‘A Frate’s, boy, a Frate’s. I don’t care whether he be a Dominican or an Ignorantine. Though, myself, I like the Ignorantines. Theirs is truly a blessed existence: no wants—no cares—no thoughts for the morrow! I never watched one of them stepping along, with firm foot and sack on his arm, that I didn’t say to myself, “There’s freedom—there’s light-heartedness.”’
‘I should have called your own a pleasanter life.’
‘Mine!’ groaned he.
‘Ay, Babbo, and so is it,’ burst in the girl, in an excited tone. ‘Show me the Frate has such a time as we have! Whenever the friar comes, men shuffle away to escape giving him their “quattrini.” They know well there’s no such sturdy beggar as he who asks no alms, but shows you the mouth of his long empty sack; but where we appear the crowds gather, mothers snatch up their babies and hurry out to greet us; hard-worked men cease their toil; children desert their games; all press round eagerly at the first roll of Gaetana’s drum, and of poor Chico’s fife, when he was with us,’ added she, dropping her head, while a heavy tear rolled down her swarthy cheek.
‘Maladizione a Chico!’ screamed out the old man, lifting up both his clenched hands in passion.
‘What was it he did?’ asked Gerald of the old man.
‘He fancied himself a patriot, boy, and he stabbed a spy of the police at the St. Lucia one evening; and they have him now at the galleys, and they ‘ll keep him there for life!
‘Ah! if you saw him on the two poles,’ cried the girl, ‘only strapped so, over his instep, and he could spring from here to the tree yonder; and then he ‘d unfasten one, and holding it on his forehead, balance Babbo’s basin on the top, all the while playing the tambourine! And who could play it like him? It was a drum with cymbals in his hands.’
‘Was he handsome, too?’ asked Gerald, with a half-sly glance toward her; but she only hung her head in silence.
‘He handsome!’ cried the old woman, catching at the words. ‘Brutto! brutto! he had a hare-lip, with a dog’s jaw!’