CIARPE.

CIARPE.THE TWO FRIARS.1Two friars once went out on a journey, that is to say, a friar and a lay brother.2One day of their journey, when they were far from their convent, the friar said to the lay brother: ‘We fare poorly enough all the days of our life in our convent, let us, for one day of our lives, taste the good things of this world which others enjoy every day.’‘You know better than I, who am only a poor simple lay brother,’ answered the other, ‘whether such a thing may be done. I don’t mean to say I should not like to have a jolly good dinner for once; but there is the uneasiness of conscience to spoil the feast, and the penance afterwards. I think we had better leave it alone.’They journeyed on, therefore, and said no more about it that day, but the next, when they were very hungry after a long walk through the cold mountain air, the scent of the viands preparing in the inn as they drew near brought the subject of yesterday’s conversation to their minds again, and the friar said to the lay brother: ‘You know even our rule says that when we are journeying we cannot live as we do in our convent; we must eat and drink whatever we find in the places to which we are sent; moreover, some relaxation is allowed for the restoration of the body under the fatigues of the journey. Now, if we come, as it has often happened to us, to a poor little mountain village, where scarcely a wholesome crust of bread is to be found, to be washed down with a glass of sour wine, we have to take it for all our dinner, and eat it with thanksgiving. Therefore why, now, when we come to a place where the fare is less scanty, even as by the odours we perceive is the casehere, should we not also take what is found ready, and eat it with thanksgiving?’‘What you say seems right and just enough,’ said the lay brother, not at all sorry to have his scruples so speciously explained away. ‘But there is one thing you have not thought of. It is all very well to say we will eat and drink this and that, but how are we poor friars, who possess nothing, to command the delicacies which are smoking round the fire, and which have to be paid for by well-stored purses?’‘Oh! that is not the difficulty,’ replied the friar; ‘leave that to me.’By this time they had reached the threshold of the inn, and, taking his companion’s last feeble resistance for consent, the friar strutted into the eating-room with so bold an air that the lay brother hardly knew him for the humble religious he had been accompanying anon.‘Ho! here! John, Peter, Francis, whatever you are called!’‘Francesco, to your service,’ replied the host humbly, thinking by his commanding tone he must be some son of a great family.‘Francescoguercino,3then,’ continued the friar in the same high-sounding voice, ‘take away this foul table-cloth, and bring the cleanest and finest in your house; remove these cloudy glasses and bring out the bright ones you have there locked up in the glass case, and replace these bone spoons and forks4with the silver ones out of your strong box.’‘Your Excellency is served!’5said the host, who, as well as his wife and son, had bustled so fast to do what he was so peremptorily ordered that all was done as soon as spoken.‘Now then Francescoguercino, what have you got to put before a hungry gentleman in this poor little place of yours?’‘Excellenza! when you have tasted the cooking of my poor little house,’ said the host, ‘you will not, I am sure, be displeased; all unworthy as it is of your Excellency’s palate. For what we have ready, we have beef for our boiled meat, good brains for our fried, the plumpest poultry for our grilled, and the freshest eggs for our omelette; or, if your Excellency prefers it, we have hashed turkey, with crisp watercresses; and as for our soup,6there is not an inn in the whole province can beat us, I know. And for dessert we have cheese and fruits, and’——‘Well done, Francescoguercino,’ said the friar interrupting him. ‘You know how to cry your own wares, at all events. Bring us the best of what you have; it is not for poor friars to complain of what is set before us.’The last sentence gave the host a high idea of the piety of his guest just as the hectoring tone he had assumed had convinced him he must be high-born, and in a trice the best of everything in the house was made ready for the table of the friar. All other guests had to wait, or go away unserved; the host was intent only on serving the friar.Every dish he took to the table himself, and as he did so each time the friar, fixing on him a look of sanctity, exclaimed,—‘Blessed Francesco! Blessed Francesco!’7At the close of the meal, as he was hovering about the table, nervously wiping away a crumb, or polishing a plate, he said, with trembling:‘Excellenza! Permit a poor man to put one question. What is there you see about me that makes you look at me as though you saw happiness in store, and exclaim with so much unction as quite to fill me with joy, “Blessed Francesco!”?’‘True, something I see wherefore I call thee blessed,’ replied the friar; ‘but I cannot tell it thee now. To-morrow,perhaps, I may find it easier. Impossible now, friend. Now, pray thee, show us our rooms.’It needed not to add any injunctions concerning the rooms; of course, the cleanest and the best were appointed by Francesco spontaneously for such honoured guests.‘How do you think we are getting on?’ said the friar to the lay brother when they were alone.‘Excellently well so far,’ replied the other; ‘things have passed my lips this night which never have they tasted before, nor ever may again. But the reckoning, the reckoning; that is what puzzles me: when it comes to paying the bill, what’ll you do then?’‘Leave it all to me,’ returned the friar; ‘I’m quite satisfied with the man we have to deal with. It will all come right, never fear.’The next morning the two brothers were astir betimes, but Francesco was on the look-out to serve them.‘Excellenza! you will not leave without breakfast, Excellenza!’‘Yes, Francesco; poor friars must not mind going without breakfast.’‘Never, from my house, Excellenza!’ responded Francesco. ‘I have the table ready with a bottle of wine freshly drawn from the cellar, eggs that were born8since daylight, only waiting your appearance to be boiled, rolls this moment drawn from the oven, and my wife is at the stove preparing a fried dish9fit for a king.’‘Too much, too much, Francesco! You spoil us; we are not used to such things,’ said the lay brother as they sat down; but Francesco had flown into the kitchen, and returned with the dish.‘Blessed Francesco!’ said the friar as he set it on the table.‘I will not disturb your Excellency now,’ said Francesco; ‘but, after you have breakfasted, I crave your remembrance of your promise of last night, that youwould reveal to me this morning wherefore you say with such enthusiasm “Blessed Francesco!”’‘It is not time to speak of it now,’ said the friar; ‘first we have our reckoning to make.’The lay brother hid his face in his table-napkin in terror, and seemed to be seized with a distressing fit of coughing.‘Oh, don’t speak of the reckoning, Excellenza; that is as nothing.’‘Nay,’ said the friar; ‘that must not be;’ and he made a gesture as if he would have drawn out a purse, while under the table he had to press his feet against those of the lay brother to silence his rising remonstrance for his persistence.‘I couldn’t think of taking anything from your Excellenza,’ persisted the host, putting his hands behind him that no money might be forced upon him.The more stedfastly he refused the more perseveringly the friar continued to press the payment, till, with his companion, he had gained the threshold of the door.As they were passing out, however, the host once more exclaimed, ‘But the explanation your Excellency was to give me of why you said “Blessed Francesco!”’‘Impossible, friend; I cannot tell it here. Wait till I have gained the height of yonder mound, while you stand at its foot, and I will tell it you from thence.’With this they parted.When the friar and his companion had reached the height he had pointed out, and were at a sufficient distance to be saved the fear of pursuit, he turned to the host, who stood gaping at the bottom, and said:‘Lucky for you, Francesco, that when you come to die you will only have the trouble of shutting one eye, instead of two, like other men.’10[Such a story at the expense of a single unworthy monk contains no implied taunt at the religious orders, who are deeply honoured in Rome, and none more than the mendicant Franciscans, most of whom are themselves of the very people. Ever since the invasion of September 20, 1870, every effort has been used to stir up the people against them, but with little effect. At the last Carneval the most elaborate car was got up with the purpose of ridiculing them, but it met with no approval, except from members of the clubs. The narrator of the story was herselfnot only a devoted member of the Church, but had a relative in the order of St. Francis, nor did she tell it without an edifying exordium on the goodness of thefratiin general, though there must be unworthy members of all professions.Facetiæof this class are much rarer in Rome than in Spain.]1Though I believe there is no rule or ground for the distinction, in conversational language, ‘fratello’ is used for ‘brother,’ and ‘frate’ for ‘monk’ (as ‘sorella’ usually means any sister and ‘suora’ a nun). ‘Frate,’ again, is usually, though not by any rule, or exclusively, reserved for the mendicant Franciscans. A Capuchin is called ‘padre cappucino,’ and a Dominican, generally, a ‘padre domenicano.’↑2‘Laico.’↑3‘Guercino.’ There is no very definitely expressed distinction in Italian in the way of saying weak-sighted, or one-eyed, or squinting; ‘guercio’ is used to express all. The termination ‘ino’ here is not an actual diminutive, but means ‘he who is one-eyed,’ or ‘he who is weak-sighted,’ or ‘he who squints,’ with an implied expression of sympathy (see Note 5, p. 379). In this case the conclusion shows that ‘one-eyed’ was intended.↑4‘Posate,’ plural of ‘posata,’ knife, fork, and spoon.↑5‘Ecco servito, Excellenza.’ ‘It is all done as you desire.’↑6The poor, badly fed themselves, delight to dilate on a description of good living, just as dreaming of eating is said to arise from a condition of hunger. I have not added a word here in the text to those of the narrator of the story, and her enumeration is a very fair rendering of the usual repertory of a Roman innkeeper. Broth or thin soup (‘minestra’); a dish of boiled meat (‘lesso’), of ‘arrosto,’ that is, grilled or baked, and of ‘fritto’ (fried) is the regular course: ‘gallinaccio spezzato’ is a turkey cut up in joints and served with various sauces, and is much more esteemed than if cooked whole, a rather unusual dish; ‘frittata,’ omelette; ‘crescione,’ watercresses.↑7‘Beato a te, Francesco.’↑8‘Born,’ an Italianism for ‘laid.’↑9‘Fritto dorato.’ Romans, though not eminent in the culinary art, fry admirably. They always succeed in making their fried dishes a rich golden colour, and they ordinarily express a fried dish by the two words together, ‘fritto dorato.’↑10‘Beato a te, Francesco,Che quando moriraiUn occhio serreraiE l’altro no!’↑THE PREFACE OF A FRANCISCAN.A Franciscan friar was travelling on business of his order when he was overtaken by three brigands, who stole from him his ass, his saddle, and his doubloons. Moreover, they told him that if he informed any man of what they had done they would certainly come after him again and take his life; for they could only sell the ass and the saddle that were known to be his by representing that he had sold them to them, otherwise no one would have bought them.The friar told no man what had happened to him, for fear of losing his life; yet he knew that if he could only let his parishioners know what had occurred, they would soon retake for him all that he had lost.So he hit on the following expedient: next Sunday, as he was saying Mass, when he came to the place in the Preface where special additions commemorative of the particular festivals are inserted, after the enumeration of the praises of God, he added the words, ‘Nevertheless, me, Thy poor servant, evil men have robbed of my ass and her saddle, and all my doubloons; but to no man have I declared the thing, save unto Thee only, Omnipotent Father, who knowest all things, and helpest the poor;’ and then he went on, ‘et ideò cum angelis et archangelis,’ &c.1The parishioners were no sooner thus informed of what had occurred, than they went after the brigands and made them give up all they had taken. The next time, therefore, the father was out in the Campagna, the brigands came after him and said:‘Now, we take your life; last time we let you off, saying we would spare you if you told no man what we had done; but you cannot keep your own counsel, so you must die like the rest.’But the good monk showed them that he had not spoken to man of the thing, but had only lamented his loss before God, which every man was free to do. And the brigands, when they heard that, could say nothing, and they let him go by uninjured, him and his beast.[Such stories are the result of a household familiarity with sacred matters, and are told with genuine fun without the least infusion of irreverence. Just as out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaks, even so we make jokes on whatever subject we are most occupied with. Religious offices are so much a part of the daily life of the Catholic poor that it would be impossible to banish the language of them from their simple jokes. I have had numbers of such told me without the least expression that could be called scoffing in the teller; but I forbear to give more than the two or three in the text by way of specimens, lest the spirit of them should be misjudged.]1The merit of this story consists much in the mode of telling. The narrator should be able to imitate the peculiar tone to which the ‘Preface’ is sung, and to supply the corresponding notes for the additional insertion. It was very effectively done by the person who told it to me.↑THE LENTEN PREACHER.A friar came to preach the Lenten sermons in a country place. The wife of a rich peasant sat under the pulpit, and thought all the time what a nice-looking man he was, instead of listening to his exhortations to penance.When the sermon was over she went home and took out half-a-dozen nice fine pocket-handkerchiefs, and sent them to him by her maid, with a very civil note to beg him to come and see her.As the maid was going out, the husband met her.‘Where are you going?’ said he.The maid, who did not at all like her errand, promised if he would not be angry with her, and would not let her mistress know it, she would tell him all.The husband promised to hold her harmless, and she gave him the handkerchiefs and the note.‘Come here,’ said the husband; and he took her into his room and wrote a note as if from the friar, saying he was much obliged by her presents, and would like to see the lady very much, but that it was impossible they could meet, so she must not think of it. This note the maid took back to her mistress as if from the friar.A few days after this the husband gave out that he would have to go to a fair, and would be away two or three days. Immediately the wife took a pound of the best snuff and sent it as a present to the friar by the same maid with another note, saying the husband was going away on such an evening, and if he then came to see her at an hour after the Ave he would find the door open. This also the maid took to her master; the husband took the snuff and wrote an answer, as if from the friar, to say he would keep the appointment. In the evening he said good-bye to his wife, and went away. But he went to the butcher and bought a stout beef sinew, and at the hour appointed for the friar, he came back dressed as a friar, and beat her with the beef sinew till she was half dead. Then he went down in the kitchen and sent the servant up to heal her, and went away for three days. When he came back the wife was still doubled up, and suffering from the beating.‘What is the matter?’ he said, sympathisingly.‘Oh! I fell down the cellar stairs.’‘What do you mean by leaving your mistress to go down to the cellar?’ he cried out to the servant, withgreat solicitude. ‘How can you allow her to do such things? What’s the use of you?’‘Don’t scold the servant,’ answered the wife; ‘it wasn’t her fault. I shall be all right soon.’ And she made as light of her ailment as she could, to keep him from asking her any more questions. But he was discreet enough to say no more.Only when she was well again he sent to the friar and asked him to come home to dine with them.‘My wife is subject to odd fancies sometimes,’ he said, as they walked home. ‘If she should do anything extravagant, don’t you mind; I shall be there to call her to order.’Then he told the servant to bring in the soup and the boiled meat without waiting for orders, but to keep the grill back till he came to the kitchen door to call her.At the time for the grill, therefore, he got up from table to go and call her, and thus left his wife and the friar alone together. They were no sooner alone than she got up, and calling him a horrid friar, gave him a sound drubbing. The husband came back in time to prevent mischief, and to make excuses; and finding she was cured of her affection, said no more of the affair.ASS OR PIG.1A countryman was going along driving a pig before him. ‘Let’s have a bit of fun with that fellow,’ said the brother porter of a monastery to the father guardian,2as they saw him coming along the road. ‘I’ll call his pig an ass, and of course he’ll say it’s a pig; then I shall laugh at him for not knowing better, and he will grow angry. Then I’ll say, “Well, will you have the father guardian to settle the dispute? and if he decides I’m right I shall keep the beast for myself.” Then you come and say it is an ass, and we’ll keep it.’The father guardian agreed, with a hearty laugh; and as soon as the countryman came up the brother porter did all as he had arranged.The countryman was so sure of his case that he willingly submitted to the arbitration of the father guardian; but great was his dismay when the father guardian decided against him, and he had to go home without his pig.But what did the countryman do? He dressed himself up as a poor girl, and about nightfall, and a storm coming on, he rang at the bell of the monastery and entreated the charity of shelter for the night.‘Impossible!’ said the brother porter; ‘we can’t have any womenkind in here.’‘But the dark, and the storm!’ clamoured the pretended girl; ‘think of that. You can’t leave me out here all alone.’‘I’m very sorry,’ said the porter, ‘but the thing’s impossible. I can’t do it.’The good father guardian, hearing the dispute at that unusual hour, put his head out of the window and asked what it was all about.‘It is a difficult case, brother porter,’ he said when he had heard the girl’s request. ‘If we take her in we infringe our rule in one way; if we leave her exposed to every kind of peril we sin against its spirit in another direction. I only see one way out of it. I can’t send her into any of your cells; but I will let her pass the night in mine, provided she is content not to undress, and will consent to sit up in a chair.’This was exactly what the countryman wanted, therefore he gave a ready assent, and the father guardian took him up into his cell. The pretended girl sat up in a chair quietly enough through the dark of the night, but when morning began to dawn, out came a stick that had been hidden under the petticoats, and whack, whack3—afine drubbing the poor father guardian got, to the tune of—‘So you think I don’t know a pig from an ass, do you?’When he had well bruised him all over, the countryman made the best of his way downstairs, and off and away he was before anyone could catch him.The next day what did he do? He dressed up like a doctor, and came round asking if anyone had any ailments to cure.‘That’s just the thing for us,’ said the brother porter to himself as he saw him come by. ‘The father guardian was afraid to let the doctor of the neighbourhood attend him, for fear of the scandal of all the story coming out; the strange doctor will just do, as there is no need to tell him anything.’The countryman in his new disguise, therefore, was taken up to the father guardian’s cell.‘There’s nothing very much the matter,’ he said when he had examined the wounds and bruises; ‘it might all be set right in a day by a certain herb,’ which he named.The herb was a difficult one to find, but as it was so important to get the father guardian cured immediately, before any inquiry should be raised as to the cause of his sufferings, the whole community set out to wander over the Campagna in search of it.As soon as they were a good way off, the pretended doctor took out a thick stick which he held concealed under his long robe, and whack, whack—belaboured the poor father guardian more terribly even than before, to the tune of—‘So you think I don’t know an ass from a pig, do you?’How far soever the brothers were gone, his cries were so piteous that they recalled them, but not till the countryman had made good his escape.‘We have sinned, my brethren,’ said the father guardian when they were all gathered round him; ‘and I have suffered justly for it. We had no right to take the man’spig, even for a joke. Let it now, therefore, be restored to him, and in amends let there be given him along with it an ass also.’So the countryman got his pig back, and a donkey into the bargain.1‘Asino o porco.’↑2‘Padre Guardiano’ is the ordinary title of the Superior in Franciscan convents.↑3‘Zicherte! Zacherte!’↑THE SEVEN CLODHOPPERS.1Seven clodhoppers went to confession.‘Father, I stole something,’ said the first.‘What was it you stole?’ asked the priest.‘Somemistuanza,2because I was starving,’ replied the country bumpkin.That the poor fellow, who really looked as if he might have been starving, should have stolen some herbs did not seem such a very grave offence; so with due advice to keep his hands from picking and stealing, and a psalm to say for his penance, the priest sent him to communion.Then came the second, and there was the same dialogue. Then the third and the fourth, till all the seven had been up.At last the priest began to think it was a very odd circumstance that such a number of full-grown men should all of a sudden have taken into their heads to go stealing salad herbs; and when the seventh had had his say he rejoined,—‘But what do you mean bymistuanza?’‘Oh, any mixture of things,’ replied the countryman.‘Nay; that’s not the way we use the word,’ responded the priest; ‘so tell mewhat“things” you mean.’‘Oh, some cow, some pig, and some fowl.’3‘You men of themistuanza!’ shouted the priest in righteous indignation, starting out of the confessional; ‘Come back! come back! you can’t go to communion like that.’The seven clodhoppers, finding themselves discovered, began to fear the rigour of justice, and decamped as fast as they could.[Next to gossiping jokes on subjects kindred to religion are jokes about domestic disputes, the greater blame being generally ascribed to the wife.]1‘I sette Villani.’↑2‘Un po’ di mistuanza.’ ‘Mistuanza’ is a word in use among the poor for a mixture of herbs of which they make a kind of poor salad.↑3‘Un po’ di bove, un po’ di porchi, un po’ di galline.’‘Un po’ (un poco) a little. The effect of the story depended a good deal on the tones of voice in which it was told. The deprecatory tone of the penitent as he says, ‘un po’ di bove,’ &c., and the horror of the priest as he cries out, ‘Signori dellamistuanza!’This same story in quite another dress was told me one evening in Aldershot Camp; and as it is a very curious instance of the migration of myths, I give the home version.It would seem that in Aldershot lingo, or in the lingo of a certain regiment once stationed there, to ‘kill a fox’ means to get drunk. Possibly the expression was acquired during the Peninsular war, as ‘tomar una zorrilla’ has an equivalent meaning in Spanish. The story was this. Once during the brief holiday of the chaplain of the regiment, a French priest who knew a little English took his place. At confession the chief fault of which, according to the story, the men accused themselves was that they had ‘killed a fox,’ an expression perfectly well understood by their own pastor. The good French priest, however, instead of being shocked at finding how often men got drunk, was highly edified at the angelic simplicity of these Angles, who showed so much contrition for having indulged in the innocent pastime—in France, not even an offence among sportsmen—of having killed a fox.At last there came one of a more humorous turn of mind than the rest, and thesurnoisair with which he pronounced the expression revealed to the good Frenchman that the words meant something more than they said.‘Vat mean you ven you say, “kill de fox?”’ now inquired the Frenchman of his penitent with fear and trembling. And the blunt soldier had no sooner expounded the slang than the bewildered foreigner threw open the front wicket of the confessional and cried aloud:‘Come back! all you dat have killed de foxes! Come back! come back!’↑THE LITTLE BIRD.1There was an old couple who earned a poor living by working hard all day in the fields.‘See how hard we work all day,’ said the wife; ‘and it all comes of the foolish curiosity of Adam and Eve. If it had not been for that we should have been living now in a beautiful garden, with nothing to do all day long.’‘Yes,’ said the husband; ‘if you and I had been there, instead of Adam and Eve, all the human race had been in Paradise still.’The count, their master, overheard them talking in this way, and he came to them and said: ‘How would you like it if I took you up into my palazzo there, to live and gave you servants to wait on you, and plenty to eat and drink?’‘Oh, that would be delightful indeed! That would be as good as Paradise itself!’ answered husband and wife together.‘Well, you may come up there if you think so. Only remember, in Paradise there was one tree that was not to be touched; so at my table there will be one dish not to be touched. You mustn’t mind that,’ said the count.‘Oh, of course not,’ replied the old peasant; ‘that’s just what I say: when Eve had all the fruits in the garden, what did she want with just that one that was forbidden? And if we, who are used to the scantiest victuals, are supplied with enough to live well, what does it matter to us whether there is an extra dish or not on the table?’‘Very well reasoned,’ said the count. ‘We quite understand each other, then?’‘Perfectly,’ replied both husband and wife.‘You come to live at my palace, and have everything you can want there, so long as you don’t open one dish2which there will be in the middle of the table. If you open that you go back to your former way of life.’‘We quite understand,’ answered the peasants.The count went in and called his servant, and told him to give the peasants an apartment to themselves, with everything they could want, and a sumptuous dinner, only in the middle of the table was to be an earthen dish, into which he was to put a little bird alive, so that if one lifted the cover the bird would fly out. He was to stay in the room and wait on them, and report to him what happened.The old people sat down to dinner, and praised everything they saw, so delightful it all seemed.‘Look! that’s the dish we’re not to touch,’ said the wife.‘No; betternotlook at it,’ said the husband.‘Pshaw! there’s no danger of wanting to open it, when we have such a lot of dishes to eat our fill out of,’ returned the wife.So they set to, and made such a repast as they had never dreamed of before. By degrees, however, as the novelty of the thing wore off, they grew more and more desirous for something newer and newer still. Though when they at first sat down it had seemed that two dishes would be ample to satisfy them, they had now had seven or eight and they were wishing there might be others coming. There is an end to all things human, and no other came; there only remained the earthen dish in the middle of the table.‘We might just lift the lid up a little wee bit,’ said the wife.‘No;don’ttalk about it,’ said the husband.The wife sat still for five minutes, and then she said: ‘If one just lifted up one corner of the lid it could scarcely be called opening it, you know.’‘Better leave it alone altogether, and not think about it at all,’ said the husband.The wife sat still another five minutes, and then she said: ‘If one peeped in just the least in the world it would not be any harm, surely; and Ishouldso like to know what there can possibly be. Now, whatcanthe count have put in that dish?’‘I’m sure I can’t guess in the least,’ said the husband; ‘and I must say I can’t see what it can signify to him if we did look at it.’‘No; that’s what I think. And besides, how would he know if we peeped? it wouldn’t hurt him,’ said the wife.‘No; as you say, one could just take a look,’ said the husband.The wife didn’t want more encouragement than that. But when she lifted one side of the lid the least mite she could see nothing. She opened it the least mite more, and the bird flew out. The servant ran and told his master, and the count came down and drove them out, bidding them never complain of Adam and Eve any more.1‘L’uccelletto,’the little bird.↑2‘Terrino,’ a high earthen dish with a cover, probably the origin of our ‘tureen,’ almost the only kind of Italian dish that ever has a cover.↑THE DEVIL WHO TOOK TO HIMSELF A WIFE.1Listen, and I will tell you what the devil did who took to himself a wife.Ages and ages ago, in the days when the devil was loose—for now he is chained and can’t go about like that any more—the head devil2called the others, and said, ‘Whichever of you proves himself the boldest and cleverest, I will give him his release, and set him free from Inferno.’So they all set to work and did all manner of wild and terrible things, and the one who pleased the head devil best was set free.This devil being set free, went upon earth, and thought he would live like the children of men. So he took a wife, and, of course, he chose one who was handsome and fashionable3, but he didn’t think about anything else, and he soon found that she was no housewife, was never satisfied unless she was gadding out somewhere, would not take a word of reproof, and, what was more, she spent all his money.Every day there were furious quarrels; it was bad enough while the money lasted—and he had brought a good provision with him—but when the money came to an end it was much worse; he was ever reproaching her with extravagance, and she him with stinginess and deception.At last he said to her one day, ‘It’s no use making a piece of work; I’m quite tired of this sort of life; I shall go back to Hell, which is a much quieter place than a house where you are. But I don’t mind doing you a good turn first. I’ll go and possess myself of a certain queen. You dress up like a doctor, and say you will heal her, and all you will have to do will be to pretend to use some ointments4for two or three days, on which I will go out of her. Then they will be so delighted with you for healing her that they will give you a lot of money, on which you can live for the rest of your days, and I will go back to Hell.’ But though he said this, it was only to get rid of her. As soon as he had provided her with the price for casting him out once, he meant to go and amuse himself on earth in other ways; he had no real intention of going back to Hell. Then he instructed her in the means by which she was to find out the queen of whom he was to possess himself, and went his way.The wife, by following the direction he gave, soon found him, and, dressed as a doctor, effected the cure; that is, she made herself known to him in applying the ointments, and he went away as he had agreed.When the king and the court saw what a wonderfulcure had been effected, they gave the woman a sackfull of scudi, but all the people went on talking of her success.The devil meantime had possessed himself of another sovereign, a king this time, and everybody in the kingdom was very desirous to have him cured, and went inquiring everywhere for a remedy. Thus they heard of the fame of the last cure by the devil’s wife. Then they immediately sent for her and insisted that she should cure this king too. But she, not sure whether he would go out a second time at her bidding, refused as long as she could; but they took her, and said, ‘Unless you cure him we shall kill you!’‘Then,’ she said, ‘you must shut me up alone with this king, and I will try what I can do.’So she was shut up alone with him.‘What! you here again!’ said the devil as soon as he perceived her. ‘No; that won’t do this time. I am very comfortable inside this old king, and I mean to stay here.’‘But they threaten to kill me if I don’t make you go; so what am I to do?’ answered the wife.‘I can’t help that,’ he replied; ‘you must get out of the scrape the best way you can.’At this she got in a passion, and, as she used to do in the days when they were living together, rated him so fiercely that at last he was fain to go to escape her scolding.Once more she received a high price for the cure, and her fame got the more bruited abroad.But the devil went into another queen, and possessed himself of her. The fame of the two cures had spread so far that the wife was soon called in to try her powers again.‘I really can’t,’ she pleaded; but the people said:‘What you did for the other two you can do for this one; and, if you don’t, we will cut off your head.’To save her head, therefore, she said, ‘Then you must shut me up in a room alone with the queen.’So she was shut up in the room with her.‘What! you here again!’ exclaimed the devil as soon as he perceived her. ‘No; I positively won’t go this time; I couldn’t be better off than inside this old queen, and till you came I was perfectly happy.’‘They threaten to take my head if I don’t make you go; so what am I to do?’‘Then let them take your head, and let that be an end of it,’ replied the devil testily.‘You are a pretty husband, indeed, to say such a speech to a wife!’ answered she in a high-pitched voice, which he knew was the foretaste of one of those terrible storms he could never resist.Basta!she stormed so loud that she sickened him of her for good and all, and this time, to escape her, instead of possessing himself of any more kings and queens, he went straight off to Hell, and never came forth any more for fear of meeting her.[For variants of thisCiarpa, see Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ pp. 37–43; ‘The Ill-tempered Princess’ in ‘Patrañas,’ &c.]1‘Il Diavolo che prese Moglie.’↑2‘Il Capo diavolo.’↑3‘Il più bravo.’↑4Witches were generally accused of communicating with the Devil, going to midnight meetings with him, &c., by means of ointments. See ‘Del Rio,’ lib. ii. Q. xvi. p. 81, col. 1, C., and lib. iii. P. 1, 2, ii. p. 155, col. 1, B., &c., &c.↑

