At this moment the host approached the corner of the table, to see how the stranger came on. Renzo gathered courage to speak, asked for his bill, settled it, and rapidly crossed the threshold, trusting himself to the guardian care of a kind Providence.
CHAPTER XVII.
The discourse of the merchant had plunged our poor Renzo into inexpressible agitation and alarm; there was no doubt that his adventure was noised abroad—that people were in search of him? Who could tell how many bailiffs were in pursuit of him? Who could tell what orders had been given to watch at the villages, inns, and along the roads? True it was, that two only of the officers were acquainted with his person, and he didn’t bear his name stamped on his forehead. Yet he had heard strange stories of fugitives being discovered by their suspicious air, or some unexpected mark; in short, he was alarmed at every shadow.
Although at the moment he quitted Gorgonzola, the bells struck the Ave Maria, and the increasing darkness diminished his danger, he unwillingly took the high road, with the intention, however, of entering the first path which should appear to him to lead in the right direction. He met some travellers, but, his imagination filled with apprehensions, he dared not interrogate them. “The host called it six miles,” said he; “if, in travelling through by-paths, I make it eight or ten, these good limbs will not fail me, I know. I am certainly not going towards Milan, and must therefore be approaching the Adda. If I keep on, sooner or later I must arrive there; the Adda has a voice sufficiently loud to be heard at some distance, and when I hear it, there will be no longer any need of direction. If there is a boat there, I shall cross immediately; if not, I will wait until morning in a field, upon the ground, like the sparrows, which will be far better than a prison.”
He saw a cross-road open to the left, and he pursued it: “I play the devil!” continued he, “I assassinate the lords! A packet of letters! My companions keeping watch! I would give something to meet this merchant face to face, on the other side of the Adda; (Oh! when shall I reach the beautiful stream?) I would ask him politely where he picked up that fine story. Know, my good sir, that, devil as I am, it was I who aided Ferrer, and like a good Christian saved your superintendent of provisions from a rough joke that those ruffians, my friends, were about to play on him. Ay, while you were keeping watch over your shop——and that enormous packet of letters—in the hands of the government. See, sir, here it is; a single letter, written by a worthy man, a monk; a hair of whose beard is worth——but in future learn to speak with more charity of your neighbours.” However, after a while, these thoughts of the poor traveller gave way to more urgent considerations of his present difficulties; he no longer feared pursuit or discovery; but darkness, solitude, and fatigue combined to distress him and retard his progress. A chill north wind penetrated his light clothing, his wedding suit; and, uncomfortable and disheartened, he wandered on, in hopes of finding some place where he might obtain concealment and repose for the night.
He passed through villages, but did not dare ask shelter; the dogs howled at his approach, and induced him to quicken his steps. At single houses near the road-side his fatigue tempted him to knock for shelter; but the apprehension of being saluted with the cry of “Help, thieves! robbers!” banished the idea from his mind. Leaving the cultivated country, he found himself in a plain, covered with fern and broom; and thinking this a favourable symptom of the near vicinity of the river, he followed the path across it. When he had advanced a few steps, he listened, but in vain. The desolation of the place increased the depression of his spirits. Strange forms and apparitions, the birth of former tales and legends, began to haunt his imagination; and to drive them away he began to chant the prayers for the dead. He passed through a thicket of plum-trees and oaks, and found himself on the borders of a wood; he conquered his repugnance to enter it, but as he proceeded into its depths, every object excited his apprehensions. Strange forms appeared beneath the bushes; and the shade of the trees, trembling on his moon-lit path, with the crackling of the dead leaves between his footsteps, inspired him with dread. He would have hastened through the perilous passage, but his limbs refused their office; the wind blew cold and sharp, and penetrating his weakened frame, almost subdued its small remains of vigour. His senses, affected by undefined horrors, appeared to be leaving him; aroused to his danger, he made a violent effort to regain some degree of resolution, in order to return through the wood, and seek shelter in the last village he had passed through, even if it should be in an inn! As he stopped for a moment, before putting his design in execution, the wind brought a new sound to his ear—the murmur of running water. Intently listening, to ascertain if his senses did not deceive him, he cried out, “It is the Adda!” His fatigue vanished, his pulse returned, his blood flowed freely through his veins, his fears disappeared; and guided by the friendly sound, he went forward. He soon reached the extremity of the plain, and found himself on the edge of a steep precipice, whence looking downward, he discovered, through the bushes, the long-desired river, and, on the other side of it, villages scattered here and there, with hills in the distance; and on the summit of one of these a whitish spot, which in the dimness he took to be a city; Bergamo certainly! He descended the declivity, and throwing aside the bushes with his hands, looked beyond them, to spy if some friendly bark were moving on the flood, or if he could not, by listening, hear the sound of oars cleaving the water; but he saw, he heard nothing. If it had been any stream less than the Adda, he would have attempted to ford it, but this he well knew to be impracticable.
