I
"Down with him! Into the sea with the old pig-head! Let him come to reason among the crabs and cuttle-fish! Now he touches water,--now he swims,--now he goes under! There, Evoluccio, may you find it cool and pleasant!"
He who made all this shouting and ranting was the little broad-shouldered Cesare Agresta, ship-trader, and he stood in the midst of a noisy crowd on the outermost edge of the cliffs which descend steeply to the sea before Evolo. They who moved about with turbulent cries, and still more turbulent behavior, among the gnarled olive trees on the rocks where the old chapel stands, were his fellow citizens, the entire population of the little Sicilian town of Roccastretta--men and women, children and aged people, rich and poor, even including the reverend Padre Atanasio, and the equally reverend Syndic. These two, withdrawn a few steps apart, watched the crowd's activity with a curiously sly expression of mischievous amusement.
Around the stem of an ancient olive tree some handy, half-naked fellows had slung a thick rope, whose length reached over the rocks down to the sea, and which, with many tugs and jerks, as if attached to a heavy, uneven weight that pitched about, made the old trunk shake from lowest root to topmost branch. Don Cesare held the chief command over this tumultuous mob. He ran, he gesticulated, he ordered, he swore, he laughed, he blustered, and they all obeyed him to the letter.
"Just why little Don Cesare exerts himself so much about it I can't make out," said the well-nourished padre, in his neighbor's ear. "The old Evolino, or, as they call him in despite to-day, Evoluccio, has never done any harm to Don Cesare. It must be all one to him whether it rains or not, since he doesn't possess the smallest bit of land, and not one single lemon tree can he call his property."
The Syndic shrugged his shoulders like a man at loss for an answer, and said, slightly nodding toward a youthful pair, half hidden behind the chapel, who seemed to be excellent company for one another:
"While Don Cesare bestows his attention upon the old, his pretty sister occupies herself with the young."
"I have long remarked that there was something between those two," said the padre with a half envious side glance, in which rebellion, contending in the heart's depths with resignation, was plainly manifest; "but what will come of it? The wealthy Nino will never content himself with the sister of a ship-trader."
"Nay, Father Atanasio, one need not always be thinking of marriage," answered the other, smiling slyly on the stout padre.
"I know that very well," replied the holy man, without taking the least offence at the Syndic's light-mindedness; "but if it comes to Don Cesare's knowledge, let Nino beware of his knife."
"That is Nino's business. Between my neighbor's door and its hinge I never put my fingers," cried the Syndic with a laugh.
They were interrupted by the crowd streaming back from the cliffs toward the chapel.
"This pleases you. Father Atanasio," cried a lank sailor, who looked out from beneath his Calabrian cap like a bandit. "You never were on good terms with the old Evoluccio. Well, he's fixed for one while!"
"He'll stay down there till he gets reasonable," said another, shaking his fist at the sea; "and if that won't do,--something else will!"
"Yes, yes!" howled a third; "if water fails he shall feel fire. Only that Don Cesare talked us down to-day, we'd have built a blaze under the old one's feet that would have made him remember us forever! The villain! the lump! the old heathen!"
At these words, a little smile, like a flash, shimmered in the eye of Father Atanasio, but it was very brief, and remarked by no one; then he said, slowly, waving his hand to those who were passing, and clothing his words in an unctuous sort of conciliatory chant:
"That is enough. It will certainly work this time. Malicious the Evolino never was. He only needs to have his old memory jogged a bit. If you were as old as he you would forget too, sometimes."
Then the bystanders all broke into loud laughter, and cried to each other:
"The padre is always right The Evoluccio is an old fellow--older than any of us can think--and one must be considerate with age."
"Carmela! Carmela!" suddenly sounded from the midst of the confused throng descending the side of the cliff toward the little town; and from his higher point of observation the padre saw Don Cesare's short figure powerfully fighting against the stream of people, and remarked with edification how he stretched his neck, how he jumped off his little legs, and stood on his little toes, making strenuous efforts to climb the hill again, or, at least to look over the heads of his fellow citizens. "Carmela," he cried, "where are you?" But Carmela appeared to have just reached a highly interesting clause of her conversation with the smart and enterprising Nino, who was pushing his suit gaily with the listening girl.
