University of Virginia Library

THE POSTILLION AND THE BUXOM DAMSELS.

And there tripping gayly along were three peasant
damsels, arrayed in their holiday attire, and with
them a bow-legged youth attired as a postillion,
strutted on his way with extended stride and lofty
air, which seemed to say, that all this parade and
show, was made for his sole benefit and especial
amusement.

“Sancta Maria! How he trips it along!” thus
spoke the tallest of the damsels “beshrew, but Sir
Francisco is wondrous proud, since he was knighted
by the Duke!”

“How! knighted!” cried the damsel of the merry
black eye.

“What mean you?” cried the red-haired maiden,
and the bow-legged postillion looked over his shoulder
with a vacant stare.

“Was he not honored with the collar, the hempen
collar?” cried the tall-maiden. “Did not that
rough soldier of the Count Di Albarone that was,
the Duke of Florence that is now, did not Rough
Robin knight Sir Francisco with his own hands?
How dull you are!”

“Ugh!” exclaimed the postillion shrugging his
shoulders. “What unpleasant things you do remember!
And yet the Duke said something very
flattering, when he directed the rope to be taken
from my neck. He said, says he, he said, I tell
you—that I—

“Was a little, impertinent, insignificant, busy-body,”
exclaimed Theresa, laughing. “But Francisco
what mean you to do with the reward, you
received from the Duke that was murdered, eh?
Francisco?”

“Yes, yes, what are you going to do with all
that gold?” cried Dollabella, and the three gathered
around the youth with evident interest, expressed
in each face in the glittering eyes and the parted
lips.

“Why Theresa, Dollabella, and Loretta,” answered
the postillion, looking slowly round, with
an expression of the deepest solemnity, “I mean
to—that is, I intend—by'r Ladye the Cathedral
bell is ringing. Come along, girls!”

“Ha, ha, ha! 'Tis a fair day and a bright,”
laughed a shrill voice at the elbow of Francisco,
“Florence is full of joy and e'en I, I am glad.”

A tremor of fear ran round the group as they

beheld the form of the speaker, the distorted face,
the wide mouth, the large rolling eyes, and
the deformed figure with the unsightly hump on
the shoulders, giving a half-brutal appearance
to the stranger, while from lip to lip, ran the whisper—

“The Doomsman, the Doomsman!”

“Aye, aye, the Doomsman! And why not pray?
Dare not the Doomsman laugh? Ha, ha, ha!
What a fine neck thou hast for the axe, good youth;
or now that I think o't it would stretch a rope
passing well. 'Tis a fine day, good folk, and I'm
hastening to the Cathedral, to behold the crowning
of one of my children, that is Children of the
Axe.”

“Thy children?” echoed Francisco, aghast with
fear. “Can a shadow like thee, have children?”

“Children o' th' axe, boy. I' faith if all the world
had their own, I'd have thy neck—a merry jest, nothing
more boy, ho, ho, ho! Do'st see these fingers.”

“Vulture's talons rather!”

“These, these were round his royal throat, while
the lead, the melted lead waited for his princely
body, and the wheel of torture was arrayed for his
lordly repose. Ha, ha, ha! I would see him
crowned, by the fiend would I! But come boy,
thou knowest somewhat of city gossip, tell me, does
this Sir Geoffrey O' Th' Longsword, stabbed by
his own son, a good boy, he, he, he, does he yet
live?”

“Have not prayers been offered in all the Cathedrals
for the miracle?”

“The miracle? Enlighten me, good youth!”

“Hast thou not heard, how the force of the blow
was swayed aside, by a piece of the true wood o'
th' cross, which the old soldier had worn over his
heart for years? A miracle, old shadow, a miracle!”

“Nay, nay, call me not shadow, I'll never darken
thy way to the gallows. But tell me, fair sir
did not the dagger pierce the old man's heart?”

“It grazed the heart, but did not pierce it. Any
city goosip might tell thee this, old thunder
cloud!”

“And so the old man lives?”

“He doth! Thou art wondrous sorry that he
still breathes the air, I warrant me?”

“Nay, nay, good youth. I bear Sir Geoffrey
no harm, but dost see—the wheel, the axe and the
boiling lead, all were ready for the boy Guiseppo,
and, and, but 'tis the will of heaven! I can bear
disappointment, he, he, he, in all matters, save in
one. Thy neck boy, ha, ha, ha, the Doomsman's
fingers itch for thy neck!”

And while the peasant-group, the three buxom
damsels, and the light-brained postillion, shrunk
back from the touch of the distorted being with
disgust, and stood thrilled with the fear of his words
of omen, the Doomsman glided away, mingling
with the vast crowd who thronged the streets of the
wide city.