Page:Maurice Hewlett--Little novels of Italy.djvu/250

238 the hill-fortress, battered, but in high spirits. Selvaggia flew down the cypress-walk to meet them; they were brought in like wounded heroes. That was a bad day's work for Messer Cino the amorist; Apollo and the Muses limped in rags, and Mars was the only God worth thinking about, except on Sundays.

Ridolfo, with his broken head-piece, was a bluff youth, broad-shouldered, square-jawed, a great eater, grimly silent for the most part. Ugolino had a trenchant humour of the Italian sort. What this may be is best exampled by our harlequinades, in which very much of Boccaccio's bent still survives. You must have a man drubbed if you want to laugh, and do your rogueries with a pleasant grin if you are inclined to heroism. Ridolfo, reading Selvaggia's sheaf of rhymes that night, was for running Master Cino through the body, jurist or no jurist; but Ugolino saw his way to a jest of the most excellent quality, and prevailed. He was much struck by the poet's preoccupation with his sister's eyes.

"Candles, are they," he chuckled, "torches, fires, suns, moons, and stars? You seem to have scorched this rhymester, Vaggia."

"He has frequently told me so, indeed," said Selvaggia.

"It reminds me of Messer San Giovanni Vangelista," Ugolino continued, "who was made to sing rarely by the touching of a hot cinder."

Selvaggia snatched the scrolls out of her brother's hand. "Nay, nay, but wait," she cried, with a gulp of laughter; "I have done that to Messer Cino, or can if I choose." She turned over the