"Let them be watched well, good father, I beseech you," exclaimed Lorenzo; "for if the Florentine troops come forth to attack them, I will go down to help."
"What an appetite have some men for fighting!" said the prior, making the monk a sign to depart; "but, my son, you will be better here. Though our gates and walls may set them at defiance, I do believe, yet to know that we have some men whose trade is war within might save us from attack. Now, my son, will you sit here and read, or go with me to our church and hear high mass? The latter I would counsel, if your mind be in a fitting state; if not, I never wish any one to attend the offices of religion with wandering thoughts and inattentive ears."
"I will go with you, father," said the young knight. "I have much to be thankful for although some hopes may be disappointed; and my thoughts, I trust, will not wander from my God when I have most cause to praise Him for sparing to me still the most valuable of all the blessings he has given me. But is it really the hour for high mass? How the time flies from us!"
"It wants but a few minutes," said the prior. "Time does fly quickly to all and every one; but it is only towards the close of life we really feel how quickly it has flown. Then--then, my son, we know the value of the treasures we have cast away neglected. Come, I will show you the way. At the church door I must leave you, and perhaps may not see you again for several hours; but you can find your way back here and read or think, if the curiosity of our good brethren be too great for your patience."
"But you promised," said Lorenzo, eagerly, "that I should see the Signora Leonora for a time."
"If it be possible," replied the monk; "such was the tenor of my promise, and it shall not be forgotten. I think it will be possible," he added, seeing a shade of disappointment, or, rather, of anxiety, upon Lorenzo's brow; "but the continued presence of those bad men in the valley scares away from us those we most need at the present moment."
He explained himself no further, but led the way onward to the church.
It cannot perhaps be said that the attention of the young nobleman was not sometimes diverted from the office in which he came to take part; but there was a soothing influence in the music, and a still more comforting balm in the very act of prayer. They who reject religion little know the strength and the consolation, the vigour and the assurance which is derived even from the acknowledgment of our dependence upon a Being whom we know to be all-powerful and all-good--how we can dare all, and endure all, and feel comfort in all when we raise our hearts in faith to him who can do all for us. How often in the course of each man's life has he to say--and oh! with what different feelings and in what different circumstances is it said--"Help, Lord, I sink!" Nor is it ever said without some consolation; nor is it ever asked but it is granted--ay, some help is granted, either in strength, or in resolution, or in patience, or in deliverance. The fearful exclamation might show some want of faith in him who had been eye-witness to a thousand miracles, but with us it shows some faith also. We call upon whom we know to be able to help, and in the hour of adversity or the moment of peril we remember the Lord our God, and put our last, best trust in Him.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Lorenzo had mounted the many steps leading to the top of the belfry of the church, and there, with the old monk who was keeping watch, he gazed over the beautiful valley of the Arno. High--high up in the air he stood, far above the rocks and treetops, with the whole country round, as it were, mapped out before him. The sun was rapidly nearing the horizon, and there was that undefinable transparent purple in the atmosphere which in Italy precedes, for nearly an hour, the shades of night; but yet all was still clear and bright, and the various objects in the landscape could be distinguished perhaps more sharply than in the full light of day.