Part 33 (1/2)

”Will you call at our inn and speak with us? That's my card,” said one, as he pa.s.sed out, and gave a visiting-card into the youth's hand.

He took it without a word; indeed, he was too deeply engaged in his own thoughts to pay much attention to the request.

”The sergeant will accompany you, my good youth, to your lodgings, and verify what you have stated as to your companion. To-morrow you will appear here again, to answer certain questions we shall put to you as to your subsistence, and the means by which you live.”

”Is it a crime to have wherewithal to subsist upon?” asked the boy.

”He whose means of living are disproportionate to his evident station may well be an object of suspicion,” said the other, with a sneer.

”And who is to say what is my station, or what becomes it? Will _you_ take upon you to p.r.o.nounce upon the question?” cried the boy, boldly.

”Mayhap it is what I shall do very soon!” was the calm answer.

”Then let me have done with this. I'll leave the place as soon as my friend be able to bear removal.”

”Even that I 'll not promise for.”

”Why, you 'll not detain me here by force?” exclaimed the youth.

A cold, ambiguous smile was the only reply he received to this speech.

”Well, let us see when this restraint is to begin,” cried the boy, pa.s.sionately, as he moved towards the door; but no impediment was offered to his departure. On the contrary, the servant, at a signal from the Prefect, threw wide the two sides of the folding-doors, and the youth pa.s.sed out, down the stairs, and into the street.

His mind obscured by pa.s.sion, his heart bursting with indignation, he threaded his way through many a narrow lane and alley, till he reached a small rustic bridge, crossing over which he ascended a narrow flight of steps cut in the solid rock, and gained a little terrace, on which stood a small cottage of the humblest kind.

As usual in Italy, during the summer-time, the gla.s.s sashes of the windows had been removed, and the shutters closed. Opening one of these gently with his hand, he peeped in, and as suddenly a voice cried out, ”Are you come back? Oh, how my heart was aching to see you here again!

Come in quickly, and let me touch your hand.”

The next moment the boy was seated by the bed, where lay a man greatly emaciated by sickness, and bearing in his worn features the traces of a severe tertian.

”It's going off now,” said he, ”but the fit was a long one. This morning it began at eight o'clock; but I 'm throwing it off now, and I 'll soon be better.”

”My poor fellow,” said the boy, caressing the cold fingers within his own hands, ”it was in these midnight rambles of mine you caught the terrible malady. As it ever has been, your fidelity is fatal to you. I told you a thousand times that I was born to hard luck, and carried more than enough to swamp all who might try to succor me.

”And don't I say, as the ould heathen philosopher did of fortune, 'Nullum numen habes, si sit prudentia'?” Is it necessary to say that the speaker was Billy Traynor, and the boy his pupil?

”_Prudentia_,” said the youth, scoffingly, ”may mean anything, from trickery to downright meanness; since, by such acts as these, men grow great in life. _Prudentia_ is thrift and self-denial; but it is more too,--it is a compromise between a man's dignity and his worldly success--it is the compact that says, Bear _this_ that _that_ may happen; and so I 'll none of it.”

”Tell me how you fared with the Prefect,” asked Billy.

”You shall hear, and judge for yourself,” said the other; and related, as well as his memory would serve him, the circ.u.mstances of his late interview.

”Well, well!” said Billy, ”it might be worse.”

”I knew you 'd say so, poor fellow!” said the youth, affectionately; ”you accept the rubs of life as cheerfully as I take them with impatience. But, after all, this is matter of temperament too. _You_ can forgive,--I love better to resist.”

”Mine is the better philosophy, though,” said Billy, ”since it will last one's lifetime. Forgiveness must dignify old age, when your virtue of resistance be no longer possible.”

”I never wish to reach the time when I may be too old for it,” said the boy, pa.s.sionately.