CIARPE.THE TWO FRIARS.1Two friars once went out on a journey, that is to say, a friar and a lay brother.2One day of their journey, when they were far from their convent, the friar said to the lay brother: ‘We fare poorly enough all the days of our life in our convent, let us, for one day of our lives, taste the good things of this world which others enjoy every day.’‘You know better than I, who am only a poor simple lay brother,’ answered the other, ‘whether such a thing may be done. I don’t mean to say I should not like to have a jolly good dinner for once; but there is the uneasiness of conscience to spoil the feast, and the penance afterwards. I think we had better leave it alone.’They journeyed on, therefore, and said no more about it that day, but the next, when they were very hungry after a long walk through the cold mountain air, the scent of the viands preparing in the inn as they drew near brought the subject of yesterday’s conversation to their minds again, and the friar said to the lay brother: ‘You know even our rule says that when we are journeying we cannot live as we do in our convent; we must eat and drink whatever we find in the places to which we are sent; moreover, some relaxation is allowed for the restoration of the body under the fatigues of the journey. Now, if we come, as it has often happened to us, to a poor little mountain village, where scarcely a wholesome crust of bread is to be found, to be washed down with a glass of sour wine, we have to take it for all our dinner, and eat it with thanksgiving. Therefore why, now, when we come to a place where the fare is less scanty, even as by the odours we perceive is the casehere, should we not also take what is found ready, and eat it with thanksgiving?’‘What you say seems right and just enough,’ said the lay brother, not at all sorry to have his scruples so speciously explained away. ‘But there is one thing you have not thought of. It is all very well to say we will eat and drink this and that, but how are we poor friars, who possess nothing, to command the delicacies which are smoking round the fire, and which have to be paid for by well-stored purses?’‘Oh! that is not the difficulty,’ replied the friar; ‘leave that to me.’By this time they had reached the threshold of the inn, and, taking his companion’s last feeble resistance for consent, the friar strutted into the eating-room with so bold an air that the lay brother hardly knew him for the humble religious he had been accompanying anon.‘Ho! here! John, Peter, Francis, whatever you are called!’‘Francesco, to your service,’ replied the host humbly, thinking by his commanding tone he must be some son of a great family.‘Francescoguercino,3then,’ continued the friar in the same high-sounding voice, ‘take away this foul table-cloth, and bring the cleanest and finest in your house; remove these cloudy glasses and bring out the bright ones you have there locked up in the glass case, and replace these bone spoons and forks4with the silver ones out of your strong box.’‘Your Excellency is served!’5said the host, who, as well as his wife and son, had bustled so fast to do what he was so peremptorily ordered that all was done as soon as spoken.‘Now then Francescoguercino, what have you got to put before a hungry gentleman in this poor little place of yours?’‘Excellenza! when you have tasted the cooking of my poor little house,’ said the host, ‘you will not, I am sure, be displeased; all unworthy as it is of your Excellency’s palate. For what we have ready, we have beef for our boiled meat, good brains for our fried, the plumpest poultry for our grilled, and the freshest eggs for our omelette; or, if your Excellency prefers it, we have hashed turkey, with crisp watercresses; and as for our soup,6there is not an inn in the whole province can beat us, I know. And for dessert we have cheese and fruits, and’——‘Well done, Francescoguercino,’ said the friar interrupting him. ‘You know how to cry your own wares, at all events. Bring us the best of what you have; it is not for poor friars to complain of what is set before us.’The last sentence gave the host a high idea of the piety of his guest just as the hectoring tone he had assumed had convinced him he must be high-born, and in a trice the best of everything in the house was made ready for the table of the friar. All other guests had to wait, or go away unserved; the host was intent only on serving the friar.Every dish he took to the table himself, and as he did so each time the friar, fixing on him a look of sanctity, exclaimed,—‘Blessed Francesco! Blessed Francesco!’7At the close of the meal, as he was hovering about the table, nervously wiping away a crumb, or polishing a plate, he said, with trembling:‘Excellenza! Permit a poor man to put one question. What is there you see about me that makes you look at me as though you saw happiness in store, and exclaim with so much unction as quite to fill me with joy, “Blessed Francesco!”?’‘True, something I see wherefore I call thee blessed,’ replied the friar; ‘but I cannot tell it thee now. To-morrow,perhaps, I may find it easier. Impossible now, friend. Now, pray thee, show us our rooms.’It needed not to add any injunctions concerning the rooms; of course, the cleanest and the best were appointed by Francesco spontaneously for such honoured guests.‘How do you think we are getting on?’ said the friar to the lay brother when they were alone.‘Excellently well so far,’ replied the other; ‘things have passed my lips this night which never have they tasted before, nor ever may again. But the reckoning, the reckoning; that is what puzzles me: when it comes to paying the bill, what’ll you do then?’‘Leave it all to me,’ returned the friar; ‘I’m quite satisfied with the man we have to deal with. It will all come right, never fear.’The next morning the two brothers were astir betimes, but Francesco was on the look-out to serve them.‘Excellenza! you will not leave without breakfast, Excellenza!’‘Yes, Francesco; poor friars must not mind going without breakfast.’‘Never, from my house, Excellenza!’ responded Francesco. ‘I have the table ready with a bottle of wine freshly drawn from the cellar, eggs that were born8since daylight, only waiting your appearance to be boiled, rolls this moment drawn from the oven, and my wife is at the stove preparing a fried dish9fit for a king.’‘Too much, too much, Francesco! You spoil us; we are not used to such things,’ said the lay brother as they sat down; but Francesco had flown into the kitchen, and returned with the dish.‘Blessed Francesco!’ said the friar as he set it on the table.‘I will not disturb your Excellency now,’ said Francesco; ‘but, after you have breakfasted, I crave your remembrance of your promise of last night, that youwould reveal to me this morning wherefore you say with such enthusiasm “Blessed Francesco!”’‘It is not time to speak of it now,’ said the friar; ‘first we have our reckoning to make.’The lay brother hid his face in his table-napkin in terror, and seemed to be seized with a distressing fit of coughing.‘Oh, don’t speak of the reckoning, Excellenza; that is as nothing.’‘Nay,’ said the friar; ‘that must not be;’ and he made a gesture as if he would have drawn out a purse, while under the table he had to press his feet against those of the lay brother to silence his rising remonstrance for his persistence.‘I couldn’t think of taking anything from your Excellenza,’ persisted the host, putting his hands behind him that no money might be forced upon him.The more stedfastly he refused the more perseveringly the friar continued to press the payment, till, with his companion, he had gained the threshold of the door.As they were passing out, however, the host once more exclaimed, ‘But the explanation your Excellency was to give me of why you said “Blessed Francesco!”’‘Impossible, friend; I cannot tell it here. Wait till I have gained the height of yonder mound, while you stand at its foot, and I will tell it you from thence.’With this they parted.When the friar and his companion had reached the height he had pointed out, and were at a sufficient distance to be saved the fear of pursuit, he turned to the host, who stood gaping at the bottom, and said:‘Lucky for you, Francesco, that when you come to die you will only have the trouble of shutting one eye, instead of two, like other men.’10[Such a story at the expense of a single unworthy monk contains no implied taunt at the religious orders, who are deeply honoured in Rome, and none more than the mendicant Franciscans, most of whom are themselves of the very people. Ever since the invasion of September 20, 1870, every effort has been used to stir up the people against them, but with little effect. At the last Carneval the most elaborate car was got up with the purpose of ridiculing them, but it met with no approval, except from members of the clubs. The narrator of the story was herselfnot only a devoted member of the Church, but had a relative in the order of St. Francis, nor did she tell it without an edifying exordium on the goodness of thefratiin general, though there must be unworthy members of all professions.Facetiæof this class are much rarer in Rome than in Spain.]1Though I believe there is no rule or ground for the distinction, in conversational language, ‘fratello’ is used for ‘brother,’ and ‘frate’ for ‘monk’ (as ‘sorella’ usually means any sister and ‘suora’ a nun). ‘Frate,’ again, is usually, though not by any rule, or exclusively, reserved for the mendicant Franciscans. A Capuchin is called ‘padre cappucino,’ and a Dominican, generally, a ‘padre domenicano.’↑2‘Laico.’↑3‘Guercino.’ There is no very definitely expressed distinction in Italian in the way of saying weak-sighted, or one-eyed, or squinting; ‘guercio’ is used to express all. The termination ‘ino’ here is not an actual diminutive, but means ‘he who is one-eyed,’ or ‘he who is weak-sighted,’ or ‘he who squints,’ with an implied expression of sympathy (see Note 5, p. 379). In this case the conclusion shows that ‘one-eyed’ was intended.↑4‘Posate,’ plural of ‘posata,’ knife, fork, and spoon.↑5‘Ecco servito, Excellenza.’ ‘It is all done as you desire.’↑6The poor, badly fed themselves, delight to dilate on a description of good living, just as dreaming of eating is said to arise from a condition of hunger. I have not added a word here in the text to those of the narrator of the story, and her enumeration is a very fair rendering of the usual repertory of a Roman innkeeper. Broth or thin soup (‘minestra’); a dish of boiled meat (‘lesso’), of ‘arrosto,’ that is, grilled or baked, and of ‘fritto’ (fried) is the regular course: ‘gallinaccio spezzato’ is a turkey cut up in joints and served with various sauces, and is much more esteemed than if cooked whole, a rather unusual dish; ‘frittata,’ omelette; ‘crescione,’ watercresses.↑7‘Beato a te, Francesco.’↑8‘Born,’ an Italianism for ‘laid.’↑9‘Fritto dorato.’ Romans, though not eminent in the culinary art, fry admirably. They always succeed in making their fried dishes a rich golden colour, and they ordinarily express a fried dish by the two words together, ‘fritto dorato.’↑10‘Beato a te, Francesco,Che quando moriraiUn occhio serreraiE l’altro no!’↑THE PREFACE OF A FRANCISCAN.A Franciscan friar was travelling on business of his order when he was overtaken by three brigands, who stole from him his ass, his saddle, and his doubloons. Moreover, they told him that if he informed any man of what they had done they would certainly come after him again and take his life; for they could only sell the ass and the saddle that were known to be his by representing that he had sold them to them, otherwise no one would have bought them.The friar told no man what had happened to him, for fear of losing his life; yet he knew that if he could only let his parishioners know what had occurred, they would soon retake for him all that he had lost.So he hit on the following expedient: next Sunday, as he was saying Mass, when he came to the place in the Preface where special additions commemorative of the particular festivals are inserted, after the enumeration of the praises of God, he added the words, ‘Nevertheless, me, Thy poor servant, evil men have robbed of my ass and her saddle, and all my doubloons; but to no man have I declared the thing, save unto Thee only, Omnipotent Father, who knowest all things, and helpest the poor;’ and then he went on, ‘et ideò cum angelis et archangelis,’ &c.1The parishioners were no sooner thus informed of what had occurred, than they went after the brigands and made them give up all they had taken. The next time, therefore, the father was out in the Campagna, the brigands came after him and said:‘Now, we take your life; last time we let you off, saying we would spare you if you told no man what we had done; but you cannot keep your own counsel, so you must die like the rest.’But the good monk showed them that he had not spoken to man of the thing, but had only lamented his loss before God, which every man was free to do. And the brigands, when they heard that, could say nothing, and they let him go by uninjured, him and his beast.[Such stories are the result of a household familiarity with sacred matters, and are told with genuine fun without the least infusion of irreverence. Just as out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaks, even so we make jokes on whatever subject we are most occupied with. Religious offices are so much a part of the daily life of the Catholic poor that it would be impossible to banish the language of them from their simple jokes. I have had numbers of such told me without the least expression that could be called scoffing in the teller; but I forbear to give more than the two or three in the text by way of specimens, lest the spirit of them should be misjudged.]1The merit of this story consists much in the mode of telling. The narrator should be able to imitate the peculiar tone to which the ‘Preface’ is sung, and to supply the corresponding notes for the additional insertion. It was very effectively done by the person who told it to me.↑THE LENTEN PREACHER.A friar came to preach the Lenten sermons in a country place. The wife of a rich peasant sat under the pulpit, and thought all the time what a nice-looking man he was, instead of listening to his exhortations to penance.When the sermon was over she went home and took out half-a-dozen nice fine pocket-handkerchiefs, and sent them to him by her maid, with a very civil note to beg him to come and see her.As the maid was going out, the husband met her.‘Where are you going?’ said he.The maid, who did not at all like her errand, promised if he would not be angry with her, and would not let her mistress know it, she would tell him all.The husband promised to hold her harmless, and she gave him the handkerchiefs and the note.‘Come here,’ said the husband; and he took her into his room and wrote a note as if from the friar, saying he was much obliged by her presents, and would like to see the lady very much, but that it was impossible they could meet, so she must not think of it. This note the maid took back to her mistress as if from the friar.A few days after this the husband gave out that he would have to go to a fair, and would be away two or three days. Immediately the wife took a pound of the best snuff and sent it as a present to the friar by the same maid with another note, saying the husband was going away on such an evening, and if he then came to see her at an hour after the Ave he would find the door open. This also the maid took to her master; the husband took the snuff and wrote an answer, as if from the friar, to say he would keep the appointment. In the evening he said good-bye to his wife, and went away. But he went to the butcher and bought a stout beef sinew, and at the hour appointed for the friar, he came back dressed as a friar, and beat her with the beef sinew till she was half dead. Then he went down in the kitchen and sent the servant up to heal her, and went away for three days. When he came back the wife was still doubled up, and suffering from the beating.‘What is the matter?’ he said, sympathisingly.‘Oh! I fell down the cellar stairs.’‘What do you mean by leaving your mistress to go down to the cellar?’ he cried out to the servant, withgreat solicitude. ‘How can you allow her to do such things? What’s the use of you?’‘Don’t scold the servant,’ answered the wife; ‘it wasn’t her fault. I shall be all right soon.’ And she made as light of her ailment as she could, to keep him from asking her any more questions. But he was discreet enough to say no more.Only when she was well again he sent to the friar and asked him to come home to dine with them.‘My wife is subject to odd fancies sometimes,’ he said, as they walked home. ‘If she should do anything extravagant, don’t you mind; I shall be there to call her to order.’Then he told the servant to bring in the soup and the boiled meat without waiting for orders, but to keep the grill back till he came to the kitchen door to call her.At the time for the grill, therefore, he got up from table to go and call her, and thus left his wife and the friar alone together. They were no sooner alone than she got up, and calling him a horrid friar, gave him a sound drubbing. The husband came back in time to prevent mischief, and to make excuses; and finding she was cured of her affection, said no more of the affair.ASS OR PIG.1A countryman was going along driving a pig before him. ‘Let’s have a bit of fun with that fellow,’ said the brother porter of a monastery to the father guardian,2as they saw him coming along the road. ‘I’ll call his pig an ass, and of course he’ll say it’s a pig; then I shall laugh at him for not knowing better, and he will grow angry. Then I’ll say, “Well, will you have the father guardian to settle the dispute? and if he decides I’m right I shall keep the beast for myself.” Then you come and say it is an ass, and we’ll keep it.’The father guardian agreed, with a hearty laugh; and as soon as the countryman came up the brother porter did all as he had arranged.The countryman was so sure of his case that he willingly submitted to the arbitration of the father guardian; but great was his dismay when the father guardian decided against him, and he had to go home without his pig.But what did the countryman do? He dressed himself up as a poor girl, and about nightfall, and a storm coming on, he rang at the bell of the monastery and entreated the charity of shelter for the night.‘Impossible!’ said the brother porter; ‘we can’t have any womenkind in here.’‘But the dark, and the storm!’ clamoured the pretended girl; ‘think of that. You can’t leave me out here all alone.’‘I’m very sorry,’ said the porter, ‘but the thing’s impossible. I can’t do it.’The good father guardian, hearing the dispute at that unusual hour, put his head out of the window and asked what it was all about.‘It is a difficult case, brother porter,’ he said when he had heard the girl’s request. ‘If we take her in we infringe our rule in one way; if we leave her exposed to every kind of peril we sin against its spirit in another direction. I only see one way out of it. I can’t send her into any of your cells; but I will let her pass the night in mine, provided she is content not to undress, and will consent to sit up in a chair.’This was exactly what the countryman wanted, therefore he gave a ready assent, and the father guardian took him up into his cell. The pretended girl sat up in a chair quietly enough through the dark of the night, but when morning began to dawn, out came a stick that had been hidden under the petticoats, and whack, whack3—afine drubbing the poor father guardian got, to the tune of—‘So you think I don’t know a pig from an ass, do you?’When he had well bruised him all over, the countryman made the best of his way downstairs, and off and away he was before anyone could catch him.The next day what did he do? He dressed up like a doctor, and came round asking if anyone had any ailments to cure.‘That’s just the thing for us,’ said the brother porter to himself as he saw him come by. ‘The father guardian was afraid to let the doctor of the neighbourhood attend him, for fear of the scandal of all the story coming out; the strange doctor will just do, as there is no need to tell him anything.’The countryman in his new disguise, therefore, was taken up to the father guardian’s cell.‘There’s nothing very much the matter,’ he said when he had examined the wounds and bruises; ‘it might all be set right in a day by a certain herb,’ which he named.The herb was a difficult one to find, but as it was so important to get the father guardian cured immediately, before any inquiry should be raised as to the cause of his sufferings, the whole community set out to wander over the Campagna in search of it.As soon as they were a good way off, the pretended doctor took out a thick stick which he held concealed under his long robe, and whack, whack—belaboured the poor father guardian more terribly even than before, to the tune of—‘So you think I don’t know an ass from a pig, do you?’How far soever the brothers were gone, his cries were so piteous that they recalled them, but not till the countryman had made good his escape.‘We have sinned, my brethren,’ said the father guardian when they were all gathered round him; ‘and I have suffered justly for it. We had no right to take the man’spig, even for a joke. Let it now, therefore, be restored to him, and in amends let there be given him along with it an ass also.’So the countryman got his pig back, and a donkey into the bargain.1‘Asino o porco.’↑2‘Padre Guardiano’ is the ordinary title of the Superior in Franciscan convents.↑3‘Zicherte! Zacherte!’↑THE SEVEN CLODHOPPERS.1Seven clodhoppers went to confession.‘Father, I stole something,’ said the first.‘What was it you stole?’ asked the priest.‘Somemistuanza,2because I was starving,’ replied the country bumpkin.That the poor fellow, who really looked as if he might have been starving, should have stolen some herbs did not seem such a very grave offence; so with due advice to keep his hands from picking and stealing, and a psalm to say for his penance, the priest sent him to communion.Then came the second, and there was the same dialogue. Then the third and the fourth, till all the seven had been up.At last the priest began to think it was a very odd circumstance that such a number of full-grown men should all of a sudden have taken into their heads to go stealing salad herbs; and when the seventh had had his say he rejoined,—‘But what do you mean bymistuanza?’‘Oh, any mixture of things,’ replied the countryman.‘Nay; that’s not the way we use the word,’ responded the priest; ‘so tell mewhat“things” you mean.’‘Oh, some cow, some pig, and some fowl.’3‘You men of themistuanza!’ shouted the priest in righteous indignation, starting out of the confessional; ‘Come back! come back! you can’t go to communion like that.’The seven clodhoppers, finding themselves discovered, began to fear the rigour of justice, and decamped as fast as they could.[Next to gossiping jokes on subjects kindred to religion are jokes about domestic disputes, the greater blame being generally ascribed to the wife.]1‘I sette Villani.’↑2‘Un po’ di mistuanza.’ ‘Mistuanza’ is a word in use among the poor for a mixture of herbs of which they make a kind of poor salad.↑3‘Un po’ di bove, un po’ di porchi, un po’ di galline.’‘Un po’ (un poco) a little. The effect of the story depended a good deal on the tones of voice in which it was told. The deprecatory tone of the penitent as he says, ‘un po’ di bove,’ &c., and the horror of the priest as he cries out, ‘Signori dellamistuanza!’This same story in quite another dress was told me one evening in Aldershot Camp; and as it is a very curious instance of the migration of myths, I give the home version.It would seem that in Aldershot lingo, or in the lingo of a certain regiment once stationed there, to ‘kill a fox’ means to get drunk. Possibly the expression was acquired during the Peninsular war, as ‘tomar una zorrilla’ has an equivalent meaning in Spanish. The story was this. Once during the brief holiday of the chaplain of the regiment, a French priest who knew a little English took his place. At confession the chief fault of which, according to the story, the men accused themselves was that they had ‘killed a fox,’ an expression perfectly well understood by their own pastor. The good French priest, however, instead of being shocked at finding how often men got drunk, was highly edified at the angelic simplicity of these Angles, who showed so much contrition for having indulged in the innocent pastime—in France, not even an offence among sportsmen—of having killed a fox.At last there came one of a more humorous turn of mind than the rest, and thesurnoisair with which he pronounced the expression revealed to the good Frenchman that the words meant something more than they said.‘Vat mean you ven you say, “kill de fox?”’ now inquired the Frenchman of his penitent with fear and trembling. And the blunt soldier had no sooner expounded the slang than the bewildered foreigner threw open the front wicket of the confessional and cried aloud:‘Come back! all you dat have killed de foxes! Come back! come back!’↑THE LITTLE BIRD.1There was an old couple who earned a poor living by working hard all day in the fields.‘See how hard we work all day,’ said the wife; ‘and it all comes of the foolish curiosity of Adam and Eve. If it had not been for that we should have been living now in a beautiful garden, with nothing to do all day long.’‘Yes,’ said the husband; ‘if you and I had been there, instead of Adam and Eve, all the human race had been in Paradise still.’The count, their master, overheard them talking in this way, and he came to them and said: ‘How would you like it if I took you up into my palazzo there, to live and gave you servants to wait on you, and plenty to eat and drink?’‘Oh, that would be delightful indeed! That would be as good as Paradise itself!’ answered husband and wife together.‘Well, you may come up there if you think so. Only remember, in Paradise there was one tree that was not to be touched; so at my table there will be one dish not to be touched. You mustn’t mind that,’ said the count.‘Oh, of course not,’ replied the old peasant; ‘that’s just what I say: when Eve had all the fruits in the garden, what did she want with just that one that was forbidden? And if we, who are used to the scantiest victuals, are supplied with enough to live well, what does it matter to us whether there is an extra dish or not on the table?’‘Very well reasoned,’ said the count. ‘We quite understand each other, then?’‘Perfectly,’ replied both husband and wife.‘You come to live at my palace, and have everything you can want there, so long as you don’t open one dish2which there will be in the middle of the table. If you open that you go back to your former way of life.’‘We quite understand,’ answered the peasants.The count went in and called his servant, and told him to give the peasants an apartment to themselves, with everything they could want, and a sumptuous dinner, only in the middle of the table was to be an earthen dish, into which he was to put a little bird alive, so that if one lifted the cover the bird would fly out. He was to stay in the room and wait on them, and report to him what happened.The old people sat down to dinner, and praised everything they saw, so delightful it all seemed.‘Look! that’s the dish we’re not to touch,’ said the wife.‘No; betternotlook at it,’ said the husband.‘Pshaw! there’s no danger of wanting to open it, when we have such a lot of dishes to eat our fill out of,’ returned the wife.So they set to, and made such a repast as they had never dreamed of before. By degrees, however, as the novelty of the thing wore off, they grew more and more desirous for something newer and newer still. Though when they at first sat down it had seemed that two dishes would be ample to satisfy them, they had now had seven or eight and they were wishing there might be others coming. There is an end to all things human, and no other came; there only remained the earthen dish in the middle of the table.‘We might just lift the lid up a little wee bit,’ said the wife.‘No;don’ttalk about it,’ said the husband.The wife sat still for five minutes, and then she said: ‘If one just lifted up one corner of the lid it could scarcely be called opening it, you know.’‘Better leave it alone altogether, and not think about it at all,’ said the husband.The wife sat still another five minutes, and then she said: ‘If one peeped in just the least in the world it would not be any harm, surely; and Ishouldso like to know what there can possibly be. Now, whatcanthe count have put in that dish?’‘I’m sure I can’t guess in the least,’ said the husband; ‘and I must say I can’t see what it can signify to him if we did look at it.’‘No; that’s what I think. And besides, how would he know if we peeped? it wouldn’t hurt him,’ said the wife.‘No; as you say, one could just take a look,’ said the husband.The wife didn’t want more encouragement than that. But when she lifted one side of the lid the least mite she could see nothing. She opened it the least mite more, and the bird flew out. The servant ran and told his master, and the count came down and drove them out, bidding them never complain of Adam and Eve any more.1‘L’uccelletto,’the little bird.↑2‘Terrino,’ a high earthen dish with a cover, probably the origin of our ‘tureen,’ almost the only kind of Italian dish that ever has a cover.↑THE DEVIL WHO TOOK TO HIMSELF A WIFE.1Listen, and I will tell you what the devil did who took to himself a wife.Ages and ages ago, in the days when the devil was loose—for now he is chained and can’t go about like that any more—the head devil2called the others, and said, ‘Whichever of you proves himself the boldest and cleverest, I will give him his release, and set him free from Inferno.’So they all set to work and did all manner of wild and terrible things, and the one who pleased the head devil best was set free.This devil being set free, went upon earth, and thought he would live like the children of men. So he took a wife, and, of course, he chose one who was handsome and fashionable3, but he didn’t think about anything else, and he soon found that she was no housewife, was never satisfied unless she was gadding out somewhere, would not take a word of reproof, and, what was more, she spent all his money.Every day there were furious quarrels; it was bad enough while the money lasted—and he had brought a good provision with him—but when the money came to an end it was much worse; he was ever reproaching her with extravagance, and she him with stinginess and deception.At last he said to her one day, ‘It’s no use making a piece of work; I’m quite tired of this sort of life; I shall go back to Hell, which is a much quieter place than a house where you are. But I don’t mind doing you a good turn first. I’ll go and possess myself of a certain queen. You dress up like a doctor, and say you will heal her, and all you will have to do will be to pretend to use some ointments4for two or three days, on which I will go out of her. Then they will be so delighted with you for healing her that they will give you a lot of money, on which you can live for the rest of your days, and I will go back to Hell.’ But though he said this, it was only to get rid of her. As soon as he had provided her with the price for casting him out once, he meant to go and amuse himself on earth in other ways; he had no real intention of going back to Hell. Then he instructed her in the means by which she was to find out the queen of whom he was to possess himself, and went his way.The wife, by following the direction he gave, soon found him, and, dressed as a doctor, effected the cure; that is, she made herself known to him in applying the ointments, and he went away as he had agreed.When the king and the court saw what a wonderfulcure had been effected, they gave the woman a sackfull of scudi, but all the people went on talking of her success.The devil meantime had possessed himself of another sovereign, a king this time, and everybody in the kingdom was very desirous to have him cured, and went inquiring everywhere for a remedy. Thus they heard of the fame of the last cure by the devil’s wife. Then they immediately sent for her and insisted that she should cure this king too. But she, not sure whether he would go out a second time at her bidding, refused as long as she could; but they took her, and said, ‘Unless you cure him we shall kill you!’‘Then,’ she said, ‘you must shut me up alone with this king, and I will try what I can do.’So she was shut up alone with him.‘What! you here again!’ said the devil as soon as he perceived her. ‘No; that won’t do this time. I am very comfortable inside this old king, and I mean to stay here.’‘But they threaten to kill me if I don’t make you go; so what am I to do?’ answered the wife.‘I can’t help that,’ he replied; ‘you must get out of the scrape the best way you can.’At this she got in a passion, and, as she used to do in the days when they were living together, rated him so fiercely that at last he was fain to go to escape her scolding.Once more she received a high price for the cure, and her fame got the more bruited abroad.But the devil went into another queen, and possessed himself of her. The fame of the two cures had spread so far that the wife was soon called in to try her powers again.‘I really can’t,’ she pleaded; but the people said:‘What you did for the other two you can do for this one; and, if you don’t, we will cut off your head.’To save her head, therefore, she said, ‘Then you must shut me up in a room alone with the queen.’So she was shut up in the room with her.‘What! you here again!’ exclaimed the devil as soon as he perceived her. ‘No; I positively won’t go this time; I couldn’t be better off than inside this old queen, and till you came I was perfectly happy.’‘They threaten to take my head if I don’t make you go; so what am I to do?’‘Then let them take your head, and let that be an end of it,’ replied the devil testily.‘You are a pretty husband, indeed, to say such a speech to a wife!’ answered she in a high-pitched voice, which he knew was the foretaste of one of those terrible storms he could never resist.Basta!she stormed so loud that she sickened him of her for good and all, and this time, to escape her, instead of possessing himself of any more kings and queens, he went straight off to Hell, and never came forth any more for fear of meeting her.[For variants of thisCiarpa, see Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ pp. 37–43; ‘The Ill-tempered Princess’ in ‘Patrañas,’ &c.]1‘Il Diavolo che prese Moglie.’↑2‘Il Capo diavolo.’↑3‘Il più bravo.’↑4Witches were generally accused of communicating with the Devil, going to midnight meetings with him, &c., by means of ointments. See ‘Del Rio,’ lib. ii. Q. xvi. p. 81, col. 1, C., and lib. iii. P. 1, 2, ii. p. 155, col. 1, B., &c., &c.↑

