"O, yes, if sister Paula would play with me as she used to do, and kiss me instead of Father Lancelloti."
"Rosario! what sayest thou?" cried the fierce old soldier with a stentorian voice, while Paula grew pale as death, and my spirit died away within me; but the terrified child made no reply. The captain's face was black with rage: his eyes sparkled, and stern scorn curled his lip; yet he spoke calmly.
"Go—go, Father Lancelloti, and may God forgive you! I will not require the services of your faithful reverence from to-day. Away—march! or you may fare worse: dare not to come here again, I am Annibal Batello—thou knowest me!" And, touching the hilt of his sword, he turned on his heel and left me.
I rushed away, overwhelmed with bitterness, rage, and humiliation, and hating Rosario with the hate of a fiend.
To Truffi and Petronio, my story was the source of endless merriment: the hunchback snapped his fingers, whooped, and laughed till the cloisters rang with his elfish joy. Deprived of my mistress, whom I dared not visit for dread of the captain's sword, stung by the taunts of my friends, dejected and filled with gloomy forebodings, the cloisters soon became intolerable to me. I formed many a romantic and desperate scheme to rid myself of those cursed trammels which monkish duplicity had cast around me in boyhood: but thoughts of the holy office, the Piombi, and the fate of my father, filled me with dismay; and I dared not fly from Friuli.
One day, whilst wandering far up the banks of the Isonza, with a heart swollen by bitter thoughts, I plunged into the deepest recesses in search of solitude. Reaching the cascade which falls beneath the ancient castle of Fana, I paused to listen to the rushing water, whose tumult so much resembled my own mind. The voice of no living thing, save that of the lynx, broke the stillness around me: the lofty trees of the dense forest, clad in the richest foliage of summer, cast a deep shadow over the bed of the dark blue stream; which swept noiselessly on, between gloomy impending cliffs, until it reached the fall, where it poured over a broad ledge of rock, and thundered into a terrible abyss, whence the foam arose in a mighty cloud, white as Alpine snow. Rearing its grey and mossy towers high above the waving woods, the shattered rocks, and roaring river, the ancient castello looked down on the solitude beneath it. A mighty place in days gone by, it had been demolished by the bailiff of Friuli, for the crimes of Count Giulio (see vol. i. p. 186), and was now roofless and ruined; the green ivy clung to the carved battlement, and the rays of the bright sun poured aslant through its open loops and empty windows. But the scenery soothed not my heart: I burned for active excitement, to shake off the stupor that oppressed me.
A turn of the walk brought me suddenly upon the little boy, Rosario, who was weaving a chaplet of wild roses and trailing daphne; culled, doubtless, for the bright tresses of Paula. Remembering some stern injunction from his father, on beholding me he fled as from a spectre. Like a tiger, I sprang after him: fear added wings to his flight; but I was close behind. A fall on the rocks redoubled my anger and impatience, and I caught him by his long fair hair, while he was in the very act of laughing at my mishap.
"Cursed little babbler!" said I, shaking him roughly; "what deservest thou at my hands?"
"Spare me, good Father Lancelloti, and I will never offend again."
"Silence, or I will tear out thy tongue!"