembling, "surely there are loves and loves ?" Being deeply moved she spoke lightly. It may be that the sundial, seen beyond the opening of the trees under whose branches they walked, recalled a memory. Then the easy phrase had passed, now it was challenged. "Loves and loves? No ! one, one only, one and no more. We call it by different names but it differs in nothing except in that we differ in its using. Whether men live by it or die for it, it is the one love. Let it bring sorrow, let it be the daily God be thanked ! of our happiness, it is the one love, and the gift of heaven. Winter and summer the sun is the same sun, and praised by God, love that is love is love unchangeable." He paused in silence, his lips still moving, his eyes blind to earthly sun and shade as they looked, it may be, once again into "the Glory Infinite, the Light Eternal, the Love which moves the sun and other stars." "But," she said, hesitating to break in upon the vision yet driven to speak, "are there not at times conditions "Conditions?" He shook his head. "Neither condition nor conditions. How could there be? Love that does not love without conditions is not love. Either it puts self first or lacks faith. Love sees the best in the beloved. Suppose I mean no offence, God knows, being old enough to bo a father to such as you, Madonna but suppose this maker of saints held you to be God's supreme creation, as love would, then he would see you to be compact of His great- LUCIA LEARNS THE HIGHEST LAW 215 est work, and so seeing would reproduce the greatness for our duller eyes. Conditions? He would see beyond them. Conditions seek, love gives and glories in the giving!" Again he fell silent, but across the silence there broke a whisper, "Florence what would I not give thee, Florence, my Florence." Then, with a long shivering breath he caught a lip in the grip of his teeth and was dumb. "Even after fifteen years you love Florence?" "Madonna, her very stones are dear. Love Florence? Yes! Though Florence is granite-hearted and will be to the end." "But/' she objected again, "if to love were to stoop " "Love uplifts, always; and uplifting is uplifted even though it be upon a cross." "I cannot understand, I cannot see, no, I cannot see." "What of that ? Love is like the sun at times and hides himself in his own brightness." "But at least the brightness would be seen." "Surely, else is it not love. But we are born blind and that is Marco Fieravanti's greatness to open blind eyes, making clear that which we could not see apart from him. To-day, passing his workshop and the door open, I saw his and his greatest divination. Whence, Madonna, came the love of the Great Mother? Through the stooping of a yet greater love? Conditions? Heaven may stoop to earth, but we, poor petty fools of time, set our little great- Irst and forget that to deny love is to deny God who is Love." Again he fell silent, whispering to himself, and this time Lucia Faldora, elmring in part his vision, left the silence unbroken. That he spoke of Florence, Florence which made conditions to his love, while her thoughts were on Marco Fieravanti mattered nothing. CHAPTEE XXII 'TONIO PLAYS MICARE AND LOSES WHAT next happened in that week's breaking of the dyke was that 'Tonio and 'Sandro played a little game of micare together. It is one of the oldest gambling hazards, as old as knuckle-bones, and one of the fairest when fairly played. Also it is one of the simplest playing alter- nately, one gambler throws up his hands, extending what fingers and thumbs he pleases, the other guesses simul- taneously, winning an agreed stake if right, losing nothing if wrong: or, it may be, that a total is fixed, the reaching of which ends the game. But even when played with scrupulous fairness there is an advantage to the more experienced player, an in- tuition develops, an instinct comes with practice, and so 'Sandro was the first to reach the allotted score and there- by win choice of the two charges laid upon them by the Master. "The signorina !" he said promptly. "Do you hunt news of Lippo in the village while I watch in the garden." "You have all the duck," grumbled Hawk. "The sig- norina and shade, while I go roast in the sun. She may even speak to you," he added enviously. "To-day to me, to-morrow to you/' said 'Sandro, with the easy philosophy of the man who has no quarrel with life and sees no reason why the morrow should not be his also. "If I were you, 'Tonio, I would try the wine-shop and the fields; there's where you will find the men. The women, poor souls, will be afraid of an open mouth." 