The Patriot Part 40

"Oh, what a lie!" Luisa exclaimed, in a tone full of contempt, but not angrily. "As if it were possible she would go to her and not come to me!"

"Maria has touched her heart," Franco went on. "She begs us to pardon her. She fears she is dying, and entreats me to come to her, to bring her a word of peace from you also."

Franco himself did not believe in the apparition, being profoundly sceptical of everything that was supernatural outside of religion, but he did believe that Maria, in her higher state, had already been able to work a miracle, and touch his grandmother's heart, and the thought caused him indescribable emotion. Luisa remained like ice. She was not even irritated, as Franco had feared she would be, by the proposal to send a friendly message. "Your grandmother fears h.e.l.l," she observed with her mortal coldness. "h.e.l.l does not exist, and so all this amounts to nothing more than a fright. The suffering is not great. Let her bear it, and then die as we all must, and so, 'Amen.'" Franco saw it would be useless to insist. "Then I will go," said he. She was silent.

"I don't think I shall be able to come back this way," Franco added. "I shall have to take to the hills."

Still no answer.

"Luisa!" the young man said softly. Reproach, grief, pa.s.sion, all these were in his appeal. Luisa's hands, that had never once paused in their work, now became still. She murmured:

"I no longer feel anything. I am like a stone."

Franco turned faint. He kissed his wife on her hair, said good-bye, and then entered the alcove, where, kneeling beside the little bed, he threw his arms across it, recalling his treasure's little voice: "One kiss more, papa!" A paroxysm of weeping a.s.sailed him, but he controlled himself, and hurriedly left the room.

In the hall his friends were impatiently awaiting his return. How could they start? They did not know the way. The lawyer was, indeed, acquainted with the Boglia road, but was that the best way to go if they wished to avoid the guards? On hearing that Franco was going to Cressogno they were filled with amazement, and Pedraglio gave vent to his indignation, saying it was shameful to forsake his friends in this fas.h.i.+on, when they were in trouble. When the prefect realised how matters stood he took Pedraglio's part, and offered to explain Franco's absence to his grandmother, and proposed that Franco should write a line or two, which he himself would carry to Cressogno. But Franco was convinced that his Maria wished him to take this step, and he would not yield. He suddenly remembered that the prefect was as familiar as a hare with all the mountain paths. "You go!" said he, addressing the priest.

"You accompany them!" The prefect was about to reply that perhaps the Signora Marchesa might need him, when the lawyer exclaimed: "Hus.h.!.+ Look there!"

Directly in front of the house, where the shadow of Monte Bisgnago lay obliquely upon the rippling water, a boat had stopped. Franco recognised the customs-guards' launch.

"I am willing to wager those hogs are watching for us," Pedraglio murmured. "They are afraid we shall escape by boat. Anyway, they are on the lookout."

"Hus.h.!.+" the lawyer repeated, approaching the window that overlooked the church-place.

All held their breath in silence.

"Children," said V., turning quickly from the window, "we are done for!"

Franco went to the window, and saw a solitary figure running towards the house. He concluded the lawyer had given a false alarm, but the man--it was he who went by the nickname of "the hunted hare," and who knew and saw everything--flung two words upwards as he pa.s.sed beneath the window: "The police!" At the same moment they heard the noise of many feet. "Come with me! You also, Prefect!" cried Franco, and the others following, he made for the little courtyard between the house and the hillside, and, pa.s.sing through a woodshed, reached the short cut that leads to Albogasio Superiore. It was so dark that no one noticed a customs-guard, standing, carbine in hand, not two steps from the door of the wood-shed. Fortunately this guard, a certain Filippini, from Busto, was an honest fellow, who ate the bread of Austria unwillingly, and simply because he could find no other. "Be quick!" said he in an undertone. "Cut across the fields, and then take the Boglia road! The path below the Madonnina on the left." Franco thanked the man, and, with his companions, started up the steep path that comes out on the narrow communal road of Albogasio Superiore. Half-way up they all jumped into a field of maize on the right, and stopped to listen. They heard steps on the stairs leading upwards from the church-place, and then on the path where the guard was posted. Evidently the police wished to make sure that all the exits were well guarded. The four crawled swiftly away through the maize, and on reaching the spot below a great boulder called "Lori's Rock," they stopped to hold a consultation. They might take the path that comes out on the Albogasio road at the very door of Pasotti's garden, and then climb up from field to field, as far as the Boglia road. But the path would be hard to find at this hour, and fearing to lose too much time, they determined to make for the stairway that leads up from Albogasio Inferiore to Puttini's house, then, leaving Casa Puttini on the right, they could reach the Boglia road in no time.

