'The world is wide, and open to all of us, _cara mia_,' said the youth good-humouredly. 'Don't be angry with me because I 'm not a brigand.'
'_Sangue dei Santi_, but you have given me a hearty fright, boy, what ever brought you here!' said the fat old woman, as she wiped the hot drops from her steaming face.
There is some marvellous freemasonry in poverty--some subtle sympathy links poor men together--for scarcely had Gerald told that he was destitute and penniless as themselves, than these poor outcasts bade him a frank welcome among them, and invited him to a share of their little scanty supper.
'I 'll warrant me that you have drawn a low number in the conscription, boy; and that's the reason you have fled from home,' said the old woman; and Gerald laughed good-humouredly, as though accepting the suggestion as a happy guess; nor was he sorry to be spared the necessity of recounting his story.
'But why not be a soldier?' broke in Marietta.
'Because it's a dog's life,' retorted the hag savagely.
'I don't think so,' said Gerald. 'When I saw the noble guard of his Holiness prancing into the Piazza del Popolo, I longed to be one of them. They were all glittering with gold and polished steel, and their horses bounded and caracoled as if impatient for a charge.'
'Ah!' sighed the old man drearily, 'there's only one happy road in this life.'
'And what may that be, Babbo?' said Gerald, addressing him by the familiar title the girl had given him.
'A Frate's, boy, a Frate's. I don't care whether he be a Dominican or an Ignorantine. Though, myself, I like the Ignorantines. Theirs is truly a blessed existence: no wants--no cares--no thoughts for the morrow! I never watched one of them stepping along, with firm foot and sack on his arm, that I didn't say to myself, "There's freedom--there's light-heartedness."'
'I should have called your own a pleasanter life.'
'Ay, Babbo, and so is it,' burst in the girl, in an excited tone. 'Show me the Frate has such a time as we have! Whenever the friar comes, men shuffle away to escape giving him their "quattrini." They know well there's no such sturdy beggar as he who asks no alms, but shows you the mouth of his long empty sack; but where we appear the crowds gather, mothers snatch up their babies and hurry out to greet us; hard-worked men cease their toil; children desert their games; all press round eagerly at the first roll of Gaetana's drum, and of poor Chico's fife, when he was with us,' added she, dropping her head, while a heavy tear rolled down her swarthy cheek.