THE TWO FRIARS.1Two friars once went out on a journey, that is to say, a friar and a lay brother.2One day of their journey, when they were far from their convent, the friar said to the lay brother: ‘We fare poorly enough all the days of our life in our convent, let us, for one day of our lives, taste the good things of this world which others enjoy every day.’‘You know better than I, who am only a poor simple lay brother,’ answered the other, ‘whether such a thing may be done. I don’t mean to say I should not like to have a jolly good dinner for once; but there is the uneasiness of conscience to spoil the feast, and the penance afterwards. I think we had better leave it alone.’They journeyed on, therefore, and said no more about it that day, but the next, when they were very hungry after a long walk through the cold mountain air, the scent of the viands preparing in the inn as they drew near brought the subject of yesterday’s conversation to their minds again, and the friar said to the lay brother: ‘You know even our rule says that when we are journeying we cannot live as we do in our convent; we must eat and drink whatever we find in the places to which we are sent; moreover, some relaxation is allowed for the restoration of the body under the fatigues of the journey. Now, if we come, as it has often happened to us, to a poor little mountain village, where scarcely a wholesome crust of bread is to be found, to be washed down with a glass of sour wine, we have to take it for all our dinner, and eat it with thanksgiving. Therefore why, now, when we come to a place where the fare is less scanty, even as by the odours we perceive is the casehere, should we not also take what is found ready, and eat it with thanksgiving?’‘What you say seems right and just enough,’ said the lay brother, not at all sorry to have his scruples so speciously explained away. ‘But there is one thing you have not thought of. It is all very well to say we will eat and drink this and that, but how are we poor friars, who possess nothing, to command the delicacies which are smoking round the fire, and which have to be paid for by well-stored purses?’‘Oh! that is not the difficulty,’ replied the friar; ‘leave that to me.’By this time they had reached the threshold of the inn, and, taking his companion’s last feeble resistance for consent, the friar strutted into the eating-room with so bold an air that the lay brother hardly knew him for the humble religious he had been accompanying anon.‘Ho! here! John, Peter, Francis, whatever you are called!’‘Francesco, to your service,’ replied the host humbly, thinking by his commanding tone he must be some son of a great family.‘Francescoguercino,3then,’ continued the friar in the same high-sounding voice, ‘take away this foul table-cloth, and bring the cleanest and finest in your house; remove these cloudy glasses and bring out the bright ones you have there locked up in the glass case, and replace these bone spoons and forks4with the silver ones out of your strong box.’‘Your Excellency is served!’5said the host, who, as well as his wife and son, had bustled so fast to do what he was so peremptorily ordered that all was done as soon as spoken.‘Now then Francescoguercino, what have you got to put before a hungry gentleman in this poor little place of yours?’‘Excellenza! when you have tasted the cooking of my poor little house,’ said the host, ‘you will not, I am sure, be displeased; all unworthy as it is of your Excellency’s palate. For what we have ready, we have beef for our boiled meat, good brains for our fried, the plumpest poultry for our grilled, and the freshest eggs for our omelette; or, if your Excellency prefers it, we have hashed turkey, with crisp watercresses; and as for our soup,6there is not an inn in the whole province can beat us, I know. And for dessert we have cheese and fruits, and’——‘Well done, Francescoguercino,’ said the friar interrupting him. ‘You know how to cry your own wares, at all events. Bring us the best of what you have; it is not for poor friars to complain of what is set before us.’The last sentence gave the host a high idea of the piety of his guest just as the hectoring tone he had assumed had convinced him he must be high-born, and in a trice the best of everything in the house was made ready for the table of the friar. All other guests had to wait, or go away unserved; the host was intent only on serving the friar.Every dish he took to the table himself, and as he did so each time the friar, fixing on him a look of sanctity, exclaimed,—‘Blessed Francesco! Blessed Francesco!’7At the close of the meal, as he was hovering about the table, nervously wiping away a crumb, or polishing a plate, he said, with trembling:‘Excellenza! Permit a poor man to put one question. What is there you see about me that makes you look at me as though you saw happiness in store, and exclaim with so much unction as quite to fill me with joy, “Blessed Francesco!”?’‘True, something I see wherefore I call thee blessed,’ replied the friar; ‘but I cannot tell it thee now. To-morrow,perhaps, I may find it easier. Impossible now, friend. Now, pray thee, show us our rooms.’It needed not to add any injunctions concerning the rooms; of course, the cleanest and the best were appointed by Francesco spontaneously for such honoured guests.‘How do you think we are getting on?’ said the friar to the lay brother when they were alone.‘Excellently well so far,’ replied the other; ‘things have passed my lips this night which never have they tasted before, nor ever may again. But the reckoning, the reckoning; that is what puzzles me: when it comes to paying the bill, what’ll you do then?’‘Leave it all to me,’ returned the friar; ‘I’m quite satisfied with the man we have to deal with. It will all come right, never fear.’The next morning the two brothers were astir betimes, but Francesco was on the look-out to serve them.‘Excellenza! you will not leave without breakfast, Excellenza!’‘Yes, Francesco; poor friars must not mind going without breakfast.’‘Never, from my house, Excellenza!’ responded Francesco. ‘I have the table ready with a bottle of wine freshly drawn from the cellar, eggs that were born8since daylight, only waiting your appearance to be boiled, rolls this moment drawn from the oven, and my wife is at the stove preparing a fried dish9fit for a king.’‘Too much, too much, Francesco! You spoil us; we are not used to such things,’ said the lay brother as they sat down; but Francesco had flown into the kitchen, and returned with the dish.‘Blessed Francesco!’ said the friar as he set it on the table.‘I will not disturb your Excellency now,’ said Francesco; ‘but, after you have breakfasted, I crave your remembrance of your promise of last night, that youwould reveal to me this morning wherefore you say with such enthusiasm “Blessed Francesco!”’‘It is not time to speak of it now,’ said the friar; ‘first we have our reckoning to make.’The lay brother hid his face in his table-napkin in terror, and seemed to be seized with a distressing fit of coughing.‘Oh, don’t speak of the reckoning, Excellenza; that is as nothing.’‘Nay,’ said the friar; ‘that must not be;’ and he made a gesture as if he would have drawn out a purse, while under the table he had to press his feet against those of the lay brother to silence his rising remonstrance for his persistence.‘I couldn’t think of taking anything from your Excellenza,’ persisted the host, putting his hands behind him that no money might be forced upon him.The more stedfastly he refused the more perseveringly the friar continued to press the payment, till, with his companion, he had gained the threshold of the door.As they were passing out, however, the host once more exclaimed, ‘But the explanation your Excellency was to give me of why you said “Blessed Francesco!”’‘Impossible, friend; I cannot tell it here. Wait till I have gained the height of yonder mound, while you stand at its foot, and I will tell it you from thence.’With this they parted.When the friar and his companion had reached the height he had pointed out, and were at a sufficient distance to be saved the fear of pursuit, he turned to the host, who stood gaping at the bottom, and said:‘Lucky for you, Francesco, that when you come to die you will only have the trouble of shutting one eye, instead of two, like other men.’10[Such a story at the expense of a single unworthy monk contains no implied taunt at the religious orders, who are deeply honoured in Rome, and none more than the mendicant Franciscans, most of whom are themselves of the very people. Ever since the invasion of September 20, 1870, every effort has been used to stir up the people against them, but with little effect. At the last Carneval the most elaborate car was got up with the purpose of ridiculing them, but it met with no approval, except from members of the clubs. The narrator of the story was herselfnot only a devoted member of the Church, but had a relative in the order of St. Francis, nor did she tell it without an edifying exordium on the goodness of thefratiin general, though there must be unworthy members of all professions.Facetiæof this class are much rarer in Rome than in Spain.]1Though I believe there is no rule or ground for the distinction, in conversational language, ‘fratello’ is used for ‘brother,’ and ‘frate’ for ‘monk’ (as ‘sorella’ usually means any sister and ‘suora’ a nun). ‘Frate,’ again, is usually, though not by any rule, or exclusively, reserved for the mendicant Franciscans. A Capuchin is called ‘padre cappucino,’ and a Dominican, generally, a ‘padre domenicano.’↑2‘Laico.’↑3‘Guercino.’ There is no very definitely expressed distinction in Italian in the way of saying weak-sighted, or one-eyed, or squinting; ‘guercio’ is used to express all. The termination ‘ino’ here is not an actual diminutive, but means ‘he who is one-eyed,’ or ‘he who is weak-sighted,’ or ‘he who squints,’ with an implied expression of sympathy (see Note 5, p. 379). In this case the conclusion shows that ‘one-eyed’ was intended.↑4‘Posate,’ plural of ‘posata,’ knife, fork, and spoon.↑5‘Ecco servito, Excellenza.’ ‘It is all done as you desire.’↑6The poor, badly fed themselves, delight to dilate on a description of good living, just as dreaming of eating is said to arise from a condition of hunger. I have not added a word here in the text to those of the narrator of the story, and her enumeration is a very fair rendering of the usual repertory of a Roman innkeeper. Broth or thin soup (‘minestra’); a dish of boiled meat (‘lesso’), of ‘arrosto,’ that is, grilled or baked, and of ‘fritto’ (fried) is the regular course: ‘gallinaccio spezzato’ is a turkey cut up in joints and served with various sauces, and is much more esteemed than if cooked whole, a rather unusual dish; ‘frittata,’ omelette; ‘crescione,’ watercresses.↑7‘Beato a te, Francesco.’↑8‘Born,’ an Italianism for ‘laid.’↑9‘Fritto dorato.’ Romans, though not eminent in the culinary art, fry admirably. They always succeed in making their fried dishes a rich golden colour, and they ordinarily express a fried dish by the two words together, ‘fritto dorato.’↑10‘Beato a te, Francesco,Che quando moriraiUn occhio serreraiE l’altro no!’↑

