These appendages belonged to a troop of men and women, some masked and in motley, others in discoloured travel-stained garments, who pressed about the soprano with cries of joyous recognition.  He was evidently an old favourite of the band, for a duenna in tattered velvet fell on his neck with genial unreserve, a pert soubrette caught him by the arm the duenna left free, and a terrific Matamor with a nose like a scimitar slapped him on the back with a tin sword.

Odo’s glimpse of the square at Oropa told him that here was a band of strolling players such as Cantapresto had talked of on the ride back to Donnaz.  Don Gervaso’s instructions and the old Marchioness’s warning against the theatre were present enough in the boy’s mind to add a touch of awe to the curiosity with which he observed these strange objects of the Church’s reprobation.  They struck him, it must be owned, as more pitiable than alarming, for the duenna’s toes were coming through her shoes, and one or two of the children who hung on the outskirts of the group looked as lean and hungry under their spangles as the foundling-girl of Pontesordo.  Spite of this they seemed a jolly crew, and ready (at Cantapresto’s expense) to celebrate their encounter with the ex-soprano in unlimited libations of Asti and Val Pulicello.  The singer, however, hung back with protesting gestures.

“Gently, then, gently, dear friends—­dear companions!  When was it we parted?  In the spring of the year—­and we meet now in the late summer.  As the seasons change so do our conditions:  if the spring is a season of folly, then is the harvest-time the period for reflection.  When we last met I was a strolling poet, glad to serve your gifted company within the scope of my talents—­now, ladies and gentlemen, now”—­he drew himself up with pride—­“now you behold in me the governor and friend of the heir-presumptive of Pianura.”

Cries of incredulity and derision greeted this announcement, and one of the girls called out laughingly, “Yet you have the same old cassock to your back!”

“And the same old passage from your mouth to your belly,” added an elastic Harlequin, reaching an arm across the women’s shoulders.  “Come, Cantapresto, we’ll help you line it with good wine, to the health of his most superlatively serene Highness, the heir-presumptive of Pianura; and where is that fabulous personage, by the way?”

Odo at this retreated hastily behind the soprano; but a pretty girl catching sight of him, he found himself dragged into the centre of the company, who hailed him with fantastic obeisances.  Supper meanwhile was being laid on the greasy table down the middle of the room.  The Matamor, who seemed the director of the troupe, thundered out his orders for maccaroni, fried eels and sausages; the inn-servants flanked the plates with wine-flasks and lumps of black bread, and in a moment the hungry comedians, thrusting Odo into a high seat at the head of the table, were falling on the repast with a prodigious clatter of cutlery.