like his famous ancestor and
namesake, he had a gibing tongue, which was evidence of a scrutiny
tolerably cool of the shifts of human nature. Human nature, he had
observed, must needs account to itself for itself. If it met with what
it did not understand, it was prompt to state the problem in a phrase
which it could not explain. The simplicity of the plan was as little to
be denied as its convenience was obvious. It was thus that Can Grande
II. understood the emotions of Verona; it was thus, indeed, that he
himself, confronted with statements and an explanation which did not
satisfy him, accounted to himself, like any mother's son of his lieges.
He explained their explanation, but only by another inexplicable
formula. The energy with which he expounded his own view to those about
him betrayed, perhaps, a lurking uneasiness in the burly tyrant.

"Pooh, my good lord," said he to the bishop, who had come full of the
day's doings and night's report, "don't you know your own flock better
than this? Did you ever hear a man with