Mr. Grantly laughed, but said nothing, for his heart was still young and understanding of boyish hearts, if his head was white, and he felt a wise interest in Mrs. Bishop’s philanthropic scheme.
“Aunty is to pay everything, and she says she thinks she knows now why all the hotels up at Abetone were full so she could not get a good room there for these three weeks. She finds that she was ‘ordained’ to rescue a boy from his persecutors, as she persists in calling the circus men. It is supposed, I believe, that all little boys and girls of circuses have been stolen from kind parents, and if not are half-killed with cruelty by their own.”
“You speak very warmly, young lady,” Mr. Grantly remarked, a little reproof in his tone. “There is no doubt that many such children do suffer and are very unhappy.”
“Those certainly do not!” retorted Betty, pointing to a number of the circus children frolicking in the field with Niero and Bianco. Olga’s red cotton dress was flitting over the grass, and her merry laugh was echoed by the other little ones, as Niero finally caught her red skirts in the chase.
“Of course the clown objected at first,” Betty continued, “but Aunty was more determined than he and soon proved to him that it would be worth his while to agree. The old lady, whom they call Nonna, was curiously anxious for Natale to have a chance at schooling. I wondered at that till I heard about her son.”
“Yes, I know,” Mr. Grantly assented. “Some, however, would think he had made a very fair exchange in giving up the future of a priest for the easy, out-of-doors life of an acrobat. There is no accounting for tastes, though. And is this boy to be made a priest?”
“Only let my Aunty hear you say that!” laughed the girl. “No, indeed, but the priest was the only one who would agree to be troubled with the child, after Miss Lorini had explained all Aunty’s conditions—how Natale was to have a cold bath every morning, meat to eat every day, and new shoes as soon as his old ones come into holes. The priest, too, has agreed to write a letter to Aunty every month to tell her of Natale’s progress—”
“Toward growing into a ‘decent man’?” interposed Mr. Grantly. “Well, I hope the plan will work well for all parties. Few Italian peasant lads get such a chance.” Then the old gentleman went back to his chair to continue his nap.
All that afternoon, until four o’clock, there was an unusual bustle going on about the little encampment. The tattered, damp, half-ruined canvas was rolled up and packed along with poles and planks and ropes on a small cart hired for this occasion, while the cooking utensils and the scant furniture of the tents were gathered together for conveyance in the house-wagon. It was a cold and dreary day, following the night of stormy wind, with the clouds settling close about the mountain tops and the wind sweeping down the valley wet with rain. And in the heart of Natale there was even less promise of sunshine. He sat apart from the others on the damp wall, frowning and sullen.
Half an hour before, he had been almost forcibly dragged up the hill to the house in the garden by Giovanni, who had made little jokes to hide the sulkiness of the boy’s replies to the questions of the ladies gathered there. Madame Cioche had promptly hidden herself when she saw the green gate open and the pair coming in, but the clown had walked directly through the hall and up to the little table where Mrs. Bishop sat taking her tea.