ads took the stuff thankfully and crunched the stony balls with
white, wolfish teeth.
With Padre Michele's help they got an old woman from amongst the
neighbours to rouse herself and do what was necessary. When all was over
she took the brown blanket as payment without asking for it, smuggling
it out of the mean room under her great black handkerchief. But it was
day then, and Don Pietro Casale was wide awake. He stopped her in the
narrow part of the lane at the foot of his own staircase, and forcibly
undid the bundle, to the old woman's inexpressible discomfiture. He said
nothing, as he took it from her and carried it away, but his thin grey
lips smiled quietly. The old woman shook her fist at him behind his
back and cursed his dead under her breath. From Rome to Palermo, swear
at a man if you please, call him by bad names, and he will laugh at you.
But curse his dead relations or their souls, and you had better keep
beyond the reach of his knife, or of his hands if he have no weapon. So
the old woman was careful that Pietro Casale should not hear her.
"Managgia l'anima di chi t' e morto!" she muttered, as she hobbled away.
Everything in the room where Carmela died belonged to Don Pietro, and he
took everything. He found the two boys standing together, looking across
the fence of the cabbage garden down at the distant valley and over at
the height opposite, beyond which the sea was hidden.
"Eh! You good-for-nothings!" he called out to them. "Is nothing done
to-day because the mother is dead? No bread to-night, then--you know
that."
"We will not work for you any more," answered Ruggiero, the elder, as
both turned round.
Don Pietro went up to them. He had a short stout stick in his hand,
tough and black with age, and he lifted it as though to drive them to
work. They waited quietly till it should please him to come to close
quarters, which he did without delay. I have said that he was a man of
few words. But the Children of the King were not like Calabrian boys,
children though they were. Their wolfish teeth were very white as they
waited for him with parted lips, and there was an odd blue light in
their eyes which is not often seen south of Goth-land.
They were but twelve and ten years old, but they could fight already, in
their small way, and had tried it many a time with shepherd lads on the
hill-side. But Don Pietro despised children and aimed a blow at
Ruggiero's right shoulder. The blow did not take e
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