They were interrupted by the crowd streaming back from the cliffs toward the chapel.
"This pleases you. Father Atanasio," cried a lank sailor, who looked out from beneath his Calabrian cap like a bandit. "You never were on good terms with the old Evoluccio. Well, he's fixed for one while!"
"He'll stay down there till he gets reasonable," said another, shaking his fist at the sea; "and if that won't do,--something else will!"
"Yes, yes!" howled a third; "if water fails he shall feel fire. Only that Don Cesare talked us down to-day, we'd have built a blaze under the old one's feet that would have made him remember us forever! The villain! the lump! the old heathen!"
At these words, a little smile, like a flash, shimmered in the eye of Father Atanasio, but it was very brief, and remarked by no one; then he said, slowly, waving his hand to those who were passing, and clothing his words in an unctuous sort of conciliatory chant:
"That is enough. It will certainly work this time. Malicious the Evolino never was. He only needs to have his old memory jogged a bit. If you were as old as he you would forget too, sometimes."
Then the bystanders all broke into loud laughter, and cried to each other:
"The padre is always right The Evoluccio is an old fellow--older than any of us can think--and one must be considerate with age."
"Carmela! Carmela!" suddenly sounded from the midst of the confused throng descending the side of the cliff toward the little town; and from his higher point of observation the padre saw Don Cesare's short figure powerfully fighting against the stream of people, and remarked with edification how he stretched his neck, how he jumped off his little legs, and stood on his little toes, making strenuous efforts to climb the hill again, or, at least to look over the heads of his fellow citizens. "Carmela," he cried, "where are you?" But Carmela appeared to have just reached a highly interesting clause of her conversation with the smart and enterprising Nino, who was pushing his suit gaily with the listening girl.
"See," he said, pointing to where, close at the foot of the promontory a country house lay hidden among the groves of lemon trees, "yonder is my Casina. Last year I inherited it, and now in a few days it will be all ready to live in. How pretty it looks! Everything new, and ready for daily life. And it is so cool and pleasant sitting there on a hot summer evening, with the fresh, silvery spring that trickles out of the rock into an old Greek marble basin; it is a stone from the temple, you know, that used to stand here, with images of gods, and wonderful animals. Only come there with me, and see how much pleasanter it is than in the dark street under your window."