"See," he said, pointing to where, close at the foot of the promontory a country house lay hidden among the groves of lemon trees, "yonder is my Casina. Last year I inherited it, and now in a few days it will be all ready to live in. How pretty it looks! Everything new, and ready for daily life. And it is so cool and pleasant sitting there on a hot summer evening, with the fresh, silvery spring that trickles out of the rock into an old Greek marble basin; it is a stone from the temple, you know, that used to stand here, with images of gods, and wonderful animals. Only come there with me, and see how much pleasanter it is than in the dark street under your window."
The pretty girl's look followed his gesture. She shaded her eyes with her hand, and a rosy smile rested on her delicately cut mouth.
"Oh, yes," she said, half aloud, to herself, "it may well be cool and pleasant there."
Then she heard her brother's voice.
"I am coming," she cried; and, hastily turning to Nino, "shall I see you this evening at the usual hour?"
"Yes, if you will promise to come out here with me."
"Yes, yes," she cried, hastily, and ran away toward the others, who were descending the hill. Nino stroked his slender moustache, and a mocking little smile shot from his eyes after the pretty girl who had so thoughtlessly thrown him this momentous promise.
When Padre Atanasio found himself alone by the chapel under the olive trees he walked with much deliberation to the edge of the cliff and looked over; a most peculiar, condoling, bantering smile hovered on his lips, as his glance fell on the rope, and glided down to the place where it plunged into the sea. Down there, several feet deep under water, dashed over by the foaming waves, floated something heavy, that looked like a human body--a helpless lump, which the waves tossed hither and thither, and across which the fish, like silver arrows, shot back and forth in lightning darts. Occasionally the thing would bounce against a rock, roll back on itself, and then resume its regular motion in the water. If the dashing of the waves ceased for a little, and a sunbeam fell upon the clear flood, one could have sworn that a corpse was floating there--the corpse of an old man with snow-white hair and beard, in a faded red-brown mantle; the rope was knotted strongly around his hips, and his arms were closely bound by it also. He lay there, the poor old man, stretched out stiffly, and let the waves drive him, and Padre Atanasio looked down at him so queerly, and queer sounded the words which the holy man threw him over his shoulder at parting:
"Serves you rights Evoluccio! What? You wanted to keep up a sinful competition with the blessed Mother of God? You must have the finest presents, the handsomest wax candles, the gayest festivals! And what is there so extraordinary about you, then? You're nothing but a half-converted old heathen!"
But the poor old man with the snow-white beard and hair, and the red-brown mantle, over whom the jolly fishes were swimming, was not a murderer's victim; he was not even a corpse; he was not even a poor old man. He was nothing more nor less than the especial patron saint of the little town and surrounding country. Holy Saint Pancras of Evolo--the Evolino, as the people were accustomed, after their familiar fashion, to call him for short--the Evoluccio, as they injuriously named him when his conduct didn't please them.
The good saint might well have wondered what had happened to him on that fine spring morning, when the entire population of Roccastretta broke into his sanctuary on the Promontory of Evolo, tore him from his pedestal, carried him out from the cool twilight of his chapel into the glaring day, tied a rope around his body, dragged him, amid the most intolerable cursing and abuse, to the edge of the rocks, and pitched him over, like a dead cat, into the sea.
Hardly two days before, all Roccastretta had assembled in his chapel, and words of the most passionate devotion had risen like a cloud of grateful incense to the niche in whose depths he had made his dwelling for more years than any one there could count.
