Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/313

302 means for flight were secured, could her freedom be compassed. He had not much gold about him, but he gave double the fee to the little pifferaro, while the child stared in amaze at the twenty shining yellow pieces. He caught them greedily, yet when he had them he was half stupefied with the enormity of his possessions.

"The pastor, and the bailiff, and the innkeeper never had more than that all put together!" he murmured, his thoughts drifting to the village of his birth, with its little steeple hidden under chestnut leaves, and its mild-eyed herds browsing on the green breadths between the rocks. "That is no barcarolo; and, whatever the mischief is, I will be bound there is a woman in it," considered the shrewd little lad as he went on his way, the gold safe in the bosom of his sheepskin shirt.

With the dead mallards and teal flung over his shoulder, and with a great osier-basket of fish filled to overflowing, Erceldoune passed, unsummoned, from the lake side up the rock, and to the monastery gates. He thought they might make question of letting him enter for a second night's lodging, and without entrance all hope of her rescue was ended. The Umbrian, however, who through the grating saw the abundance brought in for the larder,