Part 97

After the service, and after a sermon a good church-hour in length to gratify him, enriched with compliments from all authors, Christian and Pagan, informing him at the conclusion that, although he had been crowned in the Capitol, he must die, being born mortal, Ser Francesco rode homeward. The sermon seemed to have sunk deeply into him, and even into the horse under him, for both of them nodded, both snorted, and one stumbled. Simplizio was twice fain to cry:

'Ser Canonico! Riverenza! in this country if we sleep before dinner it does us harm. There are stones in the road, Ser Canonico, loose as eggs in a nest, and pretty nigh as thick together, huge as mountains.'

'Good lad!' said Ser Francesco, rubbing his eyes, 'toss the biggest of them out of the way, and never mind the rest.'

The horse, although he walked, shuffled almost into an amble as he approached the stable, and his master looked up at it with nearly the same contentment. Assunta had been ordered to wait for his return, and cried:

'O Ser Francesco! you are looking at our long apricot, that runs the whole length of the stable and barn, covered with blossoms as the old white hen is with feathers. You must come in the summer, and eat this fine fruit with Signor Padrone. You cannot think how ruddy and golden and sweet and mellow it is. There are peaches in all the fields, and plums, and pears, and apples, but there is not another apricot for miles and miles. Ser Giovanni brought the stone from Naples before I was born: a lady gave it to him when she had eaten only half the fruit off it: but perhaps you may have seen her, for you have ridden as far as Rome, or beyond. Padrone looks often at the fruit, and eats it willingly; and I have seen him turn over the stones in his plate, and choose one out from the rest, and put it into his pocket, but never plant it.'

'Where is the youth?' inquired Ser Francesco.

'Gone away,' answered the maiden.

'I wanted to thank him,' said the Canonico.

'May I tell him so?' asked she.

'And give him ...' continued he, holding a piece of silver.

'I will give him something of my own, if he goes on and behaves well,' said she; 'but Signor Padrone would drive him away for ever, I am sure, if he were tempted in an evil hour to accept a quattrino for any service he could render the friends of the house.'

Ser Francesco was delighted with the graceful animation of this ingenuous girl, and asked her, with a little curiosity, how she could afford to make him a present.

'I do not intend to make him a present,' she replied: 'but it is better he should be rewarded by me,' she blushed and hesitated, 'or by Signor Padrone,' she added, 'than by your reverence. He has not done half his duty yet; not half. I will teach him: he is quite a child; four months younger than me.'

Ser Francesco went into the house, saying to himself at the doorway:

'Truth, innocence, and gentle manners have not yet left the earth. There are sermons that never make the ears weary. I have heard but few of them, and come from church for this.'

Whether Simplizio had obeyed some private signal from Assunta, or whether his own delicacy had prompted him to disappear, he was now again in the stable, and the manger was replenished with hay. A bucket was soon after heard ascending from the well; and then two words: 'Thanks, Simplizio.'

When Petrarca entered the chamber, he found Boccaccio with his breviary in his hand, not looking into it indeed, but repeating a thanksgiving in an audible and impassioned tone of voice. Seeing Ser Francesco, he laid the book down beside him, and welcomed him.

'I hope you have an appetite after your ride,' said he, 'for you have sent home a good dinner before you.'

Ser Francesco did not comprehend him, and expressed it not in words but in looks.

'I am afraid you will dine sadly late to-day: noon has struck this half-hour, and you must wait another, I doubt. However, by good luck, I had a couple of citrons in the house, intended to assuage my thirst if the fever had continued. This being over, by God's mercy, I will try (please God!) whether we two greyhounds cannot be a match for a leveret.'

'How is this?' said Ser Francesco.

'Young Marc-Antonio Grilli, the cleverest lad in the parish at noosing any wild animal, is our patron of the feast. He has wanted for many a day to say something in the ear of Matilda Vercelli. Bringing up the leveret to my bedside, and opening the lips, and cracking the knuckles, and turning the foot round to show the quality and quantity of the hair upon it, and to prove that it really and truly was a leveret, and might be eaten without offence to my teeth, he informed me that he had left his mother in the yard, ready to dress it for me; she having been cook to the prior. He protested he owed the crowned martyr a forest of leverets, boars, deers, and everything else within them, for having commanded the most backward girls to dance directly. Whereupon he darted forth at Matilda, saying, "The crowned martyr orders it," seizing both her hands, and swinging her round before she knew what she was about. He soon had an opportunity of applying a word, no doubt as dexterously as hand or foot; and she said submissively, but seriously, and almost sadly, "Marc-Antonio, now all the people have seen it, they will think it."

'And after a pause:

'"I am quite ashamed: and so should you be: are not you now?"

'The others had run into the church. Matilda, who scarcely had noticed it, cried suddenly:

'"O Santissima! we are quite alone."

'"Will you be mine?" cried he, enthusiastically.

'"Oh! they will hear you in the church," replied she.