"Holy Pancrazio of Evolo, dear good Saint Pancras," prayed this pious people, "you love us like children and we love you like a father. Every Sunday we bring you fragrant nosegays, and when, as at present, the burning drought kills our flowers, then we bring bunches of gold and silver tinsel, and thick yellow wax candles to light before your image. Father Atanasio, who never honored you as he ought, and always calls you a half-converted heathen, he is of opinion that we give his Madonna nothing but miserable tallow dips, and keep the best of everything for you. So, you see, best, dearest Evolino, that we don't grudge you anything, and our children shall be just like us; for you are our own, only honored patron saint. Only, now, bethink you of your office, dearest, kindest Evolino. For three months not a drop of rain has fallen on our fields, trees, vines. Look around you! The figs are drying up, the olives will not swell, the wheat fields look like a desert. If you don't send rain, Evolino, it is all over with our harvest, and nothing will be left for your people but to save themselves from starvation by catching fishes and crabs. Be good, then, holy Saint Pancras, and send rain. You know very well it is not a tempest we want, but a good, long, mild, soaking rain, such as you know how to send when you will. To-morrow, or next day, at the latest. Do this for us, dear Saint Pancras, and you know how we will deck your image beautifully, and honor you above all the other saints; yes, even before the blessed Madonna herself, who is such a busy Queen of Heaven and Earth that she has no time to think about our little place. But you, Evolino, belong to us alone, and have no one else to look after! Care for us then, dearest Evolino, and we will bless you to all eternity."
Thus they prayed and besought him, and the ancient Evolino in his niche listened without stirring an eye or a hand, as became a saint that was cut out of wood, and plastered over with paint; and presently they all trooped out and locked the door, leaving the honest old fellow to his dreams in the cool, cozy chapel. Long and many were the Christian years that he had stood up here in the sanctuary of Evolo; but his dim confused remembrance looked wistfully back into the twilight of a still older time. There was a shrine here then, too--not a chapel, but a temple; other priests came and went before his image, other songs were sung and other gods were honored. The ancient sculpture had hewn him out of stout knotty wood, and beneath the various crusts deposited by the lapse of centuries, the old image was still hidden, as it came from that hand, now long moldering in dust; defaced, however, by strange gaudy daubs of color, with a red mantle, over a blue tunic, silver-white beard and hair, cherry-red lips, black brows in two even arches above the neatly painted eyes, and a round saintly nimbus, behind his head, that glistened as if he had a pure gold sailor's hat on the nape of his neck. Truly he didn't look like that in the old times, yet they honored him then much as he was honored now, not like one of the high mighty ones, who are only to be addressed with fear and trembling; like a dear old friend rather, with whom a man can exchange the familiar "thee and thou"--older, certainly, and doubtless of higher degree, but who has dwelled so long in our midst that he seems like one of our own people. This feeling increased with the lapse of years, and a most confidential relation had sprung up between the patron saint and his flock--a relation of mutual service and mutual indulgence, as of friendly neighbors who like to do each other a brotherly good turn when they can.
It was Saint Pancras' duty to take care of the little town, and its surrounding country; but the honest patron was so old and brittle, that no one could blame him if his head was not always in the right place, and his thoughts sometimes went wool gathering, so the weakness of age was helped for Evolino by various friendly hints; if that had no effect, the duties of a patron saint were set before him seriously but kindly; if this did not serve, then the standpoint was made clear in coarse but unmistakable fashion,--and thus it happened that on this fine spring morning, after he had failed to supply the longed-for rain, in spite of prayers and entreaties, he was lowered at the end of a rope into the sea, like a common malefactor, for his punishment and his reformation.
And so he lay down there at the end of his rope, and saw how the crowd, when their work was accomplished, took the way to the town, and saw how Padre Atanasio, who hated him for a dangerous rival, in the bottom of his heart, wept crocodile tears over him, and then he saw how his chapel stood above among the olive trees, lonely and forsaken, and how the open door swung to and fro in the wind,--and he may have turned back in his dim memory to that fair, long past time when the warm sea-winds blew through the breezy colonnades, when the bright sunbeams played over his youthful godlike figure, when he looked down from his pedestal upon the coast, the purple sea, and the high-beaked ships with their great oars. Then, when he was a young god, when they brought grapes and figs, and pomegranates to lay at his feet! Gayer than now sounded the songs of the priests, and lustily streamed up the clouds of incense from the golden vessels. He was not Saint Pancras of Evolo then, yet it was under a very similar sounding name that he was honored by the believing crowd, and none then would have dared to snatch from his pedestal the beautiful God of the Winds, and throw him down among the fibrous polyps, a mock for women and children.
In dull, humming tones sang these ancient, half-smothered memories through his drowsy thoughts, and duller, and still further off, were the voices of the noisy folk, who had just left him, and in crisp softly-splashing wavelets the eternal sea, like a tender mother with her sleeping child, rocked holy Saint Pancras of Evolo.