“Faith,” said the grim smith, looking round on the mob, who laughed loud at the dwarf’s proffer, “we all do want protection, big and small. What do you laugh for, ye apes?—ay, you don’t understand parables.”
“And yet it is a parable we are come to gaze upon,” said one of the mob, with a slight sneer.
“Pleasant day to you, Signor Baroncelli,” answered Cecco del Vecchio; “you are a good man, and love the people; it makes one’s heart smile to see you. What’s all this pother for?”
“Why the Pope’s Notary hath set up a great picture in the marketplace, and the gapers say it relates to Rome; so they are melting their brains out, this hot day, to guess at the riddle.”
“Ho! ho!” said the smith, pushing on so vigorously that he left the speaker suddenly in the rear; “if Cola di Rienzi hath aught in the matter, I would break through stone rocks to get to it.”
“Much good will a dead daub do us,” said Baroncelli, sourly, and turning to his neighbours; but no man listened to him, and he, a would-be demagogue, gnawed his lip in envy.
Amidst half-awed groans and curses from the men whom he jostled aside, and open objurgations and shrill cries from the women, to whose robes and headgear he showed as little respect, the sturdy smith won his way to a space fenced round by chains, in the centre of which was placed a huge picture.
“How came it hither?” cried one; “I was first at the market.”
“We found it here at daybreak,” said a vender of fruit: “no one was by.”
“But why do you fancy Rienzi had a hand in it?”