‘Seen him! per Bacco! that have I, and to my cost! He comes himself to take up his “due de Pasqua,” as he calls his Easter-dues, which are not the lighter that he assesses them all before he sits down to supper.’
‘Do you mean to tell me that he would sit down to table with you?’
‘Ay, and be the merriest at the board too. So full of pleasant stories and good songs was he one night that one of my boys could not resist the fascination of his company, but started off the next morning to join him, and has never returned.’
If Gerald’s curiosity was excited to learn many particulars of this celebrated bandit chief, the miller was only too happy to be questioned on a theme he loved so well. In his apprehension the Pastore was no ordinary robber, but a sort of agent, partly political, partly financial, of certain great people of Rome. This was a theory he was somewhat vain of having propounded, and he supported it with considerable ingenuity.
The Pastore himself was described as a happy-looking, well-to-do man, past the prime of life, but still hale and vigorous; and, if not very active in body, with considerable acuteness and a ready wit. He stood well in the estimation of the peasantry, who were always ready to render him little services, and to whom in return he would show his gratitude by little presents at the fête-days or scenes of family rejoicing. ‘And as for the Curé,’ said the miller, ‘only ask him who sent the handsomest chaplet for the head of the Madonna, or who gave the silver lamp that burns at the shrine of St. Nicomède?’
This strange blending of devotional observance with utter lawlessness—this singular union of bon homme with open violence, were features that in all his intercourse with life Gerald had never met with; and he was not a little curious to see one who could combine qualities so incompatible.
‘I should certainly like to see him,’ said he, after a pause.
‘Only ride that black mare through the pass of the “Capri,” to-morrow; let him see how she brushes her way through the tall fern and never slips a foot over the rocky ledges, and I’ll lay my life on’t you ‘ll see him, and hear him too.’
‘You mean to say that he ‘d soon replace me in the saddle,’ said Gerald half angrily.
‘I mean to say that the horse would change owners, and you be never the richer of the compact.’