THE TWO FRIARS.1

Two friars once went out on a journey, that is to say, a friar and a lay brother.2One day of their journey, when they were far from their convent, the friar said to the lay brother: ‘We fare poorly enough all the days of our life in our convent, let us, for one day of our lives, taste the good things of this world which others enjoy every day.’‘You know better than I, who am only a poor simple lay brother,’ answered the other, ‘whether such a thing may be done. I don’t mean to say I should not like to have a jolly good dinner for once; but there is the uneasiness of conscience to spoil the feast, and the penance afterwards. I think we had better leave it alone.’They journeyed on, therefore, and said no more about it that day, but the next, when they were very hungry after a long walk through the cold mountain air, the scent of the viands preparing in the inn as they drew near brought the subject of yesterday’s conversation to their minds again, and the friar said to the lay brother: ‘You know even our rule says that when we are journeying we cannot live as we do in our convent; we must eat and drink whatever we find in the places to which we are sent; moreover, some relaxation is allowed for the restoration of the body under the fatigues of the journey. Now, if we come, as it has often happened to us, to a poor little mountain village, where scarcely a wholesome crust of bread is to be found, to be washed down with a glass of sour wine, we have to take it for all our dinner, and eat it with thanksgiving. Therefore why, now, when we come to a place where the fare is less scanty, even as by the odours we perceive is the casehere, should we not also take what is found ready, and eat it with thanksgiving?’‘What you say seems right and just enough,’ said the lay brother, not at all sorry to have his scruples so speciously explained away. ‘But there is one thing you have not thought of. It is all very well to say we will eat and drink this and that, but how are we poor friars, who possess nothing, to command the delicacies which are smoking round the fire, and which have to be paid for by well-stored purses?’‘Oh! that is not the difficulty,’ replied the friar; ‘leave that to me.’By this time they had reached the threshold of the inn, and, taking his companion’s last feeble resistance for consent, the friar strutted into the eating-room with so bold an air that the lay brother hardly knew him for the humble religious he had been accompanying anon.‘Ho! here! John, Peter, Francis, whatever you are called!’‘Francesco, to your service,’ replied the host humbly, thinking by his commanding tone he must be some son of a great family.‘Francescoguercino,3then,’ continued the friar in the same high-sounding voice, ‘take away this foul table-cloth, and bring the cleanest and finest in your house; remove these cloudy glasses and bring out the bright ones you have there locked up in the glass case, and replace these bone spoons and forks4with the silver ones out of your strong box.’‘Your Excellency is served!’5said the host, who, as well as his wife and son, had bustled so fast to do what he was so peremptorily ordered that all was done as soon as spoken.‘Now then Francescoguercino, what have you got to put before a hungry gentleman in this poor little place of yours?’‘Excellenza! when you have tasted the cooking of my poor little house,’ said the host, ‘you will not, I am sure, be displeased; all unworthy as it is of your Excellency’s palate. For what we have ready, we have beef for our boiled meat, good brains for our fried, the plumpest poultry for our grilled, and the freshest eggs for our omelette; or, if your Excellency prefers it, we have hashed turkey, with crisp watercresses; and as for our soup,6there is not an inn in the whole province can beat us, I know. And for dessert we have cheese and fruits, and’——‘Well done, Francescoguercino,’ said the friar interrupting him. ‘You know how to cry your own wares, at all events. Bring us the best of what you have; it is not for poor friars to complain of what is set before us.’The last sentence gave the host a high idea of the piety of his guest just as the hectoring tone he had assumed had convinced him he must be high-born, and in a trice the best of everything in the house was made ready for the table of the friar. All other guests had to wait, or go away unserved; the host was intent only on serving the friar.Every dish he took to the table himself, and as he did so each time the friar, fixing on him a look of sanctity, exclaimed,—‘Blessed Francesco! Blessed Francesco!’7At the close of the meal, as he was hovering about the table, nervously wiping away a crumb, or polishing a plate, he said, with trembling:‘Excellenza! Permit a poor man to put one question. What is there you see about me that makes you look at me as though you saw happiness in store, and exclaim with so much unction as quite to fill me with joy, “Blessed Francesco!”?’‘True, something I see wherefore I call thee blessed,’ replied the friar; ‘but I cannot tell it thee now. To-morrow,perhaps, I may find it easier. Impossible now, friend. Now, pray thee, show us our rooms.’It needed not to add any injunctions concerning the rooms; of course, the cleanest and the best were appointed by Francesco spontaneously for such honoured guests.‘How do you think we are getting on?’ said the friar to the lay brother when they were alone.‘Excellently well so far,’ replied the other; ‘things have passed my lips this night which never have they tasted before, nor ever may again. But the reckoning, the reckoning; that is what puzzles me: when it comes to paying the bill, what’ll you do then?’‘Leave it all to me,’ returned the friar; ‘I’m quite satisfied with the man we have to deal with. It will all come right, never fear.’The next morning the two brothers were astir betimes, but Francesco was on the look-out to serve them.‘Excellenza! you will not leave without breakfast, Excellenza!’‘Yes, Francesco; poor friars must not mind going without breakfast.’‘Never, from my house, Excellenza!’ responded Francesco. ‘I have the table ready with a bottle of wine freshly drawn from the cellar, eggs that were born8since daylight, only waiting your appearance to be boiled, rolls this moment drawn from the oven, and my wife is at the stove preparing a fried dish9fit for a king.’‘Too much, too much, Francesco! You spoil us; we are not used to such things,’ said the lay brother as they sat down; but Francesco had flown into the kitchen, and returned with the dish.‘Blessed Francesco!’ said the friar as he set it on the table.‘I will not disturb your Excellency now,’ said Francesco; ‘but, after you have breakfasted, I crave your remembrance of your promise of last night, that youwould reveal to me this morning wherefore you say with such enthusiasm “Blessed Francesco!”’‘It is not time to speak of it now,’ said the friar; ‘first we have our reckoning to make.’The lay brother hid his face in his table-napkin in terror, and seemed to be seized with a distressing fit of coughing.‘Oh, don’t speak of the reckoning, Excellenza; that is as nothing.’‘Nay,’ said the friar; ‘that must not be;’ and he made a gesture as if he would have drawn out a purse, while under the table he had to press his feet against those of the lay brother to silence his rising remonstrance for his persistence.‘I couldn’t think of taking anything from your Excellenza,’ persisted the host, putting his hands behind him that no money might be forced upon him.The more stedfastly he refused the more perseveringly the friar continued to press the payment, till, with his companion, he had gained the threshold of the door.As they were passing out, however, the host once more exclaimed, ‘But the explanation your Excellency was to give me of why you said “Blessed Francesco!”’‘Impossible, friend; I cannot tell it here. Wait till I have gained the height of yonder mound, while you stand at its foot, and I will tell it you from thence.’With this they parted.When the friar and his companion had reached the height he had pointed out, and were at a sufficient distance to be saved the fear of pursuit, he turned to the host, who stood gaping at the bottom, and said:‘Lucky for you, Francesco, that when you come to die you will only have the trouble of shutting one eye, instead of two, like other men.’10[Such a story at the expense of a single unworthy monk contains no implied taunt at the religious orders, who are deeply honoured in Rome, and none more than the mendicant Franciscans, most of whom are themselves of the very people. Ever since the invasion of September 20, 1870, every effort has been used to stir up the people against them, but with little effect. At the last Carneval the most elaborate car was got up with the purpose of ridiculing them, but it met with no approval, except from members of the clubs. The narrator of the story was herselfnot only a devoted member of the Church, but had a relative in the order of St. Francis, nor did she tell it without an edifying exordium on the goodness of thefratiin general, though there must be unworthy members of all professions.Facetiæof this class are much rarer in Rome than in Spain.]

