University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.
THE TOWN BURGESS—THE FLIGHT.

The Padre Ambrosio ascended with very
cautious steps the abrupt curve in the mule-path
which led from the chasm; and as he
gained the top, encountered a man advancing
from the village quarter. The features of this
person were not distinguishable, as he walked
somewhat in the shadow of the rocks, where the
moonlight which now illumined the road did
not fall; and the priest was about to pass him
with a “benedicite,” when the other, stopping
short, pronounced his name.

“Ah! is it thee, Berthold? Thou art late in
the mountains, my son; but I have good news
for thee. Thy brother, the lad Valentine, is
not guilty, as we deemed him.”

The padre could not note the displeased expression
that immediately darkened the vine-dresser's
visage; but he marvelled that no exclamation
of astonishment or joy followed his
announcement.

“Dost hear, my son? Thy brother, I may
in verity disclose, is innocent of the charge
which, as rash men, not knowing Heaven's purposes,
we have preferred against him.”

“And how does this good intelligence, come,
reverend father?”

“Let it suffice thee, worthy Berthold, that it
shall save thy poor brother's life. Come with
me at once that we may speak to il Borghigiano,
Let us lose no time, for in truth the day has
been a weary one to me, and I long for the evening's
rest.”

The house of il Borghigiano, the burgess, was
situated near the middle of the village, on the
road leading to Padre Ambrosio's own residence.
It was not long before they reached it,
and were ushered into the magistrate's presence.

Il Borghigiano was enjoying his pipe, and an
odoriferous atmosphere filled the room in which
the visitors found him. The good priest at
once opened his business by requesting the private
ear of the town burgess. Signore Leoni,
as the magistrate was called, led the way at once
to a small closet, opening from the apartment,
and thither the padre followed him, leaving
Berthold to await the result of their council.

The vine-dresser's countenance, during his
short walk in company with the priest, could it
have been seen by the latter, would have satisfied
him that the declaration of Valentine's innocence
was not quite so palatable to the elder
brother as consanguinity might seem to demand.
The sullen frown, habitual to him, deepened on
the young man's brow, and his mouth, that best
index of the human feelings, wore a vexed and
alarmed expression.

Though Padre Ambrosio gave him no further
information in reference to the cause of so sudden

a recantation of belief in Valentine's guilt,
he could not help suspecting from Francesca's
words at midday regarding his brother, and
from the fact of his encountering the priest upon
the mule-path, that the daughter of Tomaso had
been instrumental in changing the latter's convictions.
The reflection was bitter to him, as it
not only awoke a suspicion of a decrease in
Francesca's affection for himself, but a fear lest
the priest's scrutiny might bring to light his own
nefarious connection with the late band of brigands.
However, with characteristic caution,
he had allowed nought to escape him that might
reveal his secret reflections, and now awaited
the padre's entrance with a countenance apparently
undisturbed, for the youth was suspicious
that in a magistrate's dwelling there might be
eyes observing his demeanor which his own
glance did not discover.

The interview of Padre Ambrosio with his
friend and parishioner, Signore Leoni, the burgess,
did not last long; but apparently it was
quite satisfactory to the priest, whose features,
when the two appeared, wore a look as if a burden
had been lifted from his mind. He nodded
to Berthold encouragingly, and said:

“My son, the good Signore Leoni is pleased
to signify that thy brother Valentine shall be set
at liberty.”

“Alas! reverend sir,” returned the vine-dresser,
hesitatingly, “my poor brother is, doubtless,
as you say, innocent of the crime imputed to
him; but the villagers, I fear, are much excited
against him, and will refuse to believe the
truth.”

“Let them refuse!” cried the burgess, warmly.
“Shall an innocent young man be sacrificed to
their injustice? Our reverend father, Ambrosio,
has revealed enough to satisfy me that the
deaths of last night were Heaven's will and direct
act, and through no agency of man; and
therefore I say the youth Valentine shall go
free!”

“But the peasants may seek his life if he is
liberated?”

The magistrate regarded Berthold with a
searching look, as if he suspected that some sinister
motive lurked behind the brother's seeming
solicitude; but good Padre Ambrosio appeared
to consider the vine dresser's suggestion as of
some importance.

“It is very true,” he said; “the village people,
more especially old friends of Nicolo, are
exceeding wroth against the accused, and it
will be difficult to satisfy them of his innocence,
save by explaining more than we are at liberty
to do. Therefore, Signore Leoni, we must devise
some means of protection for the youth
against private violence, else, indeed, it would
be no mercy to set him free.”

