The little footpath leads down the meadow to the house with the thatched roof, where Michaelmas daisies grow to the front. There are no glass windows, there is only one chimney, the hearth is in the middle of the floor: it is just like a peasant’s hut. Ninetta has the minestra ready; its savoury perfume pervades the kitchen, and she stands with the great pot tipped up to pour it out, blowing away the steam from her face meanwhile. She is a merry-eyed, wrinkled old lady of considerable years, and she is not conspicuous for a superabundance of mother-wit; in this she differs from Caterina, who is the Prevosto’s housekeeper. The poor peasant wife eats the good soup silently, while Ninetta chatters and the Cappellano scolds.
‘Well, well, I shall get a better mess than this to-morrow, Ninetta mia,’ says he; ‘truly no man could keep his heart alive many days on nonsense of this sort. But with the morning’s sun I go to the threshing at neighbour Pasquale’s, and thank Heaven there will be a minestra there that is fit to be called one, when it will be his daughter Marrina who has made it!’
‘Oh, yes, you—you are always for praising what the pretty girls can do! An old woman like me can never please you. I’m ashamed of you, priest as you are!’
Frà Giuseppe laughs contentedly. Such talk is his pleasure, spite of Ultramontane convictions. So is it also his pleasure to go to the common threshing-floor next day, where he handles his flail with the best of them, and bandies compliments with the pretty hostess as well, to quarrel afterwards—a pipe in his mouth—over bowls and moro with village swains.
But none the less tenderly does he doctor the hurts of the very men with whom he has quarrelled—for the Signor Cappellano is village physician too—none the less patiently would he sit beside a sick bed that night, for the sun goes down on nobody’s wrath—the sun that sinks behind the stately cone of Monte Baneo’s hill, to leave the rich little valley lying quiet beneath a clear summer night. And walnut trees stand still upon the darkened sky, to shadow the cottage over, where Frà Giuseppe sleeps the placid sleep of the field-labourer.
Sweeping the Church.
Bells ring in the great Festa of San Giovanni Battista, and chosen girls of the village are busy with their preparations within the church, preparations both for the funzione and for the procession. San Giovanni Battista is the patron saint, and hence it is that his day is held in higher honour here than even in the other villages around.
It is evening, and the vigil of the feast. All the afternoon, wearisome chimes have been sounding overhead, rippling along in a joyous, careless fashion, with here and there a great echoing stroke to give them emphasis. Upon the church piazza, or even within the building itself, the noise is almost maddening, but from woods and valleys around, or, better still, from the far side of the torrent, the bell’s voices have a sweet and plaintive ring that might almost lull to rest in these summer days.
Within the church four or five girls are at work. Some sweep the tesselated, marble floor of the nave, some dust the queer gaudy figures of saints and Virgins or the vessels of the sanctuary. Others, again, are busy hanging heavy crimson damask from windows and cornice, and in this work a man must needs be found to help with ha’mmer and steps. Two—and these are the greater and more privileged spirits—stand upon the daïs of the high altar to adorn it with flaring artificial flowers; fresh blossoms are rarely seen in a Romish church. The maidens ply their tasks merrily, not overanxious that the work be quickly ended, for it is pleasanter than toil in the fields or at home in cottages, and they chatter noisily the while. There is none of the reverential awe in their behaviour for which Roman Catholics are usually credited.
Presently the Signor Cappellano comes in. He is supposed to be superintending the business, but there is field labour to attend to, the potato harvest is at hand, which the Cappellano can ill afford to leave in other care than his own.