‘I said “go on,”’ said the judge, more peremptorily than before.
‘I was talking of my father, Eccelenza,’ said he modestly.
‘No, of your good mother Fiammetta,’ said the judge, rather proud of the accuracy with which he retained the family history.
‘She was my step-mother,’ interposed Vincenzio humbly.
‘Blockheads all!’ broke in old Gaetana, with a hearty laugh.
‘Silence!’ cried the gendarmes, as, with their muskets dropped to the ground, they made the chamber ring again, while the judge, turning a glance of darkening anger on the speaker, said: ‘Who is this old woman?’
‘Let me tell him. Let myself speak,’ cried Gaetana, pressing forward, while the gendarmes, with their instinct as to coming peril, prudently held her back.
‘So then,’ said the judge, in reply to a whisper of one of his assistants, ‘she is the principal delinquent’; and referring to the written charge before him, read out: ‘An infuriated woman, who presided over the drum.’
‘They smashed it, the thieves!’ cried Gaetana; ‘they smashed my drum; but, per Dio, I beat a roll on their own skulls that astonished them! They ‘ll not deny that I gave them an ear for music’ And the old hag laughed loud at her savage jest.
Again was silence commanded, and after some trouble obtained; and the judge, whose perceptions were evidently disturbed by these interruptions, betook himself to the pages of the indictment, to refresh his mind on the case. Muttering to himself the lines, he came to the words, ‘and with a formidable weapon, of solid wood, with the use of which long habit had rendered her familiar, and in this wise dangerous, she, the aforesaid Gaetana, struck, beat, battered, and belaboured——’