"Down with him! Into the sea with the old pig-head! Let him come to reason among the crabs and cuttle-fish! Now he touches water,--now he swims,--now he goes under! There, Evoluccio, may you find it cool and pleasant!"
He who made all this shouting and ranting was the little broad-shouldered Cesare Agresta, ship-trader, and he stood in the midst of a noisy crowd on the outermost edge of the cliffs which descend steeply to the sea before Evolo. They who moved about with turbulent cries, and still more turbulent behavior, among the gnarled olive trees on the rocks where the old chapel stands, were his fellow citizens, the entire population of the little Sicilian town of Roccastretta--men and women, children and aged people, rich and poor, even including the reverend Padre Atanasio, and the equally reverend Syndic. These two, withdrawn a few steps apart, watched the crowd's activity with a curiously sly expression of mischievous amusement.
Around the stem of an ancient olive tree some handy, half-naked fellows had slung a thick rope, whose length reached over the rocks down to the sea, and which, with many tugs and jerks, as if attached to a heavy, uneven weight that pitched about, made the old trunk shake from lowest root to topmost branch. Don Cesare held the chief command over this tumultuous mob. He ran, he gesticulated, he ordered, he swore, he laughed, he blustered, and they all obeyed him to the letter.
"Just why little Don Cesare exerts himself so much about it I can't make out," said the well-nourished padre, in his neighbor's ear. "The old Evolino, or, as they call him in despite to-day, Evoluccio, has never done any harm to Don Cesare. It must be all one to him whether it rains or not, since he doesn't possess the smallest bit of land, and not one single lemon tree can he call his property."
The Syndic shrugged his shoulders like a man at loss for an answer, and said, slightly nodding toward a youthful pair, half hidden behind the chapel, who seemed to be excellent company for one another:
"While Don Cesare bestows his attention upon the old, his pretty sister occupies herself with the young."
"I have long remarked that there was something between those two," said the padre with a half envious side glance, in which rebellion, contending in the heart's depths with resignation, was plainly manifest; "but what will come of it? The wealthy Nino will never content himself with the sister of a ship-trader."
"Nay, Father Atanasio, one need not always be thinking of marriage," answered the other, smiling slyly on the stout padre.
"I know that very well," replied the holy man, without taking the least offence at the Syndic's light-mindedness; "but if it comes to Don Cesare's knowledge, let Nino beware of his knife."
"That is Nino's business. Between my neighbor's door and its hinge I never put my fingers," cried the Syndic with a laugh.