He lowered his voice again, but Donna Micaela would hear no more and went away. She saw that she was superfluous. If Signor Favara could not succeed in keeping the great benefactress, no one could.
When she went out again through the gateway the landlord was standing there quarrelling with the old Franciscan, Fra Felice. He was so irritated that he not only quarrelled with Fra Felice, he also drove him from his house.
“Fra Felice,” he cried, “you come to make more trouble with our great benefactress. You will only make her more angry. Go away, I tell you! You wolf, you man-eater, go away!”
Fra Felice was quite as enraged as the landlord, and tried to force his way past him. But then the latter took him by the arm, and without further notice marched him down the steps.
Fra Felice was a man who had received a great gift from his Creator. In Sicily, where everybody plays in the lottery, there are people who have the power to foretell what numbers will win at the next drawing. He who has such second sight is called “polacco,” and is most often found in some old begging monk. Fra Felice was such a monk. He was the greatest polacco in the neighborhood of Etna.
As every one wished him to tell them a winning tern or quartern, he was always treated with great consideration. He was not used to be taken by the arm and be thrown into the street, Fra Felice.
He was nearly eighty years old and quite dried-up and infirm. As he staggered away between the wagons, he stumbled, trod on his cloak, and almost fell. But none of the porters and drivers that stood by the door talking and lamenting had time that day to think of Fra Felice.
The old man tottered along in his heavy homespun cloak. He was so thin and dry that there seemed to be more stiffness in the cloak than in the monk. It seemed to be the old cloak that held him up.
Donna Micaela caught up with him and gently drew the old man’s arm through her own. She could not bear to see how he struck against the lamp-posts and fell over steps. But Fra Felice never noticed that she was looking after him. He walked and mumbled and cursed, and did not know but that he was as much alone as if he sat in his cell.
Donna Micaela wondered why Fra Felice was so angry with Miss Tottenham. Had she been out to his monastery and taken down frescos from the walls, or what had she done?