On narrow ledges of precipices, aloft in the air where it would seem that a bird could scarcely light, we distinguish the forms of men and women; and their voices come down to us.They are peasants cutting grass, every spire of which is too precious to waste.
We descend, and pass by a house on a knoll, and a terrace of olives extending along the road in front.Half a dozen children come to the road to look at us as we approach, and then scamper back to the house in fear, tumbling over each other and shouting, the eldest girl making good her escape with the baby.My companion swings his hat, and cries, "Hullo, baby!" And when we have passed the gate, and are under the wall, the whole ragged, brown-skinned troop scurry out upon the terrace, and run along, calling after us, in perfect English, as long as we keep in sight, "Hullo, baby!" "Hullo, baby!" The next traveler who goes that way will no doubt be hailed by the quick-witted natives with this salutation; and, if he is of a philological turn, he will probably benefit his mind by running the phrase back to its ultimate Greek roots.
A DRY TIME
For three years, once upon a time, it did not rain in Sorrento.Not a drop out of the clouds for three years, an Italian lady here, born in Ireland, assures me.If there was an occasional shower on the Piano during all that drought, I have the confidence in her to think that she would not spoil the story by noticing it.
The conformation of the hills encircling the plain would be likely to lead any shower astray, and discharge it into the sea, with whatever good intentions it may have started down the promontory for Sorrento.
I can see how these sharp hills would tear the clouds asunder, and let out all their water, while the people in the plain below watched them with longing eyes.But it can rain in Sorrento.Occasionally the northeast wind comes down with whirling, howling fury, as if it would scoop villages and orchards out of the little nook; and the rain, riding on the whirlwind, pours in drenching floods.At such times I hear the beat of the waves at the foot of the rock, and feel like a prisoner on an island.Eden would not be Eden in a rainstorm.
The drought occurred just after the expulsion of the Bourbons from Naples, and many think on account of it.There is this to be said in favor of the Bourbons: that a dry time never had occurred while they reigned,--a statement in which all good Catholics in Sorrento will concur.As the drought went on, almost all the wells in the place dried up, except that of the Tramontano and the one in the suppressed convent of the Sacred Heart,--I think that is its name.
It is a rambling pile of old buildings, in the center of the town, with a courtyard in the middle, and in it a deep well, boring down Iknow not how far into the rock, and always full of cold sweet water.
The nuns have all gone now; and I look in vain up at the narrow slits in the masonry, which served them for windows, for the glance of a worldly or a pious eye.The poor people of Sorrento, when the public wells and fountains had gone dry, used to come and draw at the Tramontano; but they were not allowed to go to the well of the convent, the gates were closed.Why the government shut them Icannot see: perhaps it knew nothing of it, and some stupid official took the pompous responsibility.The people grumbled, and cursed the government; and, in their simplicity, probably never took any steps to revoke the prohibitory law.No doubt, as the government had caused the drought, it was all of a piece, the good rustics thought.
For the government did indirectly occasion the dry spell.I have the information from the Italian lady of whom I have spoken.Among the first steps of the new government of Italy was the suppression of the useless convents and nunneries.This one at Sorrento early came under the ban.It always seemed to me almost a pity to rout out this asylum of praying and charitable women, whose occupation was the encouragement of beggary and idleness in others, but whose prayers were constant, and whose charities to the sick of the little city were many.If they never were of much good to the community, it was a pleasure to have such a sweet little hive in the center of it; and I doubt not that the simple people felt a genuine satisfaction, as they walked around the high walls, in believing that pure prayers within were put up for them night and day; and especially when they waked at night, and heard the bell of the convent, and knew that at that moment some faithful soul kept her vigils, and chanted prayers for them and all the world besides; and they slept the sounder for it thereafter.I confess that, if one is helped by vicarious prayer, Iwould rather trust a convent of devoted women (though many of them are ignorant, and some of them are worldly, and none are fair to see)to pray for me, than some of the houses of coarse monks which I have seen.
But the order came down from Naples to pack off all the nuns of the Sacred Heart on a day named, to close up the gates of the nunnery, and hang a flaming sword outside.The nuns were to be pulled up by the roots, so to say, on the day specified, and without postponement, and to be transferred to a house prepared for them at Massa, a few miles down the promontory, and several hundred feet nearer heaven.
Sorrento was really in mourning: it went about in grief.It seemed as if something sacrilegious were about to be done.It was the intention of the whole town to show its sense of it in some way.
The day of removal came, and it rained! It poured: the water came down in sheets, in torrents, in deluges; it came down with the wildest tempest of many a year.I think, from accurate reports of those who witnessed it, that the beginning of the great Deluge was only a moisture compared to this.To turn the poor women out of doors such a day as this was unchristian, barbarous, impossible.
Everybody who had a shelter was shivering indoors.But the officials were inexorable.In the order for removal, nothing was said about postponement on account of weather; and go the nuns must.