216 TONIO PLAYS MICARE AND LOSES 217 "It was a woman who spoke out that day at Margotti V "Yes, but that was to the Master; they all trust the Master. Try the fields, Tonio, try the fields." "The fields ? Plague take your fields ! Once beyond the vineyards, where there is no work this time of year, the fields are no more than patches hidden here and there among rocks: but if the wine-shop fails I see nothing better." And, apparently the wine-shop failed, else that man in the making, little Piero of the gold-piece, would not have come beating his knuckles on the postern whose hinges were held in place by wooden pegs. "Captain Tribalda! for the Lord's sake, Captain Tri- balda !" he panted, then fell to tearing his lean chest with hooked finger-tips as if either his lungs were bursting or that the thumping of his heart choked him, both being the truth. Never before had he run so fast "Captain Tribalda ? Now what do you want with Cap- tain Tribalda?" The well-fed scullion who opened the door was leisurely. Also it is always a pleasant thing to exercise a little superiority. "That is for himself alone." "Then he must wait, and you, too! Captain Tribalda rode out an hour ago," and the door would have been shut in Piero's face if he had not thrust a lean arm, naked to the elbow, between edge and jamb : the four inches of oak would have snapped it like a rotten stick. "Then the Madonna the signorina. For the Lord's sake, Signer Luca, let me speak with the signorina/' and Piero, his breath coming back but his heart still choking him, fell whimpering. Already the scullion had raised a hand to strike down the lean arm whose small bones looked so inquisitively out o' doors at his own fat, but two things stayed the blow. That the Madonna was good to the poor was known, al*> 218 A MAKER OF SAINTS that she could express her displeasure with clarity and strength ; then it is pleasant to he called signor even when one is no signor at all, but just a plain washer of dishes; so Luca held his hand and questioned instead. "First Tribalda, now the Madonna ! What does a rat in a bundle of rags want with Tribalda and the Ma' donna?" "That is not your business." In his desperation Piero plucked up assertive courage, not much but sufficient. Luca, remembering the clarity and vigour gave way. "Into the garden with you: maybe you will find her there. Only if trouble comes of it your skin will pay !" and by way of earnest-money Luca aimed a cuff at the lad's ear as he passed. But there Piero was in his element : ever since he had found feet strong enough to take him tottering along a Brettinoro street he had learned the penalty of weakness in a rough world. With a swift duck of the head he evaded the blow, even finding time for a "Grazie, Luca," before his bare feet carried him garden- wards at top speed. He found her at the sundial, alone, the latest guest of The Custom having passed on his road to Eavenna, but leaving behind him the effects of that unconscious influence which is surely one of the millstones of God, grinding slowly to the shaping of lives not our own. Half wrapped in his dreams, part in the material world and part in a world of his imagining, within five minutes the Florentine had forgotten his words, but she remembered. "Love draws all to the divine equality of heaven ;" "Love uplifts and uplifting is uplifted;" "To set our little great- ness first and deny love is to deny God love is the highest law." "Love gives and glories in the giving." No, never again could she be as she had been before his coming. And yet, what were they, these two? Ships that pass in the night? Again, no! That is a mistake; such a TONIO PLAYS MICARE AND LOSES 219 passing in darkness is writ in water. The truth, rather, is that from all points come touches on the wet and plas- tic clay, leaving behind indelible impressions which may shape a beauty or push deformity into stronger relief. So it had been with Lucia Faldora. Hearing the quick pad, pad, of naked feet on the hard path she turned, one hand still resting on the gnomon of the dial. Naturally her fears flew to the household in the back lane where poor food, and too little of it, opened a ready door to heat fevers. "What is wrong, Piero? Marietta? Has she " "No, Madonna, no; worse than that Lippo has caught the Englishman." "Lippo? The Englishman? Marco's scarpeltinof \Yhcn How?" In her surprised bewilderment her heart spake out of its fulness ; Marco was Marco in her thoughts. "There in the fields ; not Lippo himself but Giro of the dogs. And, Madonna, they say they say " But what they said Piero could not tell because his heart was choking him. That stout little heart, so brave to face the world for the mother at home, fluttered into \\\< throat at the very thought of Giro of the dogs. Going on one knee she beckoned him to come close, laid an arm about the patched shoulders and with the other hand pushed the damp tangle of hair back from the forehead. The Great Mother herself could hardly have been more understanding; almost at the first touch he calmed, gulp- in