I jumped out of bed, got into a dressing-gown, and ran out to where the “General” was on the lawn before the door, just as I was, and hardly more than half awake.  There he was, all alone.  But if there had been a dozen other men around him, I should have had no difficulty in recognising him.  There was the figure as well known to every Italian from Turin to Syracuse as that of his own father—­the light grey trousers, the little foraging cap, the red shirt, the bandana handkerchief loosely thrown over his shoulders and round his neck.

Prints, photographs, portraits of all kinds, have made the English public scarcely less familiar than the Italian, with the physiognomy of Giuseppe Garibaldi.  But no photograph, of course, and no painting which I have ever seen, gives certain peculiarities of that striking head and face, as I first saw it, somewhere about twenty years ago.

The pose of the head, and the general arrangement and colour of the tawny hair (at that time but slightly grizzled) justified the epithet “leonine” so often applied to him.  His beard and moustache were of the same hue, and his skin was probably fair by nature, but it had been tanned by wind and weather.  The clear blue eyes were surrounded by a network of fine lines.  This had no trace or suggestion of cunning, as is often the case with wrinkles round the setting of the eyes, but was obviously the result of habitual contraction of the muscles in gazing at very distant objects.  In short, Garibaldi’s eyes, both in this respect and in respect of a certain, steadfast, far-away look in them, were the eyes of a sailor.  Seamanship, as is generally known, was his first profession.  Another physical peculiarity of his which I do not remember to have seen noticed in print was a remarkably beautiful voice.  It was fine in quality and of great range; sweet, yet manly, and with a suggestion of stored-up power which harmonised with the man.  It seemed to belong, too, to the benevolence, which was the habitual expression of his face when in repose.

“Jessie [pronounced Jessee] told me I should find you up; but you are not so early as I am!” was his salutation.  I said he had dans le temps been beforehand with others as well as with me!  At which he laughed, not, I thought, ill-pleased.  And then we talked—­about Italy of course.  One subject of his talk I specially remember, because it gave rise to a little discussion, and in a great degree gave me the measure of the man.

“As for the priests,” said he, “they ought all to be put to death, without exception and without delay!”

“Rather a strong measure!” I ventured to say.

“Not a bit too strong! not a bit!” he rejoined warmly.  “Do we not put assassins to death?  And is not the man who murders your soul worse than the man who only kills your body?”

I attempted to say that the difference of the two cases lay in the fact, that as to the killing of the body there was no doubt about the matter, whereas mankind differed very widely as to the killing of the soul; and that as long as it remained a moot point whether priests did so or not, it would hardly be practicable or even politic to adopt the measure he suggested.