“If my poor brother might be sent away from
the valley,” suggested Berthold, “until such
time as Nicolo's death is—”

“That may very well be done,” rejoined the
burgess, quickly. “Let it be even so, and charge
thyself with the business. As brother of the
youth, thou art the most interested, so be it thy
care to conduct him from the prison whithersoever
his safety shall require; and let this suffice
for thy authority and protection hereafter, should
thy acts be questioned!”

So saying, Signore Leoni hastily wrote on a
scrap of paper, an order for the delivery of Valentine
by the mountaineers in whose custody he
had been placed, and then resuming his pipe,
recommenced the emission of spiral clouds of
smoke. Padre Ambrosio, on his part, settled
his heavy cloak about his shoulders, grasped his
staff, and took leave of the magistrate, after
thanking him warmly, and bestowing his customary
blessing. Then, followed by Berthold, the
priest set his face once more towards his own
snug home, where the anxious Veronica awaited
him, carefully attending the bountiful supper,
long since prepared in expectation of her master's
coming.

On this good supper, for which, truly, his exertions
had provided a fitting appetite, the padre's
mind dwelt as he proceeded, while that of
Berthold pondered only on the hatred which he
bore his brother, and the surest means that he
could adopt to render the flight of Valentine
from Val d'Orazio one from which he would
not soon return.

When Valentine, accused of the murder of
one whose existence, as connected with the happiness
of Bianca, had been dear to him as his
own, found himself immured in the cellar-prison
of Padre Ambrosio's house, with a feeling that
in spite of his entire innocence of the charges
against him, many circumstances conspired to
render these of no trivial importance, he was
disposed at first to arraign in bitter terms the
justice of man and Heaven, and then, in the
conviction of his own helplessness, to give way
to a despairing apathy. But his reflections
after a brief space assumed a more resigned
character, and hope, which is ever bright in

youthful bosoms, began to whisper that some
happy event would change the appearances now
so strongly against him, and return him to liberty
and the respect of his fellow-men.

But as the long hours passed, and night came,
shutting him in darkly, his meditations again
became sombre and despondent. He began to
dread that fate was about to involve him in one
of those fearful webs of suspicion, which often
defy all the efforts of innocence to escape their
entangling folds, and that perchance a conspiracy,
the cause or agency of which he knew
nothing, would ultimately render futile all his
expectations of rescue.

Such reflections tortured the unhappy youth's
mind, as he threw himself at length upon a rude
pallet in a corner of his dungeon, in the faint
hope that sleep might come to him with its
happy forgetfulness; but at this moment, the
unclosing of doors aroused him, and the padre
entered, accompanied by his brother Berthold.
Valentine arose in astonishment at the priest's
first words:

“My poor son, thy sufferings are ended! I
have come to bid thee depart in peace!”

“Father, what do I hear? My innocence,
then, is established! Heaven be thanked!”

“Follow thy worthy brother, my son. He
will conduct thee to safety. But first, receive
my blessing, and go on thy way in hope, for I
will pray to Heaven that thy steps may be
guided away from the paths of danger.”

Padre Ambrosio as he said this, extended his
hands, and Valentine, kneeling in the obscurity
of the cell, listened reverently to the benediction
which the pastor pronounced in a fatherly
tone.

“Now follow thy brother, Valentine, and
may the Lord have thee in his holy keeping!”

The youth, bewildered at the suddenness of
the event, could only murmur a word of gratitude,
before Berthold had abruptly seized his
hand, and led him from the prison and the padre's
house out into the road, leading downwards
through the hamlet. Here, pausing, the
vine-dresser addressed his brother:

“Valentine, there have been rash words between
us heretofore. When last we parted, I
believed you guilty of the death of Nicolo.
Since then I am assured that my brother is innocent,
and that our mother's gray hairs will
not be dishonored. Valentine, we here part;
but let us part as brethren, with pardon on our
lips for whatever evil we may have sought
against each other!”

Berthold uttered this speech in a tone so subdued
and apparently earnest, that his confiding
brother was moved to tears. Clasping the hand
which was extended to him, Valentine replied:

“Brother, if I have sometimes rashly angered
you, may Heaven witness, I never harbored evil
purpose; but why, Berthold, must we here part?
Am I not free?”

“It is true you are free, but not to remain
here, Valentine. Il Borghigiano has released
you, at my earnest prayers, joined with the
good padre's request—and because, likewise,
there is doubt in their minds regarding the justice
of the charge against you; but it is on the
condition that you leave at once this valley that
this boon is granted.”

“What! and am I to fly from my accusers,
and leave my memory blackened with false
charges?” exclaimed Valentine.

“By flying you give time for your friends to
prove your innocence, while, remaining here,
you may be to-morrow sacrificed to the bigotry
of the churls who hate our mother and ourselves,”
replied the vine-dresser.

