It was seldom that the cavaliere used bad words—­excuse him.

PART III

CHAPTER I.

A LONELY TOWN.

The road from Lucca to Corellia lies at the foot of lofty mountains, over-mantled by chestnut-forests, and cleft asunder by the river Serchio—­the broad, willful Serchio, sprung from the flanks of virgin fastnesses.  In its course a thousand valleys open up, scoring the banks.  Each valley has its tributary stream, down which, even in the dog-days, cool breezes rustle.  The lower hills lying warm toward the south, and the broad glassy lands by the river, are trellised with vines.  Some fling their branches in wild festoons on mulberry or aspen trees.  Some trained in long arbors are held up by pillars of unbarked wood; others trail upon the earth in delicious luxuriance.  The white and purple grapes peep from the already shriveled leaves, or hang in rich masses on the brown earth.

It is the vintage.  The peasants, busy as bees, swarm on the hill-sides; the women pluck the fruit; the men bear it away in wooden measures.  While they work, they sing those wild Tuscan melodies that linger in the air like long-drawn sighs.  The donkeys, too, climb up and down, saddled with wooden panniers, crammed with grapes.  These grapes are shot into large tubs, and placed in a shady outhouse.  Some black-eyed boy will dance merrily on these tubs, by-and-by, with his naked feet, and squeeze out the juice.  This juice is then covered and left to ferment, then bottled into flasks, covered with wicker-work, corked with tow, and finally stowed away in caves among the rocks.

The marchesa’s lumbering coach, drawn by three horses harnessed abreast (another horse, smaller than the rest, put in tandem in front), creaks along the road by the river-side, on its high wheels.  She sits within, a stony look upon her hard white face.  Enrica, pale and silent, is beside her.  No word has passed between them since they left Lucca two hours ago.  They pass groups of peasants, their labors over for the day—­turning out of the vineyards upon the high-road.  The donkeys are driven on in front.  They are braying for joy; their faces are turned homeward.  Boys run at their heels, and spur them on with sticks and stones.  The women lag behind talking—­their white head-gear and gold ear-rings catching the low sunshine that strikes through rents of parting mountains.  Every man takes off his hat to the marchesa; every woman wishes her good-day.

It is only the boys who do not fear her.  They have no caps to raise; when the carriage has passed, they leave the donkeys and hang on behind like a swarm of bees.  The driver is quite aware of this, and his long whip, which he has cracked at intervals all the way from Lucca—­would reach the grinning, white-toothed little vagabonds well; but he—­the driver—­grins too, and spares them.