"But you knew how to cure the phylloxera in the vines, and when your
master died you married his daughter and came into his vineyard."
"Angelica! Here's a gentleman who knows all about us," said the old man,
and then, grinning from ear to ear, he added:
"Perhaps your Excellency was the young gentleman who used to visit with
his father at the Count's palace on the hill twenty to thirty years
ago?"
David Rossi looked him steadfastly in the face and said: "Do you
remember the poor boy who lived with you at that time?"
The forced smile was gone in a moment. "We had no boy then, Excellency."
"He came to you from Santo Spirito and you got a hundred francs with him
at first, and then you built this pergola."
"If your Excellency is from the Foundling, you may tell them again, as I
told the priest who came before, that we never took a boy from there,
and we had no money from the people who sent him to London."
"You don't remember him, then?"
"Certainly not."
"Nor you?"
The old woman hesitated, and the old man made mouths at her.
"No, Excellency."
David Rossi took a long breath. "Here is the amount of your bill, and
something over. Good-bye!"
The timid lad brought round the horses and the riders prepared to mount.
Roma was looking at the boy with pitying eyes.
"How long have you been here?" she asked.
"Ten years, Excellency," he replied.
He was just twelve years of age and both his parents were dead.
"Poor little fellow!" said Roma, and before David Rossi could prevent
her she was emptying her purse into the boy's hand.
They set off at a trot, and for some time they did not exchange a word.
The sun was sinking and the golden day was dying down. Over the broad
swell of the Campagna, treeless, houseless, a dull haze was creeping
like a shroud, and the long knotted grass was swept by the chill breath
of evening. Nothing broke the wide silence of the desolate space except
the lowing of cattle, the bleat of sheep that were moving in masses like
the woolly waves of a sea, the bark of big white dogs, the shouts of
cowherds carrying long staves, and of shepherds riding on shaggy ponies.
Here and there were wretched straw huts, with groups of fever-stricken
people crouching over the embers of miserable fires, and here and there
were dirty pothouses, which alternated with wooden crosses of the Christ
and grass-covered shrines of the Madonna.