“It is too true, Berthold—they hate us all,”
said Valentine, in a changed voice. “I will follow
your counsel, and depart — perhaps forever!”

Berthold's countenance exhibited a gleam of
pleasure at his brother's despondent words; but
he concealed his satisfaction, and rejoined:

“Not forever, Valentine! This unhappy error
of the villagers will soon, I trust, be corrected
in some manner which we know not yet;
so says the padre, at least.”

“Did the good priest speak thus?” asked
Valentine, quickly. “Well, I will away; but I
must first bid adieu to my mother.”

“Nay, Valentine, stay not even for that!
Some loitering peasant may observe us, and betray
your escape at once. My counsel is, that
you depart immediately from the valley, by one
of the mule-path passes. You have no time to
lose, for safety lies not in Val d'Orazio.”

“Perhaps you are right, brother,” returned
Valentine, sadly. “I will go, then, at once;
but—” he hesitated, and turned away his head.

“You would like to see Nicolo's niece,” said
Berthold, with something of his usual sneer.
“You had better not, if you be wise enough to
forget, and if you be not wise, you had still better
not.”

“What mean you, Berthold?”

“Only what all the village knows well—that
Bianca was loudest in her demands for your
punishment, believing you guilty of the murder
of—”

“No, no! it is impossible! She cannot credit
so monstrous a thing!”

“Have your own opinion, brother! Nevertheless,
I tell you Bianca hates you, and couples
your name with that of assassin!”

Berthold spoke in a calm tone, looking straight
into his brother's face. Valentine remained silent
a moment, his breast heaving with agitation,
his countenance deathly pale. Then suddenly
striking his forehead with one hand, he
grasped his brother's in the other, and cried in a
choked voice:

“Farewell! God knows if it be forever!
Pray our mother to remember me!”

“Farewell, Valentine. Trust me, we will
have justice done—”

“I care not now for justice or mercy!” interrupted
the unhappy youth. “Farewell, Berthold!
I go—God only knows whither!”

The next moment, Valentine had broken from
his brother's side, and was rapidly moving towards
one of the clinging rocks toward the
mule-path. Berthold remained where they had
stood together, and watched the retreating
youth till his form was lost in the shadows of
the cliffs. Then, turning towards his hut, he
muttered, as he proceeded:

“So much for the good lad's love-making.
By San Giovane! he will put many a league
between himself and Val d'Orazia, ere matin
hours. It is just the turn that I wished—for, in
truth, it somewhat disturbed my conscience to
have a hand in the boy's death—guilty or innocent.
Now, thanks to my good fortune, he is
away in such mood as will give a thousand
chances to one that he knocks his addled brains
out before the month is gone! At any rate, he
will return no more, since he believes his sweetheart
to have forsaken him. Ho! ho! the coast
is quite clear for me now. Neither foxy old uncle
nor testy lover in the way. Bianca will soon,
I wager, be quite as complaisant to the stout
Berthold as to his sentimental brother.”

Thus the vine-dresser communed with himself,
disclosing one at least of the dark motives
that actuated his conduct. It was evident that
the event which had just transpired, though it
had removed Valentine from danger, was yet
not displeasing to the plotting Berthold, since it
now appeared that the latter's desire had been
not so much to wreak immediate injury upon his
brother's person, as to inflict a deeper wound in
his affections, and at the same time leave the
way open for the accomplishment of his own
ulterior schemes. Therefore there was a gleam
of malevolent satisfaction in his eyes, when he
returned to the hut, as fixing their regards upon
Monna Barbara, who awaited him, he said, in a
triumphant tone:

“We shall be no more troubled with your
cub, Valentine, thanks to our good luck, mother!”

“What say you?” cried the old crone, starting
up quickly from the dark nook, where she
had been sitting. “Valentine! has aught more
happened to him? O, Berthold! do they still
deem him guilty?”

“To be sure they do!” returned the vine-dresser,
sharply. “What has the fool done to
clear himself? Think you the stripling's word
is so good that it needs nought to purify it?
Out, good mother! let the neck crack that can
take no better care of itself!”

Berthold spoke these words in his usual vein
of sullenness, but evidently enjoying the pain
which they inflicted upon the wretched mother.
Monna Barbara replied not to them, but hiding
her face in the dingy shawl that covered her
shoulders, uttered a sobbing sound, as if choked
with her feelings.

