The parish priest has risen betimes, for the Signor Cappellano can only preach at second mass, and the sermons are many to be preached, the masses many to be sung on this greatest of holidays. Caterina, the spare serving maid, was all day yesterday baking the communion wafers, but even she finds time to don holiday garb and pace holiday paces to-day. Everybody is not at the same morning mass, but everybody comes to vespers at three of the afternoon, and everybody walks in the procession.
THE PROCESSION OF THE CORPUS DOMINI.
That tall, strong wench, who is village story-teller in chief—Rosa la bruna—walks first in the file, and bears the great cross that is silver-ornamented, while Nettina and others come behind with the candles. And everyone has on her dress of gay print or of stout woollen stuff, with golden ear-drops and freshly-smoothed veil.
She of the love-letter, is neither last nor least, the soft-eyed Bianca, whose gallant follows after with crimson banner! And the town lady is there too—that merchant’s wife who rents the cottage in the fields, and whose children run rougher, amid country breezes, than the very peasants themselves: she wears the purple silk dress, with the long train and trimming of notoriety, while upon her ample bosom rests the gold chain, and across her fair tresses the black veil that is to distinguish her from the girls round about. She is proud to be thus gorgeous, and envied in the female crowd, proud that she can so vastly outshine even the portly dame who comes after—her whom they call the priest’s cousin.
But Marrina, the sempstress, will not walk in procession, for she is short and stout, and there is wayfaring enough to be done in the world, says she! So, from the low seat of a rough stone wall, she sees the pageant go by. She nods scornfully to Rosa with the big cross—for Rosa is a curt-speaking girl—and sympathetically to Nettina with the small crucifix, who should have been the leader, thinks she, for Nettina is a free-and-easy one, more to the mind of this proud old lady. Then for a moment Marrina kneels painfully at the wayside, because the panoply passes, borne up by the miller and three farmers in red cotton robes, and beneath it walks the parish priest slowly, with stiffly gorgeous cope about his shoulders and clumsy hands that bear aloft the Sacred Host. And secretly, as she prays, Marrina chuckles, for well she knows the priest loves not to pace, closely-robed, in procession on a hot June afternoon! ‘But it is his duty,’ says the sempstress to herself gladly, as it is the fat Cappellano’s duty to uphold the vestments of his chief, in company with a second priest on the other side.
And, when the mumbling and panoplied trio have gone by, Marrina rises to her feet again, to wait for the Virgin’s blue-robed image, and to laugh at the staggering steps of Giovanni and his comrades as they carry Heaven’s Queen on their shoulders: to scoff also at the clumsiness of Pietro, who strives vainly to adjust her crown with his stick! Then, scolding little Virginia, the confirmation-heroine, for her loud laughter with romping companions in the procession’s very midst, she, laughing herself, adds her ambling gait to the pageant’s outskirts, and climbs the church steps once more.
For the procession is over. Village boys, shrieking with delight, have fired the pop-guns in its honour; the bells have ceased their jangle. The village bride has been admired, whose home is new beneath the cherry trees: the village swain has whisperingly begged a promise of the village belle for the dance later on in the meadows. Bianca has brought the affair of the love-letter to a fortunate close on this very church porch; Caterina rests from scolding the priest. A glamour of coming night begins to creep down from the mountains upon the valley, and, though still the river flows and still Mon Pilato stands against the twilight, our tale is told, our procession is finished. Town folk and country folk have all passed away in its wake.
THE END.