On Anything

by Hilaire Belloc

Mollified by such an address, the great man sank into the rickety chair opposite the journalist, assumed the attitude of the warrior at ease, and began with plentiful and dramatic gesture the recital of many things.

Brigandage, he assured his companion, was now by no means the trade it had been; he had himself taken to the road at the early age of fifteen, having been persuaded to that industry by an uncle of his, a Canon of Viterbo. "For in the old days" (he was careful to add) "this country was very easily administered, and the clergy in especial defended and encouraged the picturesque customs which such an ease of administration bred. Often after a hard night upon the highway, or after some successful business in the brushwood above the city, I would make it my business to call upon my revered uncle to press upon him some trinket as a mark of my esteem, or if the day had been exceptionally lucky, some piece of foreign gold which a tourist (for they were even then numerous in these parts) might have left in my possession. The old man died," continued the Brigand with a sigh, "in the year '68, during the reign of the late Pope Pius IX, and it was perhaps as well, for great changes were impending which, had he lived to see them, would have broken his heart. For myself," the Brigand went on thoughtfully, "I am too much of a patriot to complain of the unification of my country, and I had some hopes on the establishment of a new government of obtaining a permanent situation under it which, as I was now approaching middle age, would be more consonant to my years than the precarious though active and healthy career I had hitherto pursued. For some moments in the year 1873 I hoped I might be appointed receiver of the taxes, a post for which my intimate knowledge of the whole countryside and my many connections with the farmers of the locality seemed singularly to fit me. A former chief of mine, for whom I had always preserved a reverent attachment, was very powerful in this department, and assured me that I might look for a regular post so soon as he was himself installed in the office of the Fisc at Orvieto. But there!" continued the Brigand, sighing, "loyalty and gratitude are sentiments soon dissipated in the atmosphere of politics, and though I had the pleasure of seeing my old chief installed as the head of his department, no such post as he had hinted at came my way. Meanwhile trade sank: artists, literary men, and poor fowl of that sort still thought it an eccentric and therefore a desirable thing to approach the Eternal City by road, and these I would not infrequently be at the pains of carrying off for ransom; but it was a dwindling and a most unsatisfactory trade. The wealthy took more and more to the railway; the new government at the Quirinal, after a certain amount of hesitation, definitely decided upon a policy inimical to our profession, if not actually hostile to it. My advancing years, and the various circumstances I have detailed, made the dear old life less and less possible, until one day" (here he sighed again profoundly) "in '93, just ten years ago, I was constrained to accept a situation as a model under an agency which provides such individuals for the entertainment of foreigners. I was already old (I am over seventy as you see me here and now), but I often think with bitterness as I poise upon one leg in an attitude of flight, or shield my eyes with my hands with a gesture that is very much applauded by the ladies who sketch me—I often think with bitterness, I say, as I adopt these various attitudes to order, of the days when I was known as the Lion of the Amiata, when my name was a terror from far beyond the Tiber to the marshes that border the Mediterranean Sea."

The old man was silent, and the journalist, who had been busy taking notes, and was profoundly moved by the recital he had heard, asked the Brigand most deferentially and in a gentle tone whether these memories did not stir him to some particular story, and whether he could not recite before the stranger left some especially telling incident of his great past.

"Why," mused the vigorous old man, rising slowly from his chair, "I think I can reconstruct for you that famous occasion which the old wives still tell as a winter story, when I held up the Syndic of Montefiascone, and without the trouble of binding him to a tree nor of inflicting the slightest mutilation, I acquired for the purposes of my expenditure all that was movable upon his person. Come, let us reconstruct the scene." He put a heavy hand upon the young journalist's shoulder, looking round the room as he did so for a favourable stage upon which to order the drama.

The Colonial rose at the same time, and the Brigand, shaking his head, and growling like a monarch of the forest, muttered deeply: "No, no, this place is too small!"

With the moving of the chairs many had come into the little inn parlour and followed the pair out into the blazing market square, and the brigand led the now dubious journalist into that public place. Their appearance in the open was the signal for a great gathering; children ran from narrow alleys, market women rushed up with shrill voices, farmers engaged in bargaining left their sport for the superior attractions of the scene, and loud cries of "The Brigand is going to work—come and see the Brigand" were heard upon every side. The journalist maintained his dignity, and even allowed a faint smile to flicker upon his anxious lips as the Brigand, pacing the cobblestones of the market-place in a thoughtful manner, decided the spot where his companion should stand.

"Here," he said, stamping with his foot, "this was about the distance."

The journalist found himself alone, the crowd retired at some fifty yards; before him was the street leading northward out of the town towards Sienna; it was empty. He turned and saw facing him the large concourse of people recounting to each other the interest of the proceedings; and he further perceived that the Brigand, who stood a little in front of them all, was slowly disembarrassing his blunderbuss from the innumerable details of his costume.

"Thus," shouted the old giant in a terrible voice, "stood I. There where you are stood the Syndic. Come, look slightly away and upwards as though you did not perceive me, for such was the Syndic's attitude upon the occasion in question. Make as though you were walking leisurely, but do not actually take a step, for that would destroy the reconstruction of the scene which I am arranging for your entertainment."

With great deliberation the Brigand of Radicofani next proceeded to pour into the huge bell mouth of his blunderbuss a measure of gunpowder from a horn; next he rammed in a piece of the anticlerical newspaper with the rusty ramrod which he had with difficulty drawn from its rings; he replaced the ramrod, and as deliberately dropped into the mouth of his deadly instrument a number of large leaden slugs.