It was already less dark. In one way this was a disadvantage, but at least it would enable them to find their way through that labyrinth of small fields and low walls. All were silent. Only Pedraglio would utter an oath in Milanese from time to time, as he stumbled over a stone or scratched his hands on a hedge. Then the others would hush him. They reached the narrow stairway preceded by the prefect, who jumped walls and hedges like a squirrel. When they were all together on the stairs Franco withdrew from the group. On the Boglia road they would not need him; he was going to Cressogno. In vain Pedraglio seized him by the arm, in vain the prefect implored him not to expose himself to certain arrest, and probable imprisonment. He believed he was obeying Maria's voice, and felt that he was acting according to the dictates of conscience. He tore himself from Pedraglio, and disappeared up the stairs, for he did not wish to go to Cressogno by way of S.

Mamette--that would be too dangerous.

"Follow me!" said the prefect. "The man is mad, and we have ourselves to think of."

As they were about to turn the corner of Puttini's house, they heard people approaching who were probably going down the stairs. The door of Puttini's house was open. The friends slipped inside. The people pa.s.sed, talking. They were peasants, and one was saying: "Where the deuce can he be going at this hour?" Alas, they had met and recognised Franco! If the gendarmes and the guards should start out to hunt for the fugitives and come across these people, they would discover a trace at once. Towards dawn one is always sure of meeting people. This time they had been able to avoid being seen, but a second time they might be less fortunate, and a meeting might prove as fatal to Pedraglio and the lawyer as this one would probably prove to Franco. "If you could only disguise yourselves as peasants!" said the priest. A happy thought struck the lawyer, who had something both of the poet and the artist, and who was well acquainted with Puttini. He would take _Scior Zacomo's_ clothes for Pedraglio, who was also short, and the big, fat servant's clothes for himself; stuff their own things into a _gerla_,[Q] fasten it upon his back, and start for Boglia. The "first political deputy" of Albogasio might have a hundred reasons for visiting the forest belonging to the commune. No sooner said than done! They proceeded upstairs, and the prefect, who was familiar with the house, went straight to call Marianna. She did not answer, and her room was empty. The prefect guessed at once that the unfaithful servant had gone to S. Mamette for some secret business transaction, like that of the oil. That was why they had found the door open. They went to the kitchen and lighted two candles. The lawyer took one and the prefect pointed out _Scior Zacomo's_ room to him. Meanwhile Pedraglio explored the kitchen by the light of the other candle, in search of "something wet, something to brace him up."

_Scior Zacomo_ slept in a corner room beyond the hall which the lawyer crossed on tiptoe, picking his way between piles of chestnuts, walnuts, filberts, and pears. He approached the door--it was closed. He listened--silence. Very slowly he turned the handle and pushed. The beastly door squeaked--he heard a formidable snort, and _Scior Zacomo_ cried out angrily: "Go away! Let me alone! Go away!" The lawyer entered without further parley. "Away with you, you accursed woman! Go away, I tell you!" cried _Scior Zacomo_, the point of his white night-cap rising out of the pillows. On catching sight of the lawyer he began to groan: "Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! Oh, dear me! For pity's sake, forgive me! I thought it was my servant. Most distinguished Advocate, for the love of Heaven, tell me what has happened."