Two friars once went out on a journey, that is to say, a friar and a lay brother.2One day of their journey, when they were far from their convent, the friar said to the lay brother: ‘We fare poorly enough all the days of our life in our convent, let us, for one day of our lives, taste the good things of this world which others enjoy every day.’

‘You know better than I, who am only a poor simple lay brother,’ answered the other, ‘whether such a thing may be done. I don’t mean to say I should not like to have a jolly good dinner for once; but there is the uneasiness of conscience to spoil the feast, and the penance afterwards. I think we had better leave it alone.’

They journeyed on, therefore, and said no more about it that day, but the next, when they were very hungry after a long walk through the cold mountain air, the scent of the viands preparing in the inn as they drew near brought the subject of yesterday’s conversation to their minds again, and the friar said to the lay brother: ‘You know even our rule says that when we are journeying we cannot live as we do in our convent; we must eat and drink whatever we find in the places to which we are sent; moreover, some relaxation is allowed for the restoration of the body under the fatigues of the journey. Now, if we come, as it has often happened to us, to a poor little mountain village, where scarcely a wholesome crust of bread is to be found, to be washed down with a glass of sour wine, we have to take it for all our dinner, and eat it with thanksgiving. Therefore why, now, when we come to a place where the fare is less scanty, even as by the odours we perceive is the casehere, should we not also take what is found ready, and eat it with thanksgiving?’

‘What you say seems right and just enough,’ said the lay brother, not at all sorry to have his scruples so speciously explained away. ‘But there is one thing you have not thought of. It is all very well to say we will eat and drink this and that, but how are we poor friars, who possess nothing, to command the delicacies which are smoking round the fire, and which have to be paid for by well-stored purses?’

‘Oh! that is not the difficulty,’ replied the friar; ‘leave that to me.’

By this time they had reached the threshold of the inn, and, taking his companion’s last feeble resistance for consent, the friar strutted into the eating-room with so bold an air that the lay brother hardly knew him for the humble religious he had been accompanying anon.

‘Ho! here! John, Peter, Francis, whatever you are called!’

‘Francesco, to your service,’ replied the host humbly, thinking by his commanding tone he must be some son of a great family.

‘Francescoguercino,3then,’ continued the friar in the same high-sounding voice, ‘take away this foul table-cloth, and bring the cleanest and finest in your house; remove these cloudy glasses and bring out the bright ones you have there locked up in the glass case, and replace these bone spoons and forks4with the silver ones out of your strong box.’

‘Your Excellency is served!’5said the host, who, as well as his wife and son, had bustled so fast to do what he was so peremptorily ordered that all was done as soon as spoken.

‘Now then Francescoguercino, what have you got to put before a hungry gentleman in this poor little place of yours?’

‘Excellenza! when you have tasted the cooking of my poor little house,’ said the host, ‘you will not, I am sure, be displeased; all unworthy as it is of your Excellency’s palate. For what we have ready, we have beef for our boiled meat, good brains for our fried, the plumpest poultry for our grilled, and the freshest eggs for our omelette; or, if your Excellency prefers it, we have hashed turkey, with crisp watercresses; and as for our soup,6there is not an inn in the whole province can beat us, I know. And for dessert we have cheese and fruits, and’——

‘Well done, Francescoguercino,’ said the friar interrupting him. ‘You know how to cry your own wares, at all events. Bring us the best of what you have; it is not for poor friars to complain of what is set before us.’

The last sentence gave the host a high idea of the piety of his guest just as the hectoring tone he had assumed had convinced him he must be high-born, and in a trice the best of everything in the house was made ready for the table of the friar. All other guests had to wait, or go away unserved; the host was intent only on serving the friar.

Every dish he took to the table himself, and as he did so each time the friar, fixing on him a look of sanctity, exclaimed,—

‘Blessed Francesco! Blessed Francesco!’7

At the close of the meal, as he was hovering about the table, nervously wiping away a crumb, or polishing a plate, he said, with trembling:

‘Excellenza! Permit a poor man to put one question. What is there you see about me that makes you look at me as though you saw happiness in store, and exclaim with so much unction as quite to fill me with joy, “Blessed Francesco!”?’

‘True, something I see wherefore I call thee blessed,’ replied the friar; ‘but I cannot tell it thee now. To-morrow,perhaps, I may find it easier. Impossible now, friend. Now, pray thee, show us our rooms.’

It needed not to add any injunctions concerning the rooms; of course, the cleanest and the best were appointed by Francesco spontaneously for such honoured guests.

‘How do you think we are getting on?’ said the friar to the lay brother when they were alone.

‘Excellently well so far,’ replied the other; ‘things have passed my lips this night which never have they tasted before, nor ever may again. But the reckoning, the reckoning; that is what puzzles me: when it comes to paying the bill, what’ll you do then?’

‘Leave it all to me,’ returned the friar; ‘I’m quite satisfied with the man we have to deal with. It will all come right, never fear.’

The next morning the two brothers were astir betimes, but Francesco was on the look-out to serve them.

‘Excellenza! you will not leave without breakfast, Excellenza!’

‘Yes, Francesco; poor friars must not mind going without breakfast.’

‘Never, from my house, Excellenza!’ responded Francesco. ‘I have the table ready with a bottle of wine freshly drawn from the cellar, eggs that were born8since daylight, only waiting your appearance to be boiled, rolls this moment drawn from the oven, and my wife is at the stove preparing a fried dish9fit for a king.’

‘Too much, too much, Francesco! You spoil us; we are not used to such things,’ said the lay brother as they sat down; but Francesco had flown into the kitchen, and returned with the dish.

‘Blessed Francesco!’ said the friar as he set it on the table.

‘I will not disturb your Excellency now,’ said Francesco; ‘but, after you have breakfasted, I crave your remembrance of your promise of last night, that youwould reveal to me this morning wherefore you say with such enthusiasm “Blessed Francesco!”’

‘It is not time to speak of it now,’ said the friar; ‘first we have our reckoning to make.’

The lay brother hid his face in his table-napkin in terror, and seemed to be seized with a distressing fit of coughing.

‘Oh, don’t speak of the reckoning, Excellenza; that is as nothing.’

‘Nay,’ said the friar; ‘that must not be;’ and he made a gesture as if he would have drawn out a purse, while under the table he had to press his feet against those of the lay brother to silence his rising remonstrance for his persistence.

‘I couldn’t think of taking anything from your Excellenza,’ persisted the host, putting his hands behind him that no money might be forced upon him.

The more stedfastly he refused the more perseveringly the friar continued to press the payment, till, with his companion, he had gained the threshold of the door.

As they were passing out, however, the host once more exclaimed, ‘But the explanation your Excellency was to give me of why you said “Blessed Francesco!”’

‘Impossible, friend; I cannot tell it here. Wait till I have gained the height of yonder mound, while you stand at its foot, and I will tell it you from thence.’

With this they parted.

When the friar and his companion had reached the height he had pointed out, and were at a sufficient distance to be saved the fear of pursuit, he turned to the host, who stood gaping at the bottom, and said:

‘Lucky for you, Francesco, that when you come to die you will only have the trouble of shutting one eye, instead of two, like other men.’10

[Such a story at the expense of a single unworthy monk contains no implied taunt at the religious orders, who are deeply honoured in Rome, and none more than the mendicant Franciscans, most of whom are themselves of the very people. Ever since the invasion of September 20, 1870, every effort has been used to stir up the people against them, but with little effect. At the last Carneval the most elaborate car was got up with the purpose of ridiculing them, but it met with no approval, except from members of the clubs. The narrator of the story was herselfnot only a devoted member of the Church, but had a relative in the order of St. Francis, nor did she tell it without an edifying exordium on the goodness of thefratiin general, though there must be unworthy members of all professions.Facetiæof this class are much rarer in Rome than in Spain.]

1Though I believe there is no rule or ground for the distinction, in conversational language, ‘fratello’ is used for ‘brother,’ and ‘frate’ for ‘monk’ (as ‘sorella’ usually means any sister and ‘suora’ a nun). ‘Frate,’ again, is usually, though not by any rule, or exclusively, reserved for the mendicant Franciscans. A Capuchin is called ‘padre cappucino,’ and a Dominican, generally, a ‘padre domenicano.’↑2‘Laico.’↑3‘Guercino.’ There is no very definitely expressed distinction in Italian in the way of saying weak-sighted, or one-eyed, or squinting; ‘guercio’ is used to express all. The termination ‘ino’ here is not an actual diminutive, but means ‘he who is one-eyed,’ or ‘he who is weak-sighted,’ or ‘he who squints,’ with an implied expression of sympathy (see Note 5, p. 379). In this case the conclusion shows that ‘one-eyed’ was intended.↑4‘Posate,’ plural of ‘posata,’ knife, fork, and spoon.↑5‘Ecco servito, Excellenza.’ ‘It is all done as you desire.’↑6The poor, badly fed themselves, delight to dilate on a description of good living, just as dreaming of eating is said to arise from a condition of hunger. I have not added a word here in the text to those of the narrator of the story, and her enumeration is a very fair rendering of the usual repertory of a Roman innkeeper. Broth or thin soup (‘minestra’); a dish of boiled meat (‘lesso’), of ‘arrosto,’ that is, grilled or baked, and of ‘fritto’ (fried) is the regular course: ‘gallinaccio spezzato’ is a turkey cut up in joints and served with various sauces, and is much more esteemed than if cooked whole, a rather unusual dish; ‘frittata,’ omelette; ‘crescione,’ watercresses.↑7‘Beato a te, Francesco.’↑8‘Born,’ an Italianism for ‘laid.’↑9‘Fritto dorato.’ Romans, though not eminent in the culinary art, fry admirably. They always succeed in making their fried dishes a rich golden colour, and they ordinarily express a fried dish by the two words together, ‘fritto dorato.’↑10‘Beato a te, Francesco,Che quando moriraiUn occhio serreraiE l’altro no!’↑

1Though I believe there is no rule or ground for the distinction, in conversational language, ‘fratello’ is used for ‘brother,’ and ‘frate’ for ‘monk’ (as ‘sorella’ usually means any sister and ‘suora’ a nun). ‘Frate,’ again, is usually, though not by any rule, or exclusively, reserved for the mendicant Franciscans. A Capuchin is called ‘padre cappucino,’ and a Dominican, generally, a ‘padre domenicano.’↑

2‘Laico.’↑

3‘Guercino.’ There is no very definitely expressed distinction in Italian in the way of saying weak-sighted, or one-eyed, or squinting; ‘guercio’ is used to express all. The termination ‘ino’ here is not an actual diminutive, but means ‘he who is one-eyed,’ or ‘he who is weak-sighted,’ or ‘he who squints,’ with an implied expression of sympathy (see Note 5, p. 379). In this case the conclusion shows that ‘one-eyed’ was intended.↑

4‘Posate,’ plural of ‘posata,’ knife, fork, and spoon.↑

5‘Ecco servito, Excellenza.’ ‘It is all done as you desire.’↑

6The poor, badly fed themselves, delight to dilate on a description of good living, just as dreaming of eating is said to arise from a condition of hunger. I have not added a word here in the text to those of the narrator of the story, and her enumeration is a very fair rendering of the usual repertory of a Roman innkeeper. Broth or thin soup (‘minestra’); a dish of boiled meat (‘lesso’), of ‘arrosto,’ that is, grilled or baked, and of ‘fritto’ (fried) is the regular course: ‘gallinaccio spezzato’ is a turkey cut up in joints and served with various sauces, and is much more esteemed than if cooked whole, a rather unusual dish; ‘frittata,’ omelette; ‘crescione,’ watercresses.↑

7‘Beato a te, Francesco.’↑

8‘Born,’ an Italianism for ‘laid.’↑

9‘Fritto dorato.’ Romans, though not eminent in the culinary art, fry admirably. They always succeed in making their fried dishes a rich golden colour, and they ordinarily express a fried dish by the two words together, ‘fritto dorato.’↑

10

‘Beato a te, Francesco,Che quando moriraiUn occhio serreraiE l’altro no!’

‘Beato a te, Francesco,Che quando moriraiUn occhio serreraiE l’altro no!’

‘Beato a te, Francesco,Che quando moriraiUn occhio serreraiE l’altro no!’

‘Beato a te, Francesco,Che quando moriraiUn occhio serreraiE l’altro no!’

‘Beato a te, Francesco,

Che quando morirai

Un occhio serrerai

E l’altro no!’

↑

THE PREFACE OF A FRANCISCAN.A Franciscan friar was travelling on business of his order when he was overtaken by three brigands, who stole from him his ass, his saddle, and his doubloons. Moreover, they told him that if he informed any man of what they had done they would certainly come after him again and take his life; for they could only sell the ass and the saddle that were known to be his by representing that he had sold them to them, otherwise no one would have bought them.The friar told no man what had happened to him, for fear of losing his life; yet he knew that if he could only let his parishioners know what had occurred, they would soon retake for him all that he had lost.So he hit on the following expedient: next Sunday, as he was saying Mass, when he came to the place in the Preface where special additions commemorative of the particular festivals are inserted, after the enumeration of the praises of God, he added the words, ‘Nevertheless, me, Thy poor servant, evil men have robbed of my ass and her saddle, and all my doubloons; but to no man have I declared the thing, save unto Thee only, Omnipotent Father, who knowest all things, and helpest the poor;’ and then he went on, ‘et ideò cum angelis et archangelis,’ &c.1The parishioners were no sooner thus informed of what had occurred, than they went after the brigands and made them give up all they had taken. The next time, therefore, the father was out in the Campagna, the brigands came after him and said:‘Now, we take your life; last time we let you off, saying we would spare you if you told no man what we had done; but you cannot keep your own counsel, so you must die like the rest.’But the good monk showed them that he had not spoken to man of the thing, but had only lamented his loss before God, which every man was free to do. And the brigands, when they heard that, could say nothing, and they let him go by uninjured, him and his beast.[Such stories are the result of a household familiarity with sacred matters, and are told with genuine fun without the least infusion of irreverence. Just as out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaks, even so we make jokes on whatever subject we are most occupied with. Religious offices are so much a part of the daily life of the Catholic poor that it would be impossible to banish the language of them from their simple jokes. I have had numbers of such told me without the least expression that could be called scoffing in the teller; but I forbear to give more than the two or three in the text by way of specimens, lest the spirit of them should be misjudged.]1The merit of this story consists much in the mode of telling. The narrator should be able to imitate the peculiar tone to which the ‘Preface’ is sung, and to supply the corresponding notes for the additional insertion. It was very effectively done by the person who told it to me.↑

THE PREFACE OF A FRANCISCAN.

A Franciscan friar was travelling on business of his order when he was overtaken by three brigands, who stole from him his ass, his saddle, and his doubloons. Moreover, they told him that if he informed any man of what they had done they would certainly come after him again and take his life; for they could only sell the ass and the saddle that were known to be his by representing that he had sold them to them, otherwise no one would have bought them.The friar told no man what had happened to him, for fear of losing his life; yet he knew that if he could only let his parishioners know what had occurred, they would soon retake for him all that he had lost.So he hit on the following expedient: next Sunday, as he was saying Mass, when he came to the place in the Preface where special additions commemorative of the particular festivals are inserted, after the enumeration of the praises of God, he added the words, ‘Nevertheless, me, Thy poor servant, evil men have robbed of my ass and her saddle, and all my doubloons; but to no man have I declared the thing, save unto Thee only, Omnipotent Father, who knowest all things, and helpest the poor;’ and then he went on, ‘et ideò cum angelis et archangelis,’ &c.1The parishioners were no sooner thus informed of what had occurred, than they went after the brigands and made them give up all they had taken. The next time, therefore, the father was out in the Campagna, the brigands came after him and said:‘Now, we take your life; last time we let you off, saying we would spare you if you told no man what we had done; but you cannot keep your own counsel, so you must die like the rest.’But the good monk showed them that he had not spoken to man of the thing, but had only lamented his loss before God, which every man was free to do. And the brigands, when they heard that, could say nothing, and they let him go by uninjured, him and his beast.[Such stories are the result of a household familiarity with sacred matters, and are told with genuine fun without the least infusion of irreverence. Just as out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaks, even so we make jokes on whatever subject we are most occupied with. Religious offices are so much a part of the daily life of the Catholic poor that it would be impossible to banish the language of them from their simple jokes. I have had numbers of such told me without the least expression that could be called scoffing in the teller; but I forbear to give more than the two or three in the text by way of specimens, lest the spirit of them should be misjudged.]

