A Siren

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

It is a distance of some sixty miles from Bologna to Ravenna; the diligence started at five in the morning, and was due at the latter city at five in the evening. But nobody expected that it would reach its destination at that hour. It had never done so within the memory of man, even in the fine days of summer, and now, when the roads were rough with ridges of frozen mud! It was now, however, nearly half-past six—yes, there went the half-hour clanging from the cracked-voiced old bell in the top of the round brick tower, which stands on one side of the cathedral, and by its likeness to a minaret reminds one of the Byzantine parentage of its builders.

Half-past six! The loiterers about the inn door remark to each other, that unless "something" has happened old Cecco Zoppo can't be far off now.

The arrival of the Bologna diligence, the main means of communication between remote out-of-the-way Ravenna and the rest of the world, was always a matter of interest in the old-world little city, where matters of interest were so few. And on a pleasant evening in spring or summer the attendance of expectant loungers was wont to be far larger than it was on that bitter November night, and to include a large number of amateurs; whereas the half-dozen now waiting were all either officially or otherwise directly interested in the arrival. Indeed, there was a very special interest attached to the coming of the expected vehicle on that November night; and nothing but the extreme severity of the weather would have prevented a very distinguished assemblage from being on the spot to hear the first news that was expected to be brought by one of the travellers.

"Eccolo! I heard the bells, underneath the gate-way. Per Bacco, it is time! I'm well-nigh frozen alive," said Pippo, the ostler.

"If they don't keep him an hour at the gate," rejoined a decidedly more ragged and poverty-stricken individual, who held recognized office as the ostler's assistant.

"Not such a night as this! Those gentlemen there at the gate can feel the cold for themselves, if they can't feel nothing else," rejoined the ostler, who was a frondeur and disaffected to the government, in consequence of a drunken grandson having been turned out of the place of third assistant scullion in the kitchen of the Cardinal Legate. "There's the bells again! They've let him off pretty quick. I thought as much," added the old man, with a chuckle.

"Wasn't Signor Ercole's woman here with a lanthorn just now?" said another of the bystanders, a young man, who, though wrapped to the eyes in the universal all-levelling cloak, belonged evidently to a superior class of society to the previous speakers.

"Si, Signor Conte, she is there in the kitchen. Per Dio! she would have had no fingers to hold the light for her master, if she had stayed out here," replied the ostler. And then the rattle of wheels became distinct, and in the next instant the feeble light of a couple of lamps became visible at the far end of the street, as the coach turned out of the Piazza Maggiore into the Via del Monte, and struggled forwards towards the knot at the inn door; it came at a miserable little trot, but with an accompaniment of tremendous whip-cracking, that awoke echoes in the silent streets far and near, and imparted an impression of breathless speed to the imagination of the bystanders, who, being Italians, accepted the symbol in despite of their certain knowledge that the reality of the thing symbolised was not there. Like the immortal Marchioness, Dick Swiveller's friend, in the Old Curiosity Shop, the Italians, when the realities of circumstances are unfavourable, can always manage to gild them a little by "making believe very strong."

"Now then, Signora Marta, bring out your light," called the deputy ostler in at the inn door.

The individual addressed as Signor Conte became evidently excited, and prepared himself to be the first to present himself at the door of the coach as it drew up opposite the inn. The ostler stepped out into the street with his stable lanthorn. Signora Marta, shivering, with a huge shawl over her head, took up her position, lanthorn in hand, behind the Signor Conte, and the ramshackle old coach, rattling over the uneven round cobble-stones of the execrable pavement with a crash of noise that seemed to threaten that every jolt would be its last, came to a standstill at the inn door.