"Nothing, nothing, _Scior Zacomo_!" said the lawyer. "Only the Commissary of Porlezza is here----"

"Oh, good Lord!" and _Scior Zacomo_ started to stick his legs out of bed.

"It is nothing, nothing! Be calm, be calm! Cover yourself up; cover yourself up again! We are going up to Boglia on account of that accursed bull, you know."

"Oh, Lord! What are you talking about? There is no bull at Boglia at this time of the year. Oh! I am all bathed in sweat!"

"Never mind. I tell you we are going to see the place, to see where he used to be. But the Commissary has very good reasons for strictly forbidding you to accompany us; he forbids you, moreover, to go out until we return, and he has even ordered me to remove your clothes."

Then he began rapidly collecting Puttini's garments, commanding him in the name of the Commissary to be silent. He took possession of the tall hat, seized the bamboo walking-stick, ordered the wretched man to bolt the door as soon as he should have left the room, and to open it to no one, to speak to no one, until the Commissary's return; all this in the name of that dreaded functionary. Then, leaving the poor man more dead than alive, he once more joined his companions, who, by dint of much searching, had found a filthy dress of Marianna's, a big, red kerchief for the head, a _gerla_, and a bottle of _Anesone triduo_.[R] "The deuce!" swore the lawyer, on examining the loathsome garments he must don. His disguise was indeed most unsatisfactory. The skirt was too short, and the kerchief did not hide his face sufficiently. However there was no time to look for anything better. But Pedraglio, in the tall hat, with the bamboo walking-stick in his hand, was a perfect _Scior Zacomo_. The lawyer thrust an old ma.n.u.script pamphlet he found in the kitchen under his friend's arm, and showed him how to walk and puff.

Finally he took the keys to the wine-cellar, two enormous keys, gave one to Pedraglio and put the other in his own pocket. These would prove valuable weapons in case of need; one, he said, would strike in the treble key, the other in the ba.s.s. And so they went out, the prefect first, followed by the false _Scior Zacomo_ puffing like a steam-engine, and then the false Marianna and her _gerla_ bringing up the rear. Hardly had they reached the street when the real Marianna appeared, returning from S. Mamette with an empty flask. Catching sight of her master's tall hat looming in the uncertain light, she faced about and made off as fast as her legs would carry her.

"Miserable thief!" the prefect exclaimed. "Excellent! Your disguise is splendid!" In five minutes they had reached the Boglia road. Then the prefect turned homewards, and presently, hearing people coming up from Albogasio Superiore talking of gendarmes and guards, he went to meet them and inquired what had happened. Oh, nothing very important; only the gendarmes and soldiers had been to Casa Ribera to arrest Don Franco Maironi, and, it would appear, lawyer V. also, for they were sure he must have been there, and they had been asking every one about him.

However, they had found neither one nor the other of the friends, although the customs-guards had been watching the house since midnight.

Now the police were searching all the houses in Oria, in the belief that the two men must have escaped by the roof. While the prefect was listening to this news a boy came running towards them from the direction of Albogasio Superiore. They stopped him. "The guards!" he gasped; "the gendarmes!" He was as white as a sheet; why he was running away he himself could not tell, and they found it impossible to gather from him where the gendarmes were. A woman appeared on the scene who was able to give them more information. Four customs-guards and four gendarmes had just now crossed the square in Albogasio Superiore. It was rumoured that Don Franco had been seen on the road to Castello, and two gendarmes with two guards had started towards the Boglia. The priest shuddered. "Of course," some one said, "they will cut him off on the Boglia road." The prefect took some comfort in the thought that both gendarmes and guards were now searching for Franco only. He was so tall, so slender, that neither the false Puttini nor the false Marianna could possibly be suspected of being him. Their fate was now beyond his control, but for Franco he could still do much. He started for Cressogno, confident that Franco would reach that place in safety, if the gendarmes did not discover any fresh traces, for they would search for him on all the paths leading from Castello to the frontier, but not on the road to Cressogno.

