And go they did; the whole town shuddering at the impiety of it, but kept from any demonstration by the tempest.Carriages went round to the convent; and the women were loaded into them, packed into them, carried and put in, if they were too infirm to go themselves.They were driven away, cross and wet and bedraggled.They found their dwelling on the hill not half prepared for them, leaking and cold and cheerless.They experienced very rough treatment, if I can credit my informant, who says she hates the government, and would not even look out of her lattice that day to see the carriages drive past.
And when the Lady Superior was driven away from the gate, she said to the officials, and the few faithful attendants, prophesying in the midst of the rain that poured about her, "The day will come shortly, when you will want rain, and shall not have it; and you will pray for my return."And it did not rain, from that day for three years.
And the simple people thought of the good Superior, whose departure had been in such a deluge, and who had taken away with her all the moisture of the land; and they did pray for her return, and believed that the gates of heaven would be again opened if only the nunnery were repeopled.But the government could not see the connection between convents and the theory of storms, and the remnant of pious women was permitted to remain in their lodgings at Massa.Perhaps the government thought they could, if they bore no malice, pray as effectually for rain there as anywhere.
I do not know, said my informant, that the curse of the Lady Superior had anything to do with the drought, but many think it had; and those are the facts.
CHILDREN OF THE SUN
The common people of this region are nothing but children; and ragged, dirty, and poor as they are, apparently as happy, to speak idiomatically, as the day is long.It takes very little to please them; and their easily-excited mirth is contagious.It is very rare that one gets a surly return to a salutation; and, if one shows the least good-nature, his greeting is met with the most jolly return.
The boatman hauling in his net sings; the brown girl, whom we meet descending a steep path in the hills, with an enormous bag or basket of oranges on her head, or a building-stone under which she stands as erect as a pillar, sings; and, if she asks for something, there is a merry twinkle in her eye, that says she hardly expects money, but only puts in a "beg" at a venture because it is the fashion; the workmen clipping the olive-trees sing; the urchins, who dance about the foreigner in the street, vocalize their petitions for un po' di moneta in a tuneful manner, and beg more in a spirit of deviltry than with any expectation of gain.When I see how hard the peasants labor, what scraps and vegetable odds and ends they eat, and in what wretched, dark, and smoke-dried apartments they live, I wonder they are happy; but I suppose it is the all-nourishing sun and the equable climate that do the business for them.They have few artificial wants, and no uneasy expectation--bred by the reading of books and newspapers--that anything is going to happen in the world, or that any change is possible.Their fruit-trees yield abundantly year after year; their little patches of rich earth, on the built-up terraces and in the crevices of the rocks, produce fourfold.The sun does it all.
Every walk that we take here with open mind and cheerful heart is sure to be an adventure.Only yesterday, we were coming down a branch of the great gorge which splits the plain in two.On one side the path is a high wall, with garden trees overhanging.On the other, a stone parapet; and below, in the bed of the ravine, an orange orchard.Beyond rises a precipice; and, at its foot, men and boys were quarrying stone, which workmen raised a couple of hundred feet to the platform above with a windlass.As we came along, a handsome girl on the height had just taken on her head a large block of stone, which I should not care to lift, to carry to a pile in the rear; and she stopped to look at us.We stopped, and looked at her.
This attracted the attention of the men and boys in the quarry below, who stopped work, and set up a cry for a little money.We laughed, and responded in English.The windlass ceased to turn.The workmen on the height joined in the conversation.A grizzly beggar hobbled up, and held out his greasy cap.We nonplussed him by extending our hats, and beseeching him for just a little something.Some passers on the road paused, and looked on, amused at the transaction.A boy appeared on the high wall, and began to beg.I threatened to shoot him with my walkingstick, whereat he ran nimbly along the wall in terror The workmen shouted; and this started up a couple of yellow dogs, which came to the edge of the wall and barked violently.The girl, alone calm in the confusion, stood stock still under her enormous load looking at us.We swung out hats, and hurrahed.The crowd replied from above, below, and around us, shouting, laughing, singing, until the whole little valley was vocal with a gale of merriment, and all about nothing.The beggar whined; the spectators around us laughed; and the whole population was aroused into a jolly mood.Fancy such a merry hullaballoo in America.For ten minutes, while the funny row was going on, the girl never moved, having forgotten to go a few steps and deposit her load; and when we disappeared round a bend of the path, she was still watching us, smiling and statuesque.