“The whole district drew a long breath, as if awakened from a nightmare.
“Now no longer clusters of men, instead of fruits, hung from the trees of their orchards; the young peasant girls no longer feared to go, their jars upon their heads, to draw water from the wells by the wayside; nor did the shepherds lead their flocks to the Segre by the roughest secret paths, fearing at every turn of the steep track to encounter the cross-bowmen of their dearly beloved lord.
“Thus three years elapsed. The story of the Wicked Count, for by that name only was he known, had come to be the exclusive possession of the old women, who in the long, long winter evenings would relate his atrocities with hollow and fearful voice to the terrified children, while mothers would affright their naughty toddlers and crying babies by saying: ‘_Here comes the Count of the Segre!_’ When behold! I know not whether by day or by night, whether fallen from heaven or cast forth by hell, the dreaded Count appeared indeed, and, as we say, in flesh and bone, in the midst of his former vassals.
“I forbear to describe the effect of this agreeable surprise. You can imagine it better than I can depict it, merely from my telling you that he returned claiming his forfeited rights; that if he went away evil, he came back worse; and that if he was poor and without credit before going to the war, now he could count on no other resources than his desperation, his lance and a half dozen adventurers as profligate and impious as their chieftain.
“As was natural, the towns refused to pay tribute, from which at so great cost they had bought exemption, but the Count fired their orchards, their farm-houses and their crops.
“Then they appealed to the royal justice of the realm, but the Count ridiculed the letters mandatory of his sovereign lords; he nailed them over the sally-port of his castle and hung the bearers from an oak.
“Exasperated, and seeing no other way of salvation, at last they made a league with one another, commended themselves to Providence and took up arms; but the Count gathered his followers, called the Devil to his aid, mounted his rock and made ready for the struggle.
“It began, terrible and bloody. There was fighting with all sorts of weapons, in all places and at all hours, with sword and fire, on the mountain and in the plain, by day and by night.