A Franciscan friar was travelling on business of his order when he was overtaken by three brigands, who stole from him his ass, his saddle, and his doubloons. Moreover, they told him that if he informed any man of what they had done they would certainly come after him again and take his life; for they could only sell the ass and the saddle that were known to be his by representing that he had sold them to them, otherwise no one would have bought them.

The friar told no man what had happened to him, for fear of losing his life; yet he knew that if he could only let his parishioners know what had occurred, they would soon retake for him all that he had lost.

So he hit on the following expedient: next Sunday, as he was saying Mass, when he came to the place in the Preface where special additions commemorative of the particular festivals are inserted, after the enumeration of the praises of God, he added the words, ‘Nevertheless, me, Thy poor servant, evil men have robbed of my ass and her saddle, and all my doubloons; but to no man have I declared the thing, save unto Thee only, Omnipotent Father, who knowest all things, and helpest the poor;’ and then he went on, ‘et ideò cum angelis et archangelis,’ &c.1

The parishioners were no sooner thus informed of what had occurred, than they went after the brigands and made them give up all they had taken. The next time, therefore, the father was out in the Campagna, the brigands came after him and said:

‘Now, we take your life; last time we let you off, saying we would spare you if you told no man what we had done; but you cannot keep your own counsel, so you must die like the rest.’

But the good monk showed them that he had not spoken to man of the thing, but had only lamented his loss before God, which every man was free to do. And the brigands, when they heard that, could say nothing, and they let him go by uninjured, him and his beast.

[Such stories are the result of a household familiarity with sacred matters, and are told with genuine fun without the least infusion of irreverence. Just as out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaks, even so we make jokes on whatever subject we are most occupied with. Religious offices are so much a part of the daily life of the Catholic poor that it would be impossible to banish the language of them from their simple jokes. I have had numbers of such told me without the least expression that could be called scoffing in the teller; but I forbear to give more than the two or three in the text by way of specimens, lest the spirit of them should be misjudged.]

1The merit of this story consists much in the mode of telling. The narrator should be able to imitate the peculiar tone to which the ‘Preface’ is sung, and to supply the corresponding notes for the additional insertion. It was very effectively done by the person who told it to me.↑

1The merit of this story consists much in the mode of telling. The narrator should be able to imitate the peculiar tone to which the ‘Preface’ is sung, and to supply the corresponding notes for the additional insertion. It was very effectively done by the person who told it to me.↑

THE LENTEN PREACHER.A friar came to preach the Lenten sermons in a country place. The wife of a rich peasant sat under the pulpit, and thought all the time what a nice-looking man he was, instead of listening to his exhortations to penance.When the sermon was over she went home and took out half-a-dozen nice fine pocket-handkerchiefs, and sent them to him by her maid, with a very civil note to beg him to come and see her.As the maid was going out, the husband met her.‘Where are you going?’ said he.The maid, who did not at all like her errand, promised if he would not be angry with her, and would not let her mistress know it, she would tell him all.The husband promised to hold her harmless, and she gave him the handkerchiefs and the note.‘Come here,’ said the husband; and he took her into his room and wrote a note as if from the friar, saying he was much obliged by her presents, and would like to see the lady very much, but that it was impossible they could meet, so she must not think of it. This note the maid took back to her mistress as if from the friar.A few days after this the husband gave out that he would have to go to a fair, and would be away two or three days. Immediately the wife took a pound of the best snuff and sent it as a present to the friar by the same maid with another note, saying the husband was going away on such an evening, and if he then came to see her at an hour after the Ave he would find the door open. This also the maid took to her master; the husband took the snuff and wrote an answer, as if from the friar, to say he would keep the appointment. In the evening he said good-bye to his wife, and went away. But he went to the butcher and bought a stout beef sinew, and at the hour appointed for the friar, he came back dressed as a friar, and beat her with the beef sinew till she was half dead. Then he went down in the kitchen and sent the servant up to heal her, and went away for three days. When he came back the wife was still doubled up, and suffering from the beating.‘What is the matter?’ he said, sympathisingly.‘Oh! I fell down the cellar stairs.’‘What do you mean by leaving your mistress to go down to the cellar?’ he cried out to the servant, withgreat solicitude. ‘How can you allow her to do such things? What’s the use of you?’‘Don’t scold the servant,’ answered the wife; ‘it wasn’t her fault. I shall be all right soon.’ And she made as light of her ailment as she could, to keep him from asking her any more questions. But he was discreet enough to say no more.Only when she was well again he sent to the friar and asked him to come home to dine with them.‘My wife is subject to odd fancies sometimes,’ he said, as they walked home. ‘If she should do anything extravagant, don’t you mind; I shall be there to call her to order.’Then he told the servant to bring in the soup and the boiled meat without waiting for orders, but to keep the grill back till he came to the kitchen door to call her.At the time for the grill, therefore, he got up from table to go and call her, and thus left his wife and the friar alone together. They were no sooner alone than she got up, and calling him a horrid friar, gave him a sound drubbing. The husband came back in time to prevent mischief, and to make excuses; and finding she was cured of her affection, said no more of the affair.

THE LENTEN PREACHER.

A friar came to preach the Lenten sermons in a country place. The wife of a rich peasant sat under the pulpit, and thought all the time what a nice-looking man he was, instead of listening to his exhortations to penance.When the sermon was over she went home and took out half-a-dozen nice fine pocket-handkerchiefs, and sent them to him by her maid, with a very civil note to beg him to come and see her.As the maid was going out, the husband met her.‘Where are you going?’ said he.The maid, who did not at all like her errand, promised if he would not be angry with her, and would not let her mistress know it, she would tell him all.The husband promised to hold her harmless, and she gave him the handkerchiefs and the note.‘Come here,’ said the husband; and he took her into his room and wrote a note as if from the friar, saying he was much obliged by her presents, and would like to see the lady very much, but that it was impossible they could meet, so she must not think of it. This note the maid took back to her mistress as if from the friar.A few days after this the husband gave out that he would have to go to a fair, and would be away two or three days. Immediately the wife took a pound of the best snuff and sent it as a present to the friar by the same maid with another note, saying the husband was going away on such an evening, and if he then came to see her at an hour after the Ave he would find the door open. This also the maid took to her master; the husband took the snuff and wrote an answer, as if from the friar, to say he would keep the appointment. In the evening he said good-bye to his wife, and went away. But he went to the butcher and bought a stout beef sinew, and at the hour appointed for the friar, he came back dressed as a friar, and beat her with the beef sinew till she was half dead. Then he went down in the kitchen and sent the servant up to heal her, and went away for three days. When he came back the wife was still doubled up, and suffering from the beating.‘What is the matter?’ he said, sympathisingly.‘Oh! I fell down the cellar stairs.’‘What do you mean by leaving your mistress to go down to the cellar?’ he cried out to the servant, withgreat solicitude. ‘How can you allow her to do such things? What’s the use of you?’‘Don’t scold the servant,’ answered the wife; ‘it wasn’t her fault. I shall be all right soon.’ And she made as light of her ailment as she could, to keep him from asking her any more questions. But he was discreet enough to say no more.Only when she was well again he sent to the friar and asked him to come home to dine with them.‘My wife is subject to odd fancies sometimes,’ he said, as they walked home. ‘If she should do anything extravagant, don’t you mind; I shall be there to call her to order.’Then he told the servant to bring in the soup and the boiled meat without waiting for orders, but to keep the grill back till he came to the kitchen door to call her.At the time for the grill, therefore, he got up from table to go and call her, and thus left his wife and the friar alone together. They were no sooner alone than she got up, and calling him a horrid friar, gave him a sound drubbing. The husband came back in time to prevent mischief, and to make excuses; and finding she was cured of her affection, said no more of the affair.

A friar came to preach the Lenten sermons in a country place. The wife of a rich peasant sat under the pulpit, and thought all the time what a nice-looking man he was, instead of listening to his exhortations to penance.

When the sermon was over she went home and took out half-a-dozen nice fine pocket-handkerchiefs, and sent them to him by her maid, with a very civil note to beg him to come and see her.

As the maid was going out, the husband met her.

‘Where are you going?’ said he.

The maid, who did not at all like her errand, promised if he would not be angry with her, and would not let her mistress know it, she would tell him all.

The husband promised to hold her harmless, and she gave him the handkerchiefs and the note.

‘Come here,’ said the husband; and he took her into his room and wrote a note as if from the friar, saying he was much obliged by her presents, and would like to see the lady very much, but that it was impossible they could meet, so she must not think of it. This note the maid took back to her mistress as if from the friar.

A few days after this the husband gave out that he would have to go to a fair, and would be away two or three days. Immediately the wife took a pound of the best snuff and sent it as a present to the friar by the same maid with another note, saying the husband was going away on such an evening, and if he then came to see her at an hour after the Ave he would find the door open. This also the maid took to her master; the husband took the snuff and wrote an answer, as if from the friar, to say he would keep the appointment. In the evening he said good-bye to his wife, and went away. But he went to the butcher and bought a stout beef sinew, and at the hour appointed for the friar, he came back dressed as a friar, and beat her with the beef sinew till she was half dead. Then he went down in the kitchen and sent the servant up to heal her, and went away for three days. When he came back the wife was still doubled up, and suffering from the beating.

‘What is the matter?’ he said, sympathisingly.

‘Oh! I fell down the cellar stairs.’

‘What do you mean by leaving your mistress to go down to the cellar?’ he cried out to the servant, withgreat solicitude. ‘How can you allow her to do such things? What’s the use of you?’

‘Don’t scold the servant,’ answered the wife; ‘it wasn’t her fault. I shall be all right soon.’ And she made as light of her ailment as she could, to keep him from asking her any more questions. But he was discreet enough to say no more.

Only when she was well again he sent to the friar and asked him to come home to dine with them.

‘My wife is subject to odd fancies sometimes,’ he said, as they walked home. ‘If she should do anything extravagant, don’t you mind; I shall be there to call her to order.’

Then he told the servant to bring in the soup and the boiled meat without waiting for orders, but to keep the grill back till he came to the kitchen door to call her.

At the time for the grill, therefore, he got up from table to go and call her, and thus left his wife and the friar alone together. They were no sooner alone than she got up, and calling him a horrid friar, gave him a sound drubbing. The husband came back in time to prevent mischief, and to make excuses; and finding she was cured of her affection, said no more of the affair.

ASS OR PIG.1A countryman was going along driving a pig before him. ‘Let’s have a bit of fun with that fellow,’ said the brother porter of a monastery to the father guardian,2as they saw him coming along the road. ‘I’ll call his pig an ass, and of course he’ll say it’s a pig; then I shall laugh at him for not knowing better, and he will grow angry. Then I’ll say, “Well, will you have the father guardian to settle the dispute? and if he decides I’m right I shall keep the beast for myself.” Then you come and say it is an ass, and we’ll keep it.’The father guardian agreed, with a hearty laugh; and as soon as the countryman came up the brother porter did all as he had arranged.The countryman was so sure of his case that he willingly submitted to the arbitration of the father guardian; but great was his dismay when the father guardian decided against him, and he had to go home without his pig.But what did the countryman do? He dressed himself up as a poor girl, and about nightfall, and a storm coming on, he rang at the bell of the monastery and entreated the charity of shelter for the night.‘Impossible!’ said the brother porter; ‘we can’t have any womenkind in here.’‘But the dark, and the storm!’ clamoured the pretended girl; ‘think of that. You can’t leave me out here all alone.’‘I’m very sorry,’ said the porter, ‘but the thing’s impossible. I can’t do it.’The good father guardian, hearing the dispute at that unusual hour, put his head out of the window and asked what it was all about.‘It is a difficult case, brother porter,’ he said when he had heard the girl’s request. ‘If we take her in we infringe our rule in one way; if we leave her exposed to every kind of peril we sin against its spirit in another direction. I only see one way out of it. I can’t send her into any of your cells; but I will let her pass the night in mine, provided she is content not to undress, and will consent to sit up in a chair.’This was exactly what the countryman wanted, therefore he gave a ready assent, and the father guardian took him up into his cell. The pretended girl sat up in a chair quietly enough through the dark of the night, but when morning began to dawn, out came a stick that had been hidden under the petticoats, and whack, whack3—afine drubbing the poor father guardian got, to the tune of—‘So you think I don’t know a pig from an ass, do you?’When he had well bruised him all over, the countryman made the best of his way downstairs, and off and away he was before anyone could catch him.The next day what did he do? He dressed up like a doctor, and came round asking if anyone had any ailments to cure.‘That’s just the thing for us,’ said the brother porter to himself as he saw him come by. ‘The father guardian was afraid to let the doctor of the neighbourhood attend him, for fear of the scandal of all the story coming out; the strange doctor will just do, as there is no need to tell him anything.’The countryman in his new disguise, therefore, was taken up to the father guardian’s cell.‘There’s nothing very much the matter,’ he said when he had examined the wounds and bruises; ‘it might all be set right in a day by a certain herb,’ which he named.The herb was a difficult one to find, but as it was so important to get the father guardian cured immediately, before any inquiry should be raised as to the cause of his sufferings, the whole community set out to wander over the Campagna in search of it.As soon as they were a good way off, the pretended doctor took out a thick stick which he held concealed under his long robe, and whack, whack—belaboured the poor father guardian more terribly even than before, to the tune of—‘So you think I don’t know an ass from a pig, do you?’How far soever the brothers were gone, his cries were so piteous that they recalled them, but not till the countryman had made good his escape.‘We have sinned, my brethren,’ said the father guardian when they were all gathered round him; ‘and I have suffered justly for it. We had no right to take the man’spig, even for a joke. Let it now, therefore, be restored to him, and in amends let there be given him along with it an ass also.’So the countryman got his pig back, and a donkey into the bargain.1‘Asino o porco.’↑2‘Padre Guardiano’ is the ordinary title of the Superior in Franciscan convents.↑3‘Zicherte! Zacherte!’↑

ASS OR PIG.1

A countryman was going along driving a pig before him. ‘Let’s have a bit of fun with that fellow,’ said the brother porter of a monastery to the father guardian,2as they saw him coming along the road. ‘I’ll call his pig an ass, and of course he’ll say it’s a pig; then I shall laugh at him for not knowing better, and he will grow angry. Then I’ll say, “Well, will you have the father guardian to settle the dispute? and if he decides I’m right I shall keep the beast for myself.” Then you come and say it is an ass, and we’ll keep it.’The father guardian agreed, with a hearty laugh; and as soon as the countryman came up the brother porter did all as he had arranged.The countryman was so sure of his case that he willingly submitted to the arbitration of the father guardian; but great was his dismay when the father guardian decided against him, and he had to go home without his pig.But what did the countryman do? He dressed himself up as a poor girl, and about nightfall, and a storm coming on, he rang at the bell of the monastery and entreated the charity of shelter for the night.‘Impossible!’ said the brother porter; ‘we can’t have any womenkind in here.’‘But the dark, and the storm!’ clamoured the pretended girl; ‘think of that. You can’t leave me out here all alone.’‘I’m very sorry,’ said the porter, ‘but the thing’s impossible. I can’t do it.’The good father guardian, hearing the dispute at that unusual hour, put his head out of the window and asked what it was all about.‘It is a difficult case, brother porter,’ he said when he had heard the girl’s request. ‘If we take her in we infringe our rule in one way; if we leave her exposed to every kind of peril we sin against its spirit in another direction. I only see one way out of it. I can’t send her into any of your cells; but I will let her pass the night in mine, provided she is content not to undress, and will consent to sit up in a chair.’This was exactly what the countryman wanted, therefore he gave a ready assent, and the father guardian took him up into his cell. The pretended girl sat up in a chair quietly enough through the dark of the night, but when morning began to dawn, out came a stick that had been hidden under the petticoats, and whack, whack3—afine drubbing the poor father guardian got, to the tune of—‘So you think I don’t know a pig from an ass, do you?’When he had well bruised him all over, the countryman made the best of his way downstairs, and off and away he was before anyone could catch him.The next day what did he do? He dressed up like a doctor, and came round asking if anyone had any ailments to cure.‘That’s just the thing for us,’ said the brother porter to himself as he saw him come by. ‘The father guardian was afraid to let the doctor of the neighbourhood attend him, for fear of the scandal of all the story coming out; the strange doctor will just do, as there is no need to tell him anything.’The countryman in his new disguise, therefore, was taken up to the father guardian’s cell.‘There’s nothing very much the matter,’ he said when he had examined the wounds and bruises; ‘it might all be set right in a day by a certain herb,’ which he named.The herb was a difficult one to find, but as it was so important to get the father guardian cured immediately, before any inquiry should be raised as to the cause of his sufferings, the whole community set out to wander over the Campagna in search of it.As soon as they were a good way off, the pretended doctor took out a thick stick which he held concealed under his long robe, and whack, whack—belaboured the poor father guardian more terribly even than before, to the tune of—‘So you think I don’t know an ass from a pig, do you?’How far soever the brothers were gone, his cries were so piteous that they recalled them, but not till the countryman had made good his escape.‘We have sinned, my brethren,’ said the father guardian when they were all gathered round him; ‘and I have suffered justly for it. We had no right to take the man’spig, even for a joke. Let it now, therefore, be restored to him, and in amends let there be given him along with it an ass also.’So the countryman got his pig back, and a donkey into the bargain.

A countryman was going along driving a pig before him. ‘Let’s have a bit of fun with that fellow,’ said the brother porter of a monastery to the father guardian,2as they saw him coming along the road. ‘I’ll call his pig an ass, and of course he’ll say it’s a pig; then I shall laugh at him for not knowing better, and he will grow angry. Then I’ll say, “Well, will you have the father guardian to settle the dispute? and if he decides I’m right I shall keep the beast for myself.” Then you come and say it is an ass, and we’ll keep it.’

The father guardian agreed, with a hearty laugh; and as soon as the countryman came up the brother porter did all as he had arranged.

The countryman was so sure of his case that he willingly submitted to the arbitration of the father guardian; but great was his dismay when the father guardian decided against him, and he had to go home without his pig.