Pedraglio and the lawyer accomplished the first part of the journey from Albogasio to the stables of Pus, creeping up the precipitous slope like cats, with long and cautious steps. The lawyer advanced in silence, but the other was continually cursing his garments in an undertone. That "beastly hat," that made his forehead slippery with grease, that "infernal tail-coat," that smelt strong of the sweat of ages. They reached Pus without having met a living being. At Pus an old woman came out from between the stables just after they had pa.s.sed, and exclaimed in amazement: "You up here, _Scior Giacomo_? At this hour?" "Puff!"

murmured the lawyer, and Pedraglio began to blow, "Apff! Apff!" like a pair of bellows. "Such paths as these take the breath away, my good sir," said the old woman. They met no one else until they reached Sostra.

Sostra, a stable about half-way up the mountain, with a barn, a shed, and a cistern, lies some distance back from the path. That path is the very worst in the whole of Valsolda. It would make even a wild goat hang its tongue out. Pedraglio and the lawyer, panting and wet through with perspiration, turned into the Sostra for a moment's rest. There all was silence and solitude. At that height they already breathed a different air. And how much lower the mountain-tops had become! And the lake down there in the depths looked like a river! The lawyer cast anxious glances upwards towards the first crest of the Boglia, where the great beech forest begins. Only half an hour more of climbing! "Come along!" said he. But Pedraglio, in whose legs there still lingered the memory of that other long walk from Loveno to Oria by way of the Pa.s.so Stretto, wanted to rest a little longer, and began calmly turning over the leaves of Puttini's old ma.n.u.script. It was a monkish poem by some unknown Cremonese of the seventeenth century. "Come along," his companion repeated after a minute or two, and was already preparing to rise when he heard some one approaching. He had barely time to whisper, "Look out!" and turn his back that his face might not be seen. Pedraglio, though he kept his ma.n.u.script close to his nose, saw first two customs-guards and then two gendarmes appear upon the path. He warned his friend of this in a low tone, and without turning his head. The two guards halted. One of them saluted: "My respects, Signor Puttini."

Turning to the gendarmes, he said: "This gentleman is the first political deputy of Albogasio." The gendarmes saluted also, and Pedraglio raised his hat, and held the ma.n.u.script a little higher. The guards wished to rest awhile, but one of the gendarmes ordered them to move on, and when the rest of the company had started forward, he himself approached the Sostra. He was from Ampezzo, and spoke Italian very fluently. "You dog! I hope you don't know me!" thought Pedraglio, vaguely conscious of his dual personality. "We are in for it, anyway!"

"_Signor Deputato Politico_," said the man, "did you happen to see Signor Maironi at Oria this morning?"

"I? No, indeed. Signor Maironi is in bed and asleep at this hour."

"And you yourself----where are you going?"

"I am going up that mountain, up that accursed Boglia, to see about the communal bull."

"Idiot!" groaned the lawyer inwardly. "He is making it communal now!"

But the "communal" was allowed to pa.s.s unchallenged. The gendarme, who had a face like a bull-dog, stared hard at his interlocutor. "You are a political deputy," said he insolently, "and you wear that thing on your chin?" Instinctively Pedraglio's hand went to his thin, black, pointed beard, the abhorred beard of the liberals. "I will cut it off," said he, with mock seriousness. "Most certainly, my dear sir! Are you also going up the Boglia!" Very stiffly the gendarme moved away, without answering, and all unconscious of the shameful gibbet to which the political deputy was consigning him.

The two friends congratulated themselves on their narrow escape, but they recognised that the game had become very serious. Now they had the guards to reckon with, who knew Puttini well, and they must find a means of avoiding them. And what if that bull-dog of a gendarme should blab about the beard? "Come on! Come on!" said the lawyer. "Let us follow them, and if we see or hear them turn back we must take to our heels and make off to the left, towards the frontier." This would have been a desperate move, for they were unacquainted with the ground, with which the guards were undoubtedly familiar.

