Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/55

 his wallet; or a labourer that had got his wages in his waistband, was he ever lightened of them by Saturnino? Nay, never. That we know. We have come and gone on his mountains and never were we the worse. When old Montino was lost in the snow on Santa Fiora, what did Mastarna do when he found him? Took him to his own hut, and warmed, and fed him, and gave him of the best, and when he saw that old Montino had a bag of gold pieces with him, said to him, "Fear nothing; neither I nor my men will touch your gold, because you are an old man and a steward, and the loss would get you blamed by your masters, maybe thrown in prison." And when full day came, he himself took Montino down the mountain as far as the first ford that crosses the Fiora. Five hundred times, if once, have I heard the history from Montino himself. Nay, Saturnino was a brave man, and a generous, and because he aided this stranger to escape from the burden of life, they have caged him in a trap as you catch a dondola. It is vile. The stranger was a rich man in his own country, a great prince, they say; what did he do here in Italy? why not stay where he was? It was always the rich that Mastarna