But what did the countryman do? He dressed himself up as a poor girl, and about nightfall, and a storm coming on, he rang at the bell of the monastery and entreated the charity of shelter for the night.

‘Impossible!’ said the brother porter; ‘we can’t have any womenkind in here.’

‘But the dark, and the storm!’ clamoured the pretended girl; ‘think of that. You can’t leave me out here all alone.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ said the porter, ‘but the thing’s impossible. I can’t do it.’

The good father guardian, hearing the dispute at that unusual hour, put his head out of the window and asked what it was all about.

‘It is a difficult case, brother porter,’ he said when he had heard the girl’s request. ‘If we take her in we infringe our rule in one way; if we leave her exposed to every kind of peril we sin against its spirit in another direction. I only see one way out of it. I can’t send her into any of your cells; but I will let her pass the night in mine, provided she is content not to undress, and will consent to sit up in a chair.’

This was exactly what the countryman wanted, therefore he gave a ready assent, and the father guardian took him up into his cell. The pretended girl sat up in a chair quietly enough through the dark of the night, but when morning began to dawn, out came a stick that had been hidden under the petticoats, and whack, whack3—afine drubbing the poor father guardian got, to the tune of—‘So you think I don’t know a pig from an ass, do you?’

When he had well bruised him all over, the countryman made the best of his way downstairs, and off and away he was before anyone could catch him.

The next day what did he do? He dressed up like a doctor, and came round asking if anyone had any ailments to cure.

‘That’s just the thing for us,’ said the brother porter to himself as he saw him come by. ‘The father guardian was afraid to let the doctor of the neighbourhood attend him, for fear of the scandal of all the story coming out; the strange doctor will just do, as there is no need to tell him anything.’

The countryman in his new disguise, therefore, was taken up to the father guardian’s cell.

‘There’s nothing very much the matter,’ he said when he had examined the wounds and bruises; ‘it might all be set right in a day by a certain herb,’ which he named.

The herb was a difficult one to find, but as it was so important to get the father guardian cured immediately, before any inquiry should be raised as to the cause of his sufferings, the whole community set out to wander over the Campagna in search of it.

As soon as they were a good way off, the pretended doctor took out a thick stick which he held concealed under his long robe, and whack, whack—belaboured the poor father guardian more terribly even than before, to the tune of—‘So you think I don’t know an ass from a pig, do you?’

How far soever the brothers were gone, his cries were so piteous that they recalled them, but not till the countryman had made good his escape.

‘We have sinned, my brethren,’ said the father guardian when they were all gathered round him; ‘and I have suffered justly for it. We had no right to take the man’spig, even for a joke. Let it now, therefore, be restored to him, and in amends let there be given him along with it an ass also.’

So the countryman got his pig back, and a donkey into the bargain.

1‘Asino o porco.’↑2‘Padre Guardiano’ is the ordinary title of the Superior in Franciscan convents.↑3‘Zicherte! Zacherte!’↑

1‘Asino o porco.’↑

2‘Padre Guardiano’ is the ordinary title of the Superior in Franciscan convents.↑

3‘Zicherte! Zacherte!’↑

THE SEVEN CLODHOPPERS.1Seven clodhoppers went to confession.‘Father, I stole something,’ said the first.‘What was it you stole?’ asked the priest.‘Somemistuanza,2because I was starving,’ replied the country bumpkin.That the poor fellow, who really looked as if he might have been starving, should have stolen some herbs did not seem such a very grave offence; so with due advice to keep his hands from picking and stealing, and a psalm to say for his penance, the priest sent him to communion.Then came the second, and there was the same dialogue. Then the third and the fourth, till all the seven had been up.At last the priest began to think it was a very odd circumstance that such a number of full-grown men should all of a sudden have taken into their heads to go stealing salad herbs; and when the seventh had had his say he rejoined,—‘But what do you mean bymistuanza?’‘Oh, any mixture of things,’ replied the countryman.‘Nay; that’s not the way we use the word,’ responded the priest; ‘so tell mewhat“things” you mean.’‘Oh, some cow, some pig, and some fowl.’3‘You men of themistuanza!’ shouted the priest in righteous indignation, starting out of the confessional; ‘Come back! come back! you can’t go to communion like that.’The seven clodhoppers, finding themselves discovered, began to fear the rigour of justice, and decamped as fast as they could.[Next to gossiping jokes on subjects kindred to religion are jokes about domestic disputes, the greater blame being generally ascribed to the wife.]1‘I sette Villani.’↑2‘Un po’ di mistuanza.’ ‘Mistuanza’ is a word in use among the poor for a mixture of herbs of which they make a kind of poor salad.↑3‘Un po’ di bove, un po’ di porchi, un po’ di galline.’‘Un po’ (un poco) a little. The effect of the story depended a good deal on the tones of voice in which it was told. The deprecatory tone of the penitent as he says, ‘un po’ di bove,’ &c., and the horror of the priest as he cries out, ‘Signori dellamistuanza!’This same story in quite another dress was told me one evening in Aldershot Camp; and as it is a very curious instance of the migration of myths, I give the home version.It would seem that in Aldershot lingo, or in the lingo of a certain regiment once stationed there, to ‘kill a fox’ means to get drunk. Possibly the expression was acquired during the Peninsular war, as ‘tomar una zorrilla’ has an equivalent meaning in Spanish. The story was this. Once during the brief holiday of the chaplain of the regiment, a French priest who knew a little English took his place. At confession the chief fault of which, according to the story, the men accused themselves was that they had ‘killed a fox,’ an expression perfectly well understood by their own pastor. The good French priest, however, instead of being shocked at finding how often men got drunk, was highly edified at the angelic simplicity of these Angles, who showed so much contrition for having indulged in the innocent pastime—in France, not even an offence among sportsmen—of having killed a fox.At last there came one of a more humorous turn of mind than the rest, and thesurnoisair with which he pronounced the expression revealed to the good Frenchman that the words meant something more than they said.‘Vat mean you ven you say, “kill de fox?”’ now inquired the Frenchman of his penitent with fear and trembling. And the blunt soldier had no sooner expounded the slang than the bewildered foreigner threw open the front wicket of the confessional and cried aloud:‘Come back! all you dat have killed de foxes! Come back! come back!’↑

THE SEVEN CLODHOPPERS.1

Seven clodhoppers went to confession.‘Father, I stole something,’ said the first.‘What was it you stole?’ asked the priest.‘Somemistuanza,2because I was starving,’ replied the country bumpkin.That the poor fellow, who really looked as if he might have been starving, should have stolen some herbs did not seem such a very grave offence; so with due advice to keep his hands from picking and stealing, and a psalm to say for his penance, the priest sent him to communion.Then came the second, and there was the same dialogue. Then the third and the fourth, till all the seven had been up.At last the priest began to think it was a very odd circumstance that such a number of full-grown men should all of a sudden have taken into their heads to go stealing salad herbs; and when the seventh had had his say he rejoined,—‘But what do you mean bymistuanza?’‘Oh, any mixture of things,’ replied the countryman.‘Nay; that’s not the way we use the word,’ responded the priest; ‘so tell mewhat“things” you mean.’‘Oh, some cow, some pig, and some fowl.’3‘You men of themistuanza!’ shouted the priest in righteous indignation, starting out of the confessional; ‘Come back! come back! you can’t go to communion like that.’The seven clodhoppers, finding themselves discovered, began to fear the rigour of justice, and decamped as fast as they could.[Next to gossiping jokes on subjects kindred to religion are jokes about domestic disputes, the greater blame being generally ascribed to the wife.]

Seven clodhoppers went to confession.

‘Father, I stole something,’ said the first.

‘What was it you stole?’ asked the priest.

‘Somemistuanza,2because I was starving,’ replied the country bumpkin.

That the poor fellow, who really looked as if he might have been starving, should have stolen some herbs did not seem such a very grave offence; so with due advice to keep his hands from picking and stealing, and a psalm to say for his penance, the priest sent him to communion.

Then came the second, and there was the same dialogue. Then the third and the fourth, till all the seven had been up.

At last the priest began to think it was a very odd circumstance that such a number of full-grown men should all of a sudden have taken into their heads to go stealing salad herbs; and when the seventh had had his say he rejoined,—

‘But what do you mean bymistuanza?’

‘Oh, any mixture of things,’ replied the countryman.

‘Nay; that’s not the way we use the word,’ responded the priest; ‘so tell mewhat“things” you mean.’

‘Oh, some cow, some pig, and some fowl.’3

‘You men of themistuanza!’ shouted the priest in righteous indignation, starting out of the confessional; ‘Come back! come back! you can’t go to communion like that.’

The seven clodhoppers, finding themselves discovered, began to fear the rigour of justice, and decamped as fast as they could.

[Next to gossiping jokes on subjects kindred to religion are jokes about domestic disputes, the greater blame being generally ascribed to the wife.]

1‘I sette Villani.’↑2‘Un po’ di mistuanza.’ ‘Mistuanza’ is a word in use among the poor for a mixture of herbs of which they make a kind of poor salad.↑3‘Un po’ di bove, un po’ di porchi, un po’ di galline.’‘Un po’ (un poco) a little. The effect of the story depended a good deal on the tones of voice in which it was told. The deprecatory tone of the penitent as he says, ‘un po’ di bove,’ &c., and the horror of the priest as he cries out, ‘Signori dellamistuanza!’This same story in quite another dress was told me one evening in Aldershot Camp; and as it is a very curious instance of the migration of myths, I give the home version.It would seem that in Aldershot lingo, or in the lingo of a certain regiment once stationed there, to ‘kill a fox’ means to get drunk. Possibly the expression was acquired during the Peninsular war, as ‘tomar una zorrilla’ has an equivalent meaning in Spanish. The story was this. Once during the brief holiday of the chaplain of the regiment, a French priest who knew a little English took his place. At confession the chief fault of which, according to the story, the men accused themselves was that they had ‘killed a fox,’ an expression perfectly well understood by their own pastor. The good French priest, however, instead of being shocked at finding how often men got drunk, was highly edified at the angelic simplicity of these Angles, who showed so much contrition for having indulged in the innocent pastime—in France, not even an offence among sportsmen—of having killed a fox.At last there came one of a more humorous turn of mind than the rest, and thesurnoisair with which he pronounced the expression revealed to the good Frenchman that the words meant something more than they said.‘Vat mean you ven you say, “kill de fox?”’ now inquired the Frenchman of his penitent with fear and trembling. And the blunt soldier had no sooner expounded the slang than the bewildered foreigner threw open the front wicket of the confessional and cried aloud:‘Come back! all you dat have killed de foxes! Come back! come back!’↑

1‘I sette Villani.’↑

2‘Un po’ di mistuanza.’ ‘Mistuanza’ is a word in use among the poor for a mixture of herbs of which they make a kind of poor salad.↑

3‘Un po’ di bove, un po’ di porchi, un po’ di galline.’

‘Un po’ (un poco) a little. The effect of the story depended a good deal on the tones of voice in which it was told. The deprecatory tone of the penitent as he says, ‘un po’ di bove,’ &c., and the horror of the priest as he cries out, ‘Signori dellamistuanza!’

This same story in quite another dress was told me one evening in Aldershot Camp; and as it is a very curious instance of the migration of myths, I give the home version.

It would seem that in Aldershot lingo, or in the lingo of a certain regiment once stationed there, to ‘kill a fox’ means to get drunk. Possibly the expression was acquired during the Peninsular war, as ‘tomar una zorrilla’ has an equivalent meaning in Spanish. The story was this. Once during the brief holiday of the chaplain of the regiment, a French priest who knew a little English took his place. At confession the chief fault of which, according to the story, the men accused themselves was that they had ‘killed a fox,’ an expression perfectly well understood by their own pastor. The good French priest, however, instead of being shocked at finding how often men got drunk, was highly edified at the angelic simplicity of these Angles, who showed so much contrition for having indulged in the innocent pastime—in France, not even an offence among sportsmen—of having killed a fox.

At last there came one of a more humorous turn of mind than the rest, and thesurnoisair with which he pronounced the expression revealed to the good Frenchman that the words meant something more than they said.

‘Vat mean you ven you say, “kill de fox?”’ now inquired the Frenchman of his penitent with fear and trembling. And the blunt soldier had no sooner expounded the slang than the bewildered foreigner threw open the front wicket of the confessional and cried aloud:

‘Come back! all you dat have killed de foxes! Come back! come back!’↑

THE LITTLE BIRD.1There was an old couple who earned a poor living by working hard all day in the fields.‘See how hard we work all day,’ said the wife; ‘and it all comes of the foolish curiosity of Adam and Eve. If it had not been for that we should have been living now in a beautiful garden, with nothing to do all day long.’‘Yes,’ said the husband; ‘if you and I had been there, instead of Adam and Eve, all the human race had been in Paradise still.’The count, their master, overheard them talking in this way, and he came to them and said: ‘How would you like it if I took you up into my palazzo there, to live and gave you servants to wait on you, and plenty to eat and drink?’‘Oh, that would be delightful indeed! That would be as good as Paradise itself!’ answered husband and wife together.‘Well, you may come up there if you think so. Only remember, in Paradise there was one tree that was not to be touched; so at my table there will be one dish not to be touched. You mustn’t mind that,’ said the count.‘Oh, of course not,’ replied the old peasant; ‘that’s just what I say: when Eve had all the fruits in the garden, what did she want with just that one that was forbidden? And if we, who are used to the scantiest victuals, are supplied with enough to live well, what does it matter to us whether there is an extra dish or not on the table?’‘Very well reasoned,’ said the count. ‘We quite understand each other, then?’‘Perfectly,’ replied both husband and wife.‘You come to live at my palace, and have everything you can want there, so long as you don’t open one dish2which there will be in the middle of the table. If you open that you go back to your former way of life.’‘We quite understand,’ answered the peasants.The count went in and called his servant, and told him to give the peasants an apartment to themselves, with everything they could want, and a sumptuous dinner, only in the middle of the table was to be an earthen dish, into which he was to put a little bird alive, so that if one lifted the cover the bird would fly out. He was to stay in the room and wait on them, and report to him what happened.The old people sat down to dinner, and praised everything they saw, so delightful it all seemed.‘Look! that’s the dish we’re not to touch,’ said the wife.‘No; betternotlook at it,’ said the husband.‘Pshaw! there’s no danger of wanting to open it, when we have such a lot of dishes to eat our fill out of,’ returned the wife.So they set to, and made such a repast as they had never dreamed of before. By degrees, however, as the novelty of the thing wore off, they grew more and more desirous for something newer and newer still. Though when they at first sat down it had seemed that two dishes would be ample to satisfy them, they had now had seven or eight and they were wishing there might be others coming. There is an end to all things human, and no other came; there only remained the earthen dish in the middle of the table.‘We might just lift the lid up a little wee bit,’ said the wife.‘No;don’ttalk about it,’ said the husband.The wife sat still for five minutes, and then she said: ‘If one just lifted up one corner of the lid it could scarcely be called opening it, you know.’‘Better leave it alone altogether, and not think about it at all,’ said the husband.The wife sat still another five minutes, and then she said: ‘If one peeped in just the least in the world it would not be any harm, surely; and Ishouldso like to know what there can possibly be. Now, whatcanthe count have put in that dish?’‘I’m sure I can’t guess in the least,’ said the husband; ‘and I must say I can’t see what it can signify to him if we did look at it.’‘No; that’s what I think. And besides, how would he know if we peeped? it wouldn’t hurt him,’ said the wife.‘No; as you say, one could just take a look,’ said the husband.The wife didn’t want more encouragement than that. But when she lifted one side of the lid the least mite she could see nothing. She opened it the least mite more, and the bird flew out. The servant ran and told his master, and the count came down and drove them out, bidding them never complain of Adam and Eve any more.1‘L’uccelletto,’the little bird.↑2‘Terrino,’ a high earthen dish with a cover, probably the origin of our ‘tureen,’ almost the only kind of Italian dish that ever has a cover.↑

THE LITTLE BIRD.1

There was an old couple who earned a poor living by working hard all day in the fields.‘See how hard we work all day,’ said the wife; ‘and it all comes of the foolish curiosity of Adam and Eve. If it had not been for that we should have been living now in a beautiful garden, with nothing to do all day long.’‘Yes,’ said the husband; ‘if you and I had been there, instead of Adam and Eve, all the human race had been in Paradise still.’The count, their master, overheard them talking in this way, and he came to them and said: ‘How would you like it if I took you up into my palazzo there, to live and gave you servants to wait on you, and plenty to eat and drink?’‘Oh, that would be delightful indeed! That would be as good as Paradise itself!’ answered husband and wife together.‘Well, you may come up there if you think so. Only remember, in Paradise there was one tree that was not to be touched; so at my table there will be one dish not to be touched. You mustn’t mind that,’ said the count.‘Oh, of course not,’ replied the old peasant; ‘that’s just what I say: when Eve had all the fruits in the garden, what did she want with just that one that was forbidden? And if we, who are used to the scantiest victuals, are supplied with enough to live well, what does it matter to us whether there is an extra dish or not on the table?’‘Very well reasoned,’ said the count. ‘We quite understand each other, then?’‘Perfectly,’ replied both husband and wife.‘You come to live at my palace, and have everything you can want there, so long as you don’t open one dish2which there will be in the middle of the table. If you open that you go back to your former way of life.’‘We quite understand,’ answered the peasants.The count went in and called his servant, and told him to give the peasants an apartment to themselves, with everything they could want, and a sumptuous dinner, only in the middle of the table was to be an earthen dish, into which he was to put a little bird alive, so that if one lifted the cover the bird would fly out. He was to stay in the room and wait on them, and report to him what happened.The old people sat down to dinner, and praised everything they saw, so delightful it all seemed.‘Look! that’s the dish we’re not to touch,’ said the wife.‘No; betternotlook at it,’ said the husband.‘Pshaw! there’s no danger of wanting to open it, when we have such a lot of dishes to eat our fill out of,’ returned the wife.So they set to, and made such a repast as they had never dreamed of before. By degrees, however, as the novelty of the thing wore off, they grew more and more desirous for something newer and newer still. Though when they at first sat down it had seemed that two dishes would be ample to satisfy them, they had now had seven or eight and they were wishing there might be others coming. There is an end to all things human, and no other came; there only remained the earthen dish in the middle of the table.‘We might just lift the lid up a little wee bit,’ said the wife.‘No;don’ttalk about it,’ said the husband.The wife sat still for five minutes, and then she said: ‘If one just lifted up one corner of the lid it could scarcely be called opening it, you know.’‘Better leave it alone altogether, and not think about it at all,’ said the husband.The wife sat still another five minutes, and then she said: ‘If one peeped in just the least in the world it would not be any harm, surely; and Ishouldso like to know what there can possibly be. Now, whatcanthe count have put in that dish?’‘I’m sure I can’t guess in the least,’ said the husband; ‘and I must say I can’t see what it can signify to him if we did look at it.’‘No; that’s what I think. And besides, how would he know if we peeped? it wouldn’t hurt him,’ said the wife.‘No; as you say, one could just take a look,’ said the husband.The wife didn’t want more encouragement than that. But when she lifted one side of the lid the least mite she could see nothing. She opened it the least mite more, and the bird flew out. The servant ran and told his master, and the count came down and drove them out, bidding them never complain of Adam and Eve any more.

