Page:Maurice Hewlett--Little novels of Italy.djvu/122

110 they built an oracle or some such place, and paid a hermit to pray there. And now, whoever has ague, or is with child, or hath bandy-legged children, or witch-crossed cows, always goes there; and the hermit cures them. That was money well laid out, I suppose."

"Per Bacco!" cried Andrea, "I'll tell you some more. Did you ever hear of Monna Betta's short leg?"

Petruccio cuffed him well. "A palsy on her leg, and a palsy strike thee," he thundered, "if with thy old women's tales we miss the path! Go drive the goats in, thick-chops, and stay that clapper of thine till they ask for a crow-keeper. Move now, be off!"

"’Tis a hard thing, Petruccio," blubbered Andrea, "if one may not tell the honour of his own land to a stranger."

But Petruccio sent him flying with grit in his ear.

By a brambly path they climbed Monte Ortone—Petruccio first, the others after him, the newcomer as best might be, then musically the goats. That round-faced, blinking boy, whom they called Castracane, was behind Silvestro now, much diverted by her panting efforts to go up without panting what he could rise on with closed mouth and scarcely any sharper whistling at the nose.

"Hey, comrade," said he, grinning, "one sees that the Jew's stair was easier going for thee than Ortone." And he prodded her with his staff.

This was not friendly. Ippolita did her best to humour him. "I go up as well as I can,