leaped at the thought that there below me, within a day’s travel, was the land that held Aurelia and Redemption; but even in that same moment there surged up that bitter something which chilled the generous feelings and staled the fluttering hopes.  Cruel and vexatious thought!  There was not a rill of water on these mossy stones which did not race unimpeded, or, if impeded, gathering force and direction from the very obstacle, towards Aurelia; yet here was I, sentient, adoring, longing, who had travelled so far and endured so much, unable to move one step beyond a painted post.  Such thoughts make rebels of us.  Is man, then, the slave of all creation?  Is his the one existence framed by the Almighty that cannot follow his nature?  Better then to be a beast of chase, darting mouse or blundering mole, than a man, if the more erect posture is to be the badge of a greater degradation.  If the sole merit of two legs be that they take less hobbling, better far to go upon four.  Needless to say that these were the mutinous reflections of the young Francis who suffered—­not of him who now writes them down, who pays taxes, wears a good coat and bows to the police with the best citizens in the country.  But that Francis of nascent rebellion—­miserably irresolute, truly indignant, not daring to go forward, not able to retire—­asked himself such burning questions in vain as he paced the brown length of a beechen glade, within sight but out of hope of his promise.

I must have wandered further than I reckoned; for so it was that I presently became aware of a companion in my solitudes.  This was a Capuchin of great girth and capacity, who sat under a chestnut tree, secluded from observation, and was at that time engaged in dyeing his beard.

CHAPTER X

I FALL IN AGAIN WITH FRA PALAMONE

The Capuchin’s employment was precisely what I have stated, though all probability is against it.  I was curious enough to watch him and could make no mistake.  He had a copious beard descending to his stomach, the half snowy white, the half a lustrous black.  Upon a depending twig he had fixed a tin-edged mirror, in his hand was a small tooth-comb.  With this he raked his beard over and over again, occasionally dipping it in a tin cup at his side.  He looked in the glass, picked up a strand of beard, examined it minutely underneath, dipped his comb and raked, dipped and raked again.  My gradual advance, due, as I have said, to curiosity, not presumption, did not disconcert him at all; he began to speak without so much as looking at me, whereby I was able to hope that I was not recognised.  On my side it had not taken long to ascertain that I knew the Capuchin very well—­if not by his white half-beard, then by that jutting tusk of his—­at once so loose and so menacing.  It was that very same who at the hospital of Rovigo had looked at me so hard, had burnt my cheek with his hot breath and urged the value of his friendship so clamantly against that of the Jew’s; Fra Palamone, as I remembered his name.  Nor could I forget why I had decided against him, nor in what terms.  It had been because, when I had brought my handful of money flooding out of my pocket, two ducats had been covered by this man’s foot and had been buried deep in his toes.