The result was, that Giuseppe did not appear at the mustering-office on the day set; and, when the file of soldiers came for him, he was nowhere to be found. He had fled to the mountains. I scarcely know what his plan was, but he probably trusted to some good luck to escape the conscription altogether, if he could shun it now; and, at least, I know that he had many comrades who did the same, so that at times the mountains were full of young fellows who were lurking in them to escape the soldiers. And they fared very roughly usually, and sometimes nearly perished from hunger; for though the sympathies of the peasants were undoubtedly with the quasi-outlaws rather than with the carbineers, yet the latter were at every hamlet in the hills, and liable to visit every hut, so that any relief extended to the fugitives was attended with great danger; and, besides, the hunted men did not dare to venture from their retreats. Thus outlawed and driven to desperation by hunger, these fugitives, whom nobody can defend for running away from their duties as citizens, became brigands. A cynical German, who was taken by them some years ago on the road to Castellamare, a few miles above here, and held for ransom, declared that they were the most honest fellows he had seen in Italy; but I never could see that he intended the remark as any compliment to them. It is certain that the inhabitants of all these towns held very loose ideas on the subject of brigandage: the poor fellows, they used to say, only robbed because they were hungry, and they must live somehow.
What Fiammetta thought, down in her heart, is not told: but I presume she shared the feelings of those about her concerning the brigands, and, when she heard that Giuseppe had joined them, was more anxious for the safety of his body than of his soul; though I warrant she did not forget either, in her prayers to the Virgin and St. Antonino. And yet those must have been days, weeks, months, of terrible anxiety to the poor child; and if she worked away at the counterpane, netting in that elaborate border, as I have no doubt she did, it must have been with a sad heart and doubtful fingers. I think that one of the psychological sensitives could distinguish the parts of the bedspread that were knit in the sunny days from those knit in the long hours of care and deepening anxiety.
It was rarely that she received any message from him and it was then only verbal and of the briefest; he was in the mountains above Amalfi; one day he had come so far round as the top of the Great St. Angelo, from which he could look down upon the piano of Sorrento, where the little Fiammetta was; or he had been on the hills near Salerno, hunted and hungry; or his company had descended upon some travelers going to Paestum, made a successful haul, and escaped into the steep mountains beyond. He didn't intend to become a regular bandit, not at all. He hoped that something might happen so that he could steal back into Sorrento, unmarked by the government; or, at least, that he could escape away to some other country or island, where Fiammetta could join him. Did she love him yet, as in the old happy days? As for him, she was now everything to him; and he would willingly serve three or thirty years in the army, if the government could forget he had been a brigand, and permit him to have a little home with Fiammetta at the end of the probation. There was not much comfort in all this, but the simple fellow could not send anything more cheerful; and I think it used to feed the little maiden's heart to hear from him, even in this downcast mood, for his love for her was a dear certainty, and his absence and wild life did not dim it.
My informant does not know how long this painful life went on, nor does it matter much. There came a day when the government was shamed into new vigor against the brigands. Some English people of consequence (the German of whom I have spoken was with them) had been captured, and it had cost them a heavy ransom. The number of the carbineers was quadrupled in the infested districts, soldiers penetrated the fastnesses of the hills, there were daily fights with the banditti; and, to show that this was no sham, some of them were actually shot, and others were taken and thrown into prison. Among those who were not afraid to stand and fight, and who would not be captured, was our Giuseppe. One day the Italia newspaper of Naples had an account of a fight with brigands; and in the list of those who fell was the name of Giuseppe—-, of Sorrento, shot through the head, as he ought to have been, and buried without funeral among the rocks.
This was all. But when the news was read in the little post office in Sorrento, it seemed a great deal more than it does as I write it; for, if Giuseppe had an enemy in the village, it was not among the people; and not one who heard the news did not think at once of the poor girl to whom it would be more than a bullet through the heart. And so it was. The slender hope of her life then went out. I am told that there was little change outwardly, and that she was as lovely as before; but a great cloud of sadness came over her, in which she was always enveloped, whether she sat at home, or walked abroad in the places where she and Giuseppe used to wander. The simple people respected her grief, and always made a tender-hearted stillness when the bereft little maiden went through the streets,—a stillness which she never noticed, for she never noticed anything apparently. The bishop himself when he walked abroad could not be treated with more respect.
This was all the story of the sweet Fiammetta that was confided to me. And afterwards, as I recalled her pensive face that evening as she kneeled at vespers, I could not say whether, after all, she was altogether to be pitied, in the holy isolation of her grief, which I am sure sanctified her, and, in some sort, made her life complete. For I take it that life, even in this sunny Sorrento, is not alone a matter of time.
ST. MARIA A CASTELLO
The Great St. Angelo and that region are supposed to be the haunts of brigands. From those heights they spy out the land, and from thence have, more than once, descended upon the sea-road between Castellamare and Sorrento, and caught up English and German travelers. This elevation commands, also, the Paestum way. We have no faith in brigands in these days; for in all our remote and lonely explorations of this promontory we have never met any but the most simple-hearted and good-natured people, who were quite as much afraid of us as we were of them. But there are not wanting stories, every day, to keep alive the imagination of tourists.
We are waiting in the garden this sunny, enticing morning-just the day for a tramp among the purple hills—for our friend, the long Englishman, who promised, over night, to go with us. This excellent, good-natured giant, whose head rubs the ceiling of any room in the house, has a wife who is fond of him, and in great dread of the brigands. He comes down with a sheepish air, at length, and informs us that his wife won't let him go.