But in order to catch up with his companions the bull-dog had to sweat and pant so hard that when he reached them he had no desire left to speak of beards. Pedraglio and the lawyer climbed slowly upwards, and saw the enemy reach the crest of the hill at the Madonnina beech-tree.

There they halted for some time and then disappeared.

The venerable beech-tree, which had the honour of bearing upon its trunk an image of the Madonna, which, on its death, it bequeathed to a small chapel, stood like a sentinel before the great forest of Boglia, like a soldier posted in this dip of the crest, to keep watch over the precipitous hillside, the lake, and the sloping ground of Valsolda. The venerable army of colossal beeches stood marshalled in another silent hollow between the slope of Colmaregia, the easily climbed Dorsi della Nave, the rocky base of the Denti di Vecchia or Canne d'Organo, and that other saddle of the Pian Biscagno, between Colmaregia and the Sa.s.so Grande, and faced the depths of Val Colla from Lugano to Cadro. An open, gra.s.s-grown strip of ground stretched along the edge of the crest, between the Madonnina beech-tree and the forest. The two fugitives stopped to consider their position. Which way should they go? Should they look for the little path below the beech-tree, of which the guard who had saved them had spoken, or should they enter the forest? No, it would be unwise to take to the woods, in the wake of the game they had just seen enter them. In the forest they were sure to find the dead leaves lying ankle-deep, and it would be impossible to pa.s.s through without attracting the attention of the blood-hounds that were roaming there, and their disguise would not bear close inspection. The path?

There were more paths than one beneath the beech-tree. Which was the right one? Pedraglio swore at the absent Franco for not having accompanied them, but the lawyer was studying the Colmaregia, which could be climbed without entering the forest. He had twice made the ascent of the Colmaregia, that superb, slender, gra.s.s-grown peak of the Boglia, which the line of the frontier cuts in halves. He knew that from there they would be able to descend to the Swiss village of Bre, and he resolved to try that route. No one was visible on the crest that rises from the Madonnina beech towards the Colmaregia, and the summit was enveloped in clouds.

Just below the beech-tree they were overtaken by a wave of mist which had rolled up one side of the mountain and was rapidly pouring down the other; a cold, thick mist, a mist "as bad as they make them," so V.

said. They could not see five steps ahead, and thus it happened that near the beech-tree Pedraglio ran almost into the arms of a customs-guard.

He was one of the four, and had been told off to guard the open s.p.a.ce between the brow of the hill and the forest. Catching sight of the little man in the top-hat, he exclaimed: "On the Boglia, Sig----" The lawyer quickly cast aside his _gerla_, and the guard did not finish his sentence, but stared a moment, open-mouthed, and then exclaimed: "How is this?"

The lawyer did not wait for further explanations.

"This is how it is," said he calmly, and drawing his fists into position on his breast, he hit out suddenly, and dealt the guard a tremendous blow in the stomach that sent him rolling on the gra.s.s, his heels in the air. In a flash Pedraglio was upon him, and s.n.a.t.c.hed his carbine from him.

"If you yell, you dog, I shall do for you!" said he. But how could he possibly yell? With a blow like that in the stomach, it was all he could do to breathe for at least fifteen minutes. In fact the man lay like one dead, and it was some time before they could even make him groan faintly: "Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!"

"It's nothing, nothing at all," V. told him with his usual, mocking calm. "Shocks like that are good for the health. You will see. Now, my friend, you are just going to pick yourself up and stand nice and firm on your legs, and accompany us to Colmaregia. You will see how well you will be able to walk. I was careful not to use this." And he showed him the key.

"Oh, what a blow!" groaned the guard. "Oh, what a terrible blow!"

"It is indeed a rather stiff climb," the lawyer went on, taking the carbine from Pedraglio, "but with your permission we will help you up from behind with the point of this instrument. Thus climbing will become a delight. Then you must bear us company down to Bre. We will carry your carbine for you, but you, in return, must carry this little _gerla_. Is my meaning quite clear to you? Now, march!"

But the wretched man could not get to his feet and they certainly could not leave him there and run the risk of his calling out for help.