He was uncertain what plan to pursue: to lie down on the grass for the next six hours, and wait until morning, exposed to the north wind and the damps of the night; or to continue walking to and fro, to protect himself from the cold, until the day should dawn: neither of these held out much prospect of comfort. He suddenly recollected to have seen, in a neighbouring part of the uncultivated heath, a cascinotto;—this was the name given by the peasants of the Milanese to cabins covered with straw, constructed with the trunks and branches of trees, and the crevices filled with mud, where they were in the habit of placing the crop, gathered during the day, until a more convenient opportunity for removing it; they were therefore abandoned except at such seasons. Renzo found his way thither, pushed open the door, and perceiving a bundle of straw on the ground, thought that sleep, even in such a place, would be very welcome. Before, however, throwing himself on the bed Providence had provided for him, he kneeled, and returned thanks for the blessing, and for all the assistance which had been this day afforded him, and then implored forgiveness for the errors of the previous day; then gathering the straw around him as some defence against the cold, he closed his eyes to sleep; but sleep was not so soon to visit our poor traveller. Confused images began to throng his fancy; the merchant, the notary, the bailiffs, the cutler, the host, Ferrer, the superintendent, the company at the inn, the crowds in the streets, assailed his imagination by turns; then came the thought of Don Abbondio, Roderick, Lucy, Agnes, and the good friar. He remembered the paternal counsels of the latter, and reflected with shame and remorse on his neglect of them; and what bitter retrospection did the image of Lucy produce! and Agnes! poor Agnes! how ill had she been repaid for her motherly solicitude on his behalf! an outcast from her home, solitary, uncertain of the future, reaping misery from what seemed to promise the happiness of her declining years! Poor Renzo! what a night didst thou pass! what an apartment! what a bed for a matrimonial couch! tormented, too, with apprehensions of the future! “I submit to the will of God,” said he, speaking aloud, “to the will of God! He does only that which is right; I accept it all as a just chastisement for my sins. Lucy, however, is so good! the Lord will not long afflict her with suffering.”
In the mean time he despaired of obtaining any repose; the cold was insupportable; his teeth chattered; he ardently wished for day, and measured with impatience the slow progress of the hours; this he was enabled to do, as he heard, every half hour, in the deep silence, the heavy sound of some distant clock, probably that of Trezzo. When the time arrived which he had fixed on for his departure, half benumbed with exposure to the night air, he stretched his stiffened limbs, and opening the door of the cascinotto, looked out, to ascertain if any one were near, and finding all silent around, he resumed his journey along the path he had quitted.
The sky announced a beautiful day; the setting moon shone pale in an immense field of azure, which, towards the east, mingled itself lightly with the rosy dawn. Near the horizon were scattered clouds of various hues and forms; it was, in fact, the sky of Lombardy, beautiful, brilliant, and calm. If Renzo had had a mind at ease, he would no doubt have stopped to contemplate this splendid ushering in of day, so different from that which he had been accustomed to witness amidst his mountains; but his thoughts were otherwise occupied. He reached the brow of the precipice where he had stood the preceding night, and looking below, perceived, through the bushes, a fisherman’s bark, which was slowly stemming the current, near the shore. He descended the precipice, and standing on the bank, made a sign to the fisherman to approach. He intended to do this with a careless air, as if it were of little importance, but in spite of himself, his manner was half supplicatory. The fisherman, after having for a moment surveyed the course of the water, as if to ascertain the practicability of reaching the shore, directed the boat towards it; before it touched the bank, Renzo, who was standing on the water’s edge, awaiting its approach, seized the prow, and jumped into it.