In truth, the old woman, since her return
home, after witnessing the awful scene of the
morning, in Nicolo's hut, had done little but
rock herself to and fro, sighing and moaning in
unintelligible murmurs of grief. Berthold had
cursed her several times, roughly ordering her
to prepare his food, and she had mechanically
obeyed the commands which she hardly comprehended;
but when left alone in the hovel, on
her son's departure, she seemed to take no heed
of anything around her, but had continued her
piteous lament till the night closed in, and hours
of darkness passed ere the vine-dresser again
made his appearance.

But when the last cruel remarks of her elder
son reached her ears, Monna Barbara seemed
entirely broken down, and so violent in a few
moments became her agitation, that the hardened
Berthold grew alarmed. He roughly seized
his mother's arm, and exclaimed:

“Come, this is but baby-play, mother! The
lad's safe enough—so stop your whimpering for
him!”

But Monna Barbara's paroxysm only increased.

“Do you hear me, mother? I tell you Valentine
has escaped—is free—is far away from
the valley by this time.”

These words produced a sudden effect upon
the crone. She uncovered her face, and fixed
her inflamed eyes upon Berthold, who had now
lighted a brand on the fireplace, which cast its
gleams around the hovel.

“What say you? Escaped! My Valentine
escaped?”

“Your Valentine has escaped—if that will
satisfy you, good mother!” answered the sneering
son. “Or, rather,” he continued, with his
customary duplicity, “I, his despised brother,
was fool enough to liberate him.”

“You, Berthold!—you liberated Valentine?”

“Even so, my very dear mother—out of regard
for your favorite son, I risked my own
neck to obtain the Signore Leoni's favor for the
innocent boy!” answered the vine-dresser, with
a bitter accent. “Look ye, if that be not something
for a witch's cub to have obtained for the
benefit of another cub.”

Saying this, Berthold showed to Monna Barbara
the order which the town burgess had written
for the release of Valentine.

“And he is free—he is safe!”

“Safe enough if he make good use of his
heels, and leave the mule-path behind him a few
leagues by daybreak. The passes on the other
side are now swarming with French brigands,
under the new Corsican general, and doubtless
your Valentine will find friends among some of
the cut-throat bands. O, he's safe enough, I
doubt not, since the devil takes care of his own;
but give me some wine, mother, before I talk
more, for my throat is as dry as a soldier's
biscuit.”

Monna Barbara shuffled to the cupboard, to
produce therefrom the earthen bottle which contained
the vine-dresser's drink, and then, anxious
to learn more concerning the escape of Valentine,
awaited patiently the moment when her
coarse son should become somewhat more communicative—a
result generally following indulgence
in his cups.

But Berthold, on this occasion, replied only
in monosyllables to the questions which his
mother, after a little delay, ventured to ask him,
and Monna Barbara was able only to glean from
him the bare intelligence of the manner in which
Valentine had been freed, and of his subsequent
departure by way of the mule-path through the
neighboring mountains; after which the vine-dresser,
yielding to drowsiness, subsided into a
state of repose, attested, if such could attest the
fact, by a succession of sonorous snores.

Monna Barbara watched her unnatural son,
as he gave himself up to sleep, with a look in
which various emotions were apparent. Then
she resumed her old position upon the low stool,
her elbows resting on her knees, her face covered
with her thin fingers. Thus she remained for
many minutes.

At last the crone began to exhibit a return of
the emotions which had excited her so deeply on
the previous night. Tears moistened her eyes,
and seemed to soften her rugged spirit. She
drew carefully from her bosom the cross of jet
that she had found on the floor of the hut, where
it had evidently been dropped by the stranger,
whose sudden fate had involved her son in such
imminent peril, and, first pressing it to her lips,
gazed at it for a length of time with evident emotion.
Then her aged countenance became lit
with a new expression, as if in sudden resolution.
She arose, glanced a moment at the sleeping
Berthold, and then proceeded, with as much
celerity as her feeble frame would admit of, to
wrap herself in a thick, short cloak, of the kind
used by the female peasants, and to bind about
her head with a scanty shawl one of the rude
felt hats worn indiscriminately by both sexes.
Then taking from her dark nook a pair of
snow-shoes, and a stout oaken staff, Monna
Barbara stood for a moment in the middle of
the hut, as if in doubt of her purpose.

But her hesitation, if such it was, did not long
continue. She gathered her coarse cloak tightly
around her, grasped her staff with a firm hand,
and then approaching the sleeping Berthold,
lifted her eyes a moment, as if in mental supplication,
then stooped feebly, and imprinted a kiss
upon the vine-dresser's forehead—a kiss which,
albeit so withered the lips that gave it, was yet
sacred with the strong affection of a mother.
The next moment Monna Barbara had disappeared
from the hovel, and Berthold, still
wrapped in stupor, remained its only inmate.