and presently, climbing with some difficulty the steps of one of the altars, seated itself and began softly to stroke the cheeks of a marble cherub that supported the altar-table.
If a company of baby angels had come in, they would not have made less noise nor done less harm; perhaps, would not have done more good.
“How peaceful it is!” Mr. Vane exclaimed as they went out into the air again. “How heavenly peaceful!”
They saw only women and children on their way down through the town. Some of the men had gone off in the night to Rome, carrying wine in those carts of theirs, with the awning slung like a galley-sail over the driver’s seat, and the cluster of bells atop, each tinkling in a different tone, and the little white dog keeping watch over the barrels while the man dozed. Others had gone at day-dawn to work in the Campagna, and might be seen from the town moving, as small as spiders, among the vines or in the gardens.
Just below the great piazza, at the entrance of the town, beside the dip of the road into the hollow between Monte Compatri and Monte San Sylvestro, a long, tiled roof was visible supported on arches. They leaned over the parapet supporting the road, and watched for a little while the lively scene below. All the space beneath this roof was an immense tank of water, or fountain, as it was called, divided into square compartments. Around these stood forty or fifty women washing. They soaped and dipped their clothes in the constantly-changing water, and beat them on the wide stone border of the fountain, working leisurely, and chatting with each other. The
white handkerchiefs on their heads, and, now and then, a bit of bright drapery on their shoulders, shone out of the shadow made by the roof and the piers supporting it, and the rich green of that sheltered nook between the hills. It was, in fact, the town wash-tub, and this was the town wash-day. In this place the women washed the year round, in the open air, and with cold water, spreading their clothes out to dry on the grass and bushes.
The travellers went up Monte San Sylvestro, gathering flowers as they went. The path was rough and wild, winding to and fro among the bushes as it climbed, and hidden, from time to time, by tall trees. Half way up they met a man with a herd of goats rushing and tumbling down the steep way. A little farther on, at a turn of the road, was a large shrine holding a crucifix. The place seemed to be an absolute solitude, but the withered flowers drooping from the wire screen, and the sod, worn to dust, at the foot of the step, showed that faith and love had passed that way, and stopped in passing. Near this shrine was a protruding ledge, from under which the gravel had dropped away or been dug away, leaving a sort of cave. The place needed only a gray-bearded old man clad in rags, and bending over an open book, an hour-glass before him, and perhaps a lion lying at his feet. Or one might have placed there the Magdalen, with her long hair trailing in the sand, and her woful eyes looking off into the distant east, as she gazed across the blue ocean from her cave on the coast of France. There was still faith enough in this region to have honored and protected such a penitent.
The three women gathered some green to go with their flowers, cleared
away all the withered stems and leaves, and wrote in pink and white and blue around the edge of the screen. When they had done all that they could well reach, Mr. Vane finished for them by writing last, over the head of the crucifix, the word that in reality came first. Then they went on, leaving the symbol of all that Heaven could do for earth encircled by the expression of all that earth can do for Heaven—“Credo, Spero, Amo, Ringrazio, Pento.” They wrote these words in flowers, Bianca weaving a verdant Hope at the right hand, Isabel a white Thanksgiving at the left, and the Signora placing a rose-red Love and Penitence under the feet. Over the head Mr. Vane had set in blue the word of Faith.
The summit of the mountain was crowned with the convent and church of St. Sylvester; but the buildings extended quite to the edge of the platform on the eastern side, and the fine view was from the gardens on the west side, and, of course, inaccessible to ladies. They could only obtain glimpses over the tops of trees that climbed from below, and through the trunks of trees that pressed close to the corners of the stone barriers. No person was visible but a monk in a brown robe and a broad-brimmed hat, who lingered near a moment, as if to give them an opportunity to speak to him if they wished, then entered a long court leading to the convent door, and disappeared under the portico.