Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/146

136 foster the growth and spread of political knowledge and principle in our own country as to create a contempt and reprobation of mock-diplomacy which no one, however presumptuous, will have the hardihood to defy.

summer sun was sinking low As I went up and down, To find a place where I might rest Within Chekäo’s town.

The Royal Press-gang, at that hour, Came up the self-same way, Who in the time of darkness make The sons of men their prey.

An old man saw, and fled in haste, Vaulting the village gate; From the same house an aged crone Marched out to meet them straight.

Their leader shouted in his wrath,— How savage were his tones! The woman poured her sorrow forth With shrill and bitter moans:—

Quoth she—“Mark well the words of her Who cometh at your call: Three sons I had, the Emperor’s camp Has now devoured them all.

From the last left a letter came, To say his brothers twain On the same battle-field were laid, Among the heaps of slain.

Not long can he elude Death’s grasp, Who liveth yet in gloom; And for the two, their lot is fixed Unchanging in the tomb.

In our sad house no male is left For war to claim and kill, Except my little grandson, whom His mother suckles still.

That mother would have fled long since,— Fled to return no more,— But that she has not fitting clothes To pass beyond the door.

I have grown very old, my limbs Are wasted now and weak; Still I can follow in your track, And join the camp ye seek.

Among the troops I shall not be Idle or useless there; For I can cook them rice, and well The morning meal prepare.”

On rolled the night—both shouts and screams Died off to silence deep; Still, ever and anon, I heard Choked sobbings round me creep.

But when the morning dawned, and I My journey thence began, Nought living did I leave behind But that forlorn old man.

was still the early dawn of an autumn day in September, 1860, as our party drove out on the Florentine road away from Siena towards San Gimignano. A moist coldness was in the air, and the heights about Siena were only just visible through the dense veil of vapour which filled the valleys. The broad smooth road rejoiced the hearts of the horses, who trotted along with great animation, and the jingle of their bells accompanied our conversation like music. As we advanced the country gradually assumed a less prosperous aspect. It was well irrigated and diligently cultivated, but was barer and more deserted. The road became a kind of raised causeway, and on each side the fields were sunk far below it. After a drive of five or six miles we passed Monte Righini, a village fortress, crowning a sloping elevation to our right. The battlemented walls only were visible over the brow of the hill, but these were of majestic proportions. On the other side, invisible to us, for the hill dropped down abruptly, was (as our guide-book told us) a piazza, with its duomo, a café, and offices of different kinds, but all now tenantless and falling into ruin. Through the arched gateway we could detect the moss-grown roofs of some time-worn crumbling buildings, while over them the ever-fresh, ever-young sky, set in its stone frame, glowed like a sapphire. We quitted Righini with reluctance, and proceeded on our road along the branch road which leads to Colle.

Few towns are more picturesquely situated than Colle. There are, in fact, two towns. As you cross the bridge over the river which flows at the foot of the lofty rock along which it is situated, it is strange to see how the exigencies of daily life and the influences of peace have called down from their air-built eyrie the dwellers of the rock above. There are two churches, of such equal importance that the bishop, who comes to perform mass on high days and holidays, officiates at both; and this is sufficient to prove the equal importance of the lower and upper town. We crossed the bridge, and drove on through the busy suburb, with its paper mills and dyeing vats and wool-carders, and then ascended to the upper town. Here the houses looked dark, and aristocratic, and dull. After passing through the gates, we issued upon a narrow, steep highroad, at the edge of a ravine which fell straight down beside it, wooded to the very bottom, where flowed the turbulent and tawny-coloured stream. The tops of the old trees which clung to its side waved just beyond the reach of our hands, as we slowly drove on. The lofty rock rose on the other side of us, with its curtain of mosses and ferns veiling its bareness, and crowned with bastion and parapet and terrace, built out from the stately-looking houses placed there. One small circular-shaped terrace supported a close range of large flower pots, and standing between them, with a tall oleander behind her, looking down on us as we drove past, was one of those supremely beautiful women whom one rarely finds out of Italy. Beauty in the North is spread among a whole