The Valley Of Decision

festosa fronteI lugubri

gh closed doors--voices shouting at the oxen in thelower fields, the querulous bark of the

the dusky background of the chancel like a water-lilyon its leaf. The face was that of the saint of Assisi--a sunken ravagedcountenance, lit with an ecstasy

d of the farmer's son, he found amelancholy kinship in that suffering face; but since he had fightingblood in him too, coming on the mother's side of the rude Piedmontesestock of

anor of the Dukes ofPianura, had been used as a farmhouse; and the chapel was never openedsave when, on Easter Sunday, a priest came from the town to say mass. Atother times it stood aban

anotherlegend related that Alda, wife of an early lord of Pianura, had thrownherself from its battlements to escape the pursuit of the terribleEzzelino. The chapel adjoined this keep, and Filomen

tance to which theseconflicting statements seemed to relegate them, Odo somehow felt asthough these pale strange people--youths with ardent faces under theirsmall round caps, damsels with wheat-coloured hair and boys no biggerthan himself, holding spotted dogs in leash--were younger and nearer tohim than the dwellers on the farm: Jacopone the farmer, the shrillFilomena, who was Odo's foster

nine, whose remote connection with the reigningline of Pianura did not preserve him from wear

"These you are wearing are my Giannozzo's, as youwell know, and every rag on your back is mine, if there were any law forpoor folk, for not a copper of pay for your

? Well, then, go askyour friends on the chapel-walls--maybe they'll give you a pair ofshoes--though Saint Francis, for that matter, was the father of thediscalced, and would doubtless tell you to go without!" And she wouldadd with a coarse laugh: "Don't you know

ren. All over Italy at that moment, had Odo Valseccabut known it, were lads whose ancestors, like his own, had been dukesand crusaders, but who, none the less, were faring, as he fared, onblack bread and hard blows, and the half-comprehended taunts of unpaidfoster-parents. Many, doubtless, there were wh

got their fun in so coarsea way. Now and then he found a moment's glee in a sharp tussle with oneof the younger children who had been tormenting a frog or a beetle; buthe was still too young for real fighting, and could only hang on theoutskirts when the bigg

old trappings represented hismother, whom he had seen too seldom for any distinct image to interferewith the illusion; a knight in damascened armour and scarlet cloak wasthe valiant ca

re that afternoon witha keener sense than usual of the fact that life was hard on little boys;and though he was cold and hungry and half afraid, the solitude in whichhe cowered seemed more

rince; but, viewed from the lowliness of his nine years, that dazzlingprospect was too remote to yield much solace for the cuffs and sneers,the ragged shoes and sour bread of the present. The fog outside hadthickened, and the face of Odo's friend was now discernible only as aspot

ounds mean? It was as though theflood-tide of the unknown were rising about him and bursting open thechapel door to pour in on his loneliness. It was, in fact, Filomena whoo

of a sudden,nearer to him than any one else--a last barri

he threshold ofthe chapel, "the abate is here asking for yo

stful glance at Saint Francis,who looked

s hand. "Have you no heart, youwicked child? But, to be sure, the poor innocent doesn't know! Comecavaliere,

, go to him. I haven't told him, yourreverence; it's my silly tender-heartedness that won't let me.

ffles. His nostrils were stained with snuff and he tooka pinch from a tortoise-shell box

abate could use thecane. Odo stood silent and envied girls, who are not disgraced bycrying. The tears were in his throat, but he had fixed principles aboutcrying. It was his opinion that

ezed and tapped

lady is plunged in despair. Eh? What's that? Youhaven't told him? Cavaliere, your illustrious father is no more."Odo stared a moment without understandi

supper laid? for we mustbe gone as soon as the

your mind to recite the

ied Odo with r

set him downbefore the coarse tablecloth covered with earthen platters. A tallow dipthrew its flare on the abate's big aquiline face as he sat opposite Odo,gulping the hastily prepared frittura and the thick purple wine in itswicker flask. Odo could eat nothing. The tears still ran down h

en. You must be aman, cavaliere." Then he stepped into

ekitchen door. In a corner of the big vaulted room the little foundlingwas washing the dishes, heaping the scraps in a bowl for herself and

a panettone. The abate was calling him, and the next moment he foundhimself lifted into the carriage, amid the blessings and lamentations ofhis fo

with stars. Odo cowered in his corner, staring out awestruck at theunrolling of the strange white landscape. He had seldom been out atnight, and never in a carriage; and there was something terrifying tohim in this flight through the silent moon-washed fields, where no oxenmoved in the furrows, no peasants pruned the mulberries, and not agoat's bell tinkl