Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/100

76 widow ; and, instead of taking the maiden's hand, make you touch the confessor's foot. Therefore don't stand here at the risk of your life, but march off this very instant, so that nobody may hear a word either new or old of what you have done, and you may not be kept here by the foot. A bird in the bush is better than a bird in the cage. Here is money—take one of the two enchanted horses which I have in the stable, and a dog which is also enchanted, and tarry no longer here: better to scamper off and use your own heels, than to be touched by another's; better to throw your legs over your back, than to carry your head between two legs ; better to run a thousand feet, than to stay here with three feet of rope; if you don't take your knapsack and be off, neither Baldo nor Bartolo will help you."

Then, begging his father's blessing, Cienzo mounted his horse, and tucking the little dog under his arm, he went his way out of the city. But turning his head round when he had passed through the Capuan gate, he fell to exclaiming, "Farewell, for I must leave thee, my beautiful Naples! who knows whether I shall ever see thee again? Ye bricks of sugar-candy, ye walls of