When these lines were written, the newspapers told of heavy rains and wet bedraggled tents; and further, of a proposal made by an inveterate showman to exhibit the gypsies through the music-halls, with their ancestral games, dances, and craftsmanship. Misguided wanderers from the blue Ægean, is there no better fate before you than this?
BY ORDER OF THE LEAGUE.
BY FRED. M. WHITE.
IN TWENTY CHAPTERS.—CHAP. I.
The shades of evening had commenced to fall; already the slanting sun shining through the open window glittered on the array of crystal glasses, turning the wine within them to a blood-red hue. The remains of an ample dessert were scattered about the bare polished table, rich luscious-looking fruits and juicy pines filling the air with their fragrance. A pleasant room, with its panelled walls and quaint curiosities, with here and there a modern picture framed; and again other works standing upon easels or placed against the wainscot. From the Corso below came the sounds of laughter and gaiety; while within, the delicate scent of the pines was overpowered by the odour of tobacco which rose from the cigarettes of the three men sitting there. They were all young—artists evidently, and from the appearance of one of them, he was of a different nationality from the others. Frederick Maxwell was an Englishman, with a passion for art, and no doubt had he been forced to gain a living by his brush, would have made some stir in the world; but being born with the traditional silver spoon in his mouth, his flirtation with the arts never threatened to become serious. He was leaving Rome in a few days, and the dessert upon the table was the remains of a farewell dinner—that custom dear to every English heart. A handsome fair-haired man this Englishman, his clear bright cheek and blue eyes contrasting with the aquiline features and olive-hued complexions of his companions. The man with the black moustache and old velvet painting-jacket, a man with bohemian stamped on him indelibly, was Carlo Visci, also an artist, and a genius to boot, but cursed with that indomitable idleness which is the bane of so many men of talent. The other and slighter Italian, he with the melancholy face and earnest eyes, was Luigi Salvarini, independent as to means, and possessed, poor fool! with the idea that he was ordained by Providence for a second Garibaldi.
There is an infinite sense of rest and comfort, the desire to sit silent and dream of pleasant things, that comes with tobacco after dinner, when the eye can dwell upon the waxlights glittering on glass and china, and on the artistic confusion the conclusion of the repast produces. So the three men sat listlessly, idly there, each drowsily engaged, and none caring to break the delicious silence, rendered all the more pleasing from the gay girlish laughter and the trip of little feet coming up from the Corso below. But no true Briton can remain long silent; and Maxwell, throwing his cigarette out through the window, rose to his feet, yawning. ‘Heigh-ho! So this pleasant life is come to an end,’ he exclaimed. ‘Well, I suppose one cannot be expected to be always playing.’
Carlo Visci roused himself to laugh gently. ‘Did you ever do anything else, my friend?’ he asked. ‘You play here under sunny skies, in a velvet painting-jacket; then you leave us to pursue the same arduous toil in the tall hat of Albion’s respectability, in the land of fogs and snows. Ah! yes, it is only a change of venue, my philosopher.’
‘Not now,’ Salvarini corrected gravely. ‘Remember, he has vowed by all in his power to aid the welfare of the League. That vow conscientiously followed out is undertaking enough for one man’s lifetime.’
‘Luigi, you are the skeleton at the feast,’ Visci remonstrated. ‘Cannot you be happy here for one brief hour without reminding us that we are bound by chains we cannot sever?’
‘I do not like the mocking tone of your words,’ Salvarini replied. ‘The subject is too earnest for jesting upon.—Surely, Maxwell, you have not so soon forgotten the solemnity of the oath you took last night?’