The fair Venetian looked round fearfully and turned pale.
“One peculiarity of the Italian banditti” continued the improvvisatore, “is that they wear a kind of uniform, or rather costume, which designates their profession. This is probably done to take away from its skulking lawless character, and to give it something of a military air in the eyes of the common people; or perhaps to catch by outward dash and show the fancies of the young men of the villages. These dresses or costumes are often rich and fanciful. Some wear jackets and breeches of bright colors, richly embroidered; broad belts of cloth; or sashes of silk net; broad, high-crowned hats, decorated with feathers of variously-colored ribbands, and silk nets for the hair.
“Many of the robbers are peasants who follow ordinary occupations in the villages for a part of the year, and take to the mountains for the rest. Some only go out for a season, as it were, on a hunting expedition, and then resume the dress and habits of common life. Many of the young men of the villages take to this kind of life occasionally from a mere love of adventure, the wild wandering spirit of youth and the contagion of bad example; but it is remarked that they can never after brook a long continuance in settled life. They get fond of the unbounded freedom and rude license they enjoy; and there is something in this wild mountain life checquered by adventure and peril, that is wonderfully fascinating, independent of the gratification of cupidity by the plunder of the wealthy traveller.”
Here the improvvisatore was interrupted by a lively Neapolitan lawyer. “Your mention of the younger robbers,” said he, “puts me in mind of an adventure of a learned doctor, a friend of mine, which happened in this very neighborhood.”
A wish was of course expressed to hear the adventure of the doctor by all except the improvvisatore, who, being fond of talking and of hearing himself talk, and accustomed moreover to harangue without interruption, looked rather annoyed at being checked when in full career.
The Neapolitan, however, took no notice of his chagrin, but related The following anecdote.
My friend the doctor was a thorough antiquary: a little, rusty, musty Old fellow, always groping among ruins. He relished a building as you Englishmen relish a cheese, the more mouldy and crumbling it was, the more it was to his taste. A shell of an old nameless temple, or the cracked walls of a broken-down amphitheatre, would throw him into raptures; and he took more delight in these crusts and cheese parings of antiquity than in the best-conditioned, modern edifice.