There was an old couple who earned a poor living by working hard all day in the fields.

‘See how hard we work all day,’ said the wife; ‘and it all comes of the foolish curiosity of Adam and Eve. If it had not been for that we should have been living now in a beautiful garden, with nothing to do all day long.’

‘Yes,’ said the husband; ‘if you and I had been there, instead of Adam and Eve, all the human race had been in Paradise still.’

The count, their master, overheard them talking in this way, and he came to them and said: ‘How would you like it if I took you up into my palazzo there, to live and gave you servants to wait on you, and plenty to eat and drink?’

‘Oh, that would be delightful indeed! That would be as good as Paradise itself!’ answered husband and wife together.

‘Well, you may come up there if you think so. Only remember, in Paradise there was one tree that was not to be touched; so at my table there will be one dish not to be touched. You mustn’t mind that,’ said the count.

‘Oh, of course not,’ replied the old peasant; ‘that’s just what I say: when Eve had all the fruits in the garden, what did she want with just that one that was forbidden? And if we, who are used to the scantiest victuals, are supplied with enough to live well, what does it matter to us whether there is an extra dish or not on the table?’

‘Very well reasoned,’ said the count. ‘We quite understand each other, then?’

‘Perfectly,’ replied both husband and wife.

‘You come to live at my palace, and have everything you can want there, so long as you don’t open one dish2which there will be in the middle of the table. If you open that you go back to your former way of life.’

‘We quite understand,’ answered the peasants.

The count went in and called his servant, and told him to give the peasants an apartment to themselves, with everything they could want, and a sumptuous dinner, only in the middle of the table was to be an earthen dish, into which he was to put a little bird alive, so that if one lifted the cover the bird would fly out. He was to stay in the room and wait on them, and report to him what happened.

The old people sat down to dinner, and praised everything they saw, so delightful it all seemed.

‘Look! that’s the dish we’re not to touch,’ said the wife.

‘No; betternotlook at it,’ said the husband.

‘Pshaw! there’s no danger of wanting to open it, when we have such a lot of dishes to eat our fill out of,’ returned the wife.

So they set to, and made such a repast as they had never dreamed of before. By degrees, however, as the novelty of the thing wore off, they grew more and more desirous for something newer and newer still. Though when they at first sat down it had seemed that two dishes would be ample to satisfy them, they had now had seven or eight and they were wishing there might be others coming. There is an end to all things human, and no other came; there only remained the earthen dish in the middle of the table.

‘We might just lift the lid up a little wee bit,’ said the wife.

‘No;don’ttalk about it,’ said the husband.

The wife sat still for five minutes, and then she said: ‘If one just lifted up one corner of the lid it could scarcely be called opening it, you know.’

‘Better leave it alone altogether, and not think about it at all,’ said the husband.

The wife sat still another five minutes, and then she said: ‘If one peeped in just the least in the world it would not be any harm, surely; and Ishouldso like to know what there can possibly be. Now, whatcanthe count have put in that dish?’

‘I’m sure I can’t guess in the least,’ said the husband; ‘and I must say I can’t see what it can signify to him if we did look at it.’

‘No; that’s what I think. And besides, how would he know if we peeped? it wouldn’t hurt him,’ said the wife.

‘No; as you say, one could just take a look,’ said the husband.

The wife didn’t want more encouragement than that. But when she lifted one side of the lid the least mite she could see nothing. She opened it the least mite more, and the bird flew out. The servant ran and told his master, and the count came down and drove them out, bidding them never complain of Adam and Eve any more.

1‘L’uccelletto,’the little bird.↑2‘Terrino,’ a high earthen dish with a cover, probably the origin of our ‘tureen,’ almost the only kind of Italian dish that ever has a cover.↑

1‘L’uccelletto,’the little bird.↑

2‘Terrino,’ a high earthen dish with a cover, probably the origin of our ‘tureen,’ almost the only kind of Italian dish that ever has a cover.↑

THE DEVIL WHO TOOK TO HIMSELF A WIFE.1Listen, and I will tell you what the devil did who took to himself a wife.Ages and ages ago, in the days when the devil was loose—for now he is chained and can’t go about like that any more—the head devil2called the others, and said, ‘Whichever of you proves himself the boldest and cleverest, I will give him his release, and set him free from Inferno.’So they all set to work and did all manner of wild and terrible things, and the one who pleased the head devil best was set free.This devil being set free, went upon earth, and thought he would live like the children of men. So he took a wife, and, of course, he chose one who was handsome and fashionable3, but he didn’t think about anything else, and he soon found that she was no housewife, was never satisfied unless she was gadding out somewhere, would not take a word of reproof, and, what was more, she spent all his money.Every day there were furious quarrels; it was bad enough while the money lasted—and he had brought a good provision with him—but when the money came to an end it was much worse; he was ever reproaching her with extravagance, and she him with stinginess and deception.At last he said to her one day, ‘It’s no use making a piece of work; I’m quite tired of this sort of life; I shall go back to Hell, which is a much quieter place than a house where you are. But I don’t mind doing you a good turn first. I’ll go and possess myself of a certain queen. You dress up like a doctor, and say you will heal her, and all you will have to do will be to pretend to use some ointments4for two or three days, on which I will go out of her. Then they will be so delighted with you for healing her that they will give you a lot of money, on which you can live for the rest of your days, and I will go back to Hell.’ But though he said this, it was only to get rid of her. As soon as he had provided her with the price for casting him out once, he meant to go and amuse himself on earth in other ways; he had no real intention of going back to Hell. Then he instructed her in the means by which she was to find out the queen of whom he was to possess himself, and went his way.The wife, by following the direction he gave, soon found him, and, dressed as a doctor, effected the cure; that is, she made herself known to him in applying the ointments, and he went away as he had agreed.When the king and the court saw what a wonderfulcure had been effected, they gave the woman a sackfull of scudi, but all the people went on talking of her success.The devil meantime had possessed himself of another sovereign, a king this time, and everybody in the kingdom was very desirous to have him cured, and went inquiring everywhere for a remedy. Thus they heard of the fame of the last cure by the devil’s wife. Then they immediately sent for her and insisted that she should cure this king too. But she, not sure whether he would go out a second time at her bidding, refused as long as she could; but they took her, and said, ‘Unless you cure him we shall kill you!’‘Then,’ she said, ‘you must shut me up alone with this king, and I will try what I can do.’So she was shut up alone with him.‘What! you here again!’ said the devil as soon as he perceived her. ‘No; that won’t do this time. I am very comfortable inside this old king, and I mean to stay here.’‘But they threaten to kill me if I don’t make you go; so what am I to do?’ answered the wife.‘I can’t help that,’ he replied; ‘you must get out of the scrape the best way you can.’At this she got in a passion, and, as she used to do in the days when they were living together, rated him so fiercely that at last he was fain to go to escape her scolding.Once more she received a high price for the cure, and her fame got the more bruited abroad.But the devil went into another queen, and possessed himself of her. The fame of the two cures had spread so far that the wife was soon called in to try her powers again.‘I really can’t,’ she pleaded; but the people said:‘What you did for the other two you can do for this one; and, if you don’t, we will cut off your head.’To save her head, therefore, she said, ‘Then you must shut me up in a room alone with the queen.’So she was shut up in the room with her.‘What! you here again!’ exclaimed the devil as soon as he perceived her. ‘No; I positively won’t go this time; I couldn’t be better off than inside this old queen, and till you came I was perfectly happy.’‘They threaten to take my head if I don’t make you go; so what am I to do?’‘Then let them take your head, and let that be an end of it,’ replied the devil testily.‘You are a pretty husband, indeed, to say such a speech to a wife!’ answered she in a high-pitched voice, which he knew was the foretaste of one of those terrible storms he could never resist.Basta!she stormed so loud that she sickened him of her for good and all, and this time, to escape her, instead of possessing himself of any more kings and queens, he went straight off to Hell, and never came forth any more for fear of meeting her.[For variants of thisCiarpa, see Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ pp. 37–43; ‘The Ill-tempered Princess’ in ‘Patrañas,’ &c.]1‘Il Diavolo che prese Moglie.’↑2‘Il Capo diavolo.’↑3‘Il più bravo.’↑4Witches were generally accused of communicating with the Devil, going to midnight meetings with him, &c., by means of ointments. See ‘Del Rio,’ lib. ii. Q. xvi. p. 81, col. 1, C., and lib. iii. P. 1, 2, ii. p. 155, col. 1, B., &c., &c.↑

THE DEVIL WHO TOOK TO HIMSELF A WIFE.1

Listen, and I will tell you what the devil did who took to himself a wife.Ages and ages ago, in the days when the devil was loose—for now he is chained and can’t go about like that any more—the head devil2called the others, and said, ‘Whichever of you proves himself the boldest and cleverest, I will give him his release, and set him free from Inferno.’So they all set to work and did all manner of wild and terrible things, and the one who pleased the head devil best was set free.This devil being set free, went upon earth, and thought he would live like the children of men. So he took a wife, and, of course, he chose one who was handsome and fashionable3, but he didn’t think about anything else, and he soon found that she was no housewife, was never satisfied unless she was gadding out somewhere, would not take a word of reproof, and, what was more, she spent all his money.Every day there were furious quarrels; it was bad enough while the money lasted—and he had brought a good provision with him—but when the money came to an end it was much worse; he was ever reproaching her with extravagance, and she him with stinginess and deception.At last he said to her one day, ‘It’s no use making a piece of work; I’m quite tired of this sort of life; I shall go back to Hell, which is a much quieter place than a house where you are. But I don’t mind doing you a good turn first. I’ll go and possess myself of a certain queen. You dress up like a doctor, and say you will heal her, and all you will have to do will be to pretend to use some ointments4for two or three days, on which I will go out of her. Then they will be so delighted with you for healing her that they will give you a lot of money, on which you can live for the rest of your days, and I will go back to Hell.’ But though he said this, it was only to get rid of her. As soon as he had provided her with the price for casting him out once, he meant to go and amuse himself on earth in other ways; he had no real intention of going back to Hell. Then he instructed her in the means by which she was to find out the queen of whom he was to possess himself, and went his way.The wife, by following the direction he gave, soon found him, and, dressed as a doctor, effected the cure; that is, she made herself known to him in applying the ointments, and he went away as he had agreed.When the king and the court saw what a wonderfulcure had been effected, they gave the woman a sackfull of scudi, but all the people went on talking of her success.The devil meantime had possessed himself of another sovereign, a king this time, and everybody in the kingdom was very desirous to have him cured, and went inquiring everywhere for a remedy. Thus they heard of the fame of the last cure by the devil’s wife. Then they immediately sent for her and insisted that she should cure this king too. But she, not sure whether he would go out a second time at her bidding, refused as long as she could; but they took her, and said, ‘Unless you cure him we shall kill you!’‘Then,’ she said, ‘you must shut me up alone with this king, and I will try what I can do.’So she was shut up alone with him.‘What! you here again!’ said the devil as soon as he perceived her. ‘No; that won’t do this time. I am very comfortable inside this old king, and I mean to stay here.’‘But they threaten to kill me if I don’t make you go; so what am I to do?’ answered the wife.‘I can’t help that,’ he replied; ‘you must get out of the scrape the best way you can.’At this she got in a passion, and, as she used to do in the days when they were living together, rated him so fiercely that at last he was fain to go to escape her scolding.Once more she received a high price for the cure, and her fame got the more bruited abroad.But the devil went into another queen, and possessed himself of her. The fame of the two cures had spread so far that the wife was soon called in to try her powers again.‘I really can’t,’ she pleaded; but the people said:‘What you did for the other two you can do for this one; and, if you don’t, we will cut off your head.’To save her head, therefore, she said, ‘Then you must shut me up in a room alone with the queen.’So she was shut up in the room with her.‘What! you here again!’ exclaimed the devil as soon as he perceived her. ‘No; I positively won’t go this time; I couldn’t be better off than inside this old queen, and till you came I was perfectly happy.’‘They threaten to take my head if I don’t make you go; so what am I to do?’‘Then let them take your head, and let that be an end of it,’ replied the devil testily.‘You are a pretty husband, indeed, to say such a speech to a wife!’ answered she in a high-pitched voice, which he knew was the foretaste of one of those terrible storms he could never resist.Basta!she stormed so loud that she sickened him of her for good and all, and this time, to escape her, instead of possessing himself of any more kings and queens, he went straight off to Hell, and never came forth any more for fear of meeting her.[For variants of thisCiarpa, see Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ pp. 37–43; ‘The Ill-tempered Princess’ in ‘Patrañas,’ &c.]

Listen, and I will tell you what the devil did who took to himself a wife.

Ages and ages ago, in the days when the devil was loose—for now he is chained and can’t go about like that any more—the head devil2called the others, and said, ‘Whichever of you proves himself the boldest and cleverest, I will give him his release, and set him free from Inferno.’

So they all set to work and did all manner of wild and terrible things, and the one who pleased the head devil best was set free.

This devil being set free, went upon earth, and thought he would live like the children of men. So he took a wife, and, of course, he chose one who was handsome and fashionable3, but he didn’t think about anything else, and he soon found that she was no housewife, was never satisfied unless she was gadding out somewhere, would not take a word of reproof, and, what was more, she spent all his money.

Every day there were furious quarrels; it was bad enough while the money lasted—and he had brought a good provision with him—but when the money came to an end it was much worse; he was ever reproaching her with extravagance, and she him with stinginess and deception.

At last he said to her one day, ‘It’s no use making a piece of work; I’m quite tired of this sort of life; I shall go back to Hell, which is a much quieter place than a house where you are. But I don’t mind doing you a good turn first. I’ll go and possess myself of a certain queen. You dress up like a doctor, and say you will heal her, and all you will have to do will be to pretend to use some ointments4for two or three days, on which I will go out of her. Then they will be so delighted with you for healing her that they will give you a lot of money, on which you can live for the rest of your days, and I will go back to Hell.’ But though he said this, it was only to get rid of her. As soon as he had provided her with the price for casting him out once, he meant to go and amuse himself on earth in other ways; he had no real intention of going back to Hell. Then he instructed her in the means by which she was to find out the queen of whom he was to possess himself, and went his way.

The wife, by following the direction he gave, soon found him, and, dressed as a doctor, effected the cure; that is, she made herself known to him in applying the ointments, and he went away as he had agreed.

When the king and the court saw what a wonderfulcure had been effected, they gave the woman a sackfull of scudi, but all the people went on talking of her success.

The devil meantime had possessed himself of another sovereign, a king this time, and everybody in the kingdom was very desirous to have him cured, and went inquiring everywhere for a remedy. Thus they heard of the fame of the last cure by the devil’s wife. Then they immediately sent for her and insisted that she should cure this king too. But she, not sure whether he would go out a second time at her bidding, refused as long as she could; but they took her, and said, ‘Unless you cure him we shall kill you!’

‘Then,’ she said, ‘you must shut me up alone with this king, and I will try what I can do.’

So she was shut up alone with him.

‘What! you here again!’ said the devil as soon as he perceived her. ‘No; that won’t do this time. I am very comfortable inside this old king, and I mean to stay here.’

‘But they threaten to kill me if I don’t make you go; so what am I to do?’ answered the wife.

‘I can’t help that,’ he replied; ‘you must get out of the scrape the best way you can.’

At this she got in a passion, and, as she used to do in the days when they were living together, rated him so fiercely that at last he was fain to go to escape her scolding.

Once more she received a high price for the cure, and her fame got the more bruited abroad.

But the devil went into another queen, and possessed himself of her. The fame of the two cures had spread so far that the wife was soon called in to try her powers again.

‘I really can’t,’ she pleaded; but the people said:

‘What you did for the other two you can do for this one; and, if you don’t, we will cut off your head.’

To save her head, therefore, she said, ‘Then you must shut me up in a room alone with the queen.’

So she was shut up in the room with her.

‘What! you here again!’ exclaimed the devil as soon as he perceived her. ‘No; I positively won’t go this time; I couldn’t be better off than inside this old queen, and till you came I was perfectly happy.’

‘They threaten to take my head if I don’t make you go; so what am I to do?’

‘Then let them take your head, and let that be an end of it,’ replied the devil testily.

‘You are a pretty husband, indeed, to say such a speech to a wife!’ answered she in a high-pitched voice, which he knew was the foretaste of one of those terrible storms he could never resist.

Basta!she stormed so loud that she sickened him of her for good and all, and this time, to escape her, instead of possessing himself of any more kings and queens, he went straight off to Hell, and never came forth any more for fear of meeting her.

[For variants of thisCiarpa, see Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk Tales,’ pp. 37–43; ‘The Ill-tempered Princess’ in ‘Patrañas,’ &c.]

1‘Il Diavolo che prese Moglie.’↑2‘Il Capo diavolo.’↑3‘Il più bravo.’↑4Witches were generally accused of communicating with the Devil, going to midnight meetings with him, &c., by means of ointments. See ‘Del Rio,’ lib. ii. Q. xvi. p. 81, col. 1, C., and lib. iii. P. 1, 2, ii. p. 155, col. 1, B., &c., &c.↑

1‘Il Diavolo che prese Moglie.’↑

2‘Il Capo diavolo.’↑

3‘Il più bravo.’↑

4Witches were generally accused of communicating with the Devil, going to midnight meetings with him, &c., by means of ointments. See ‘Del Rio,’ lib. ii. Q. xvi. p. 81, col. 1, C., and lib. iii. P. 1, 2, ii. p. 155, col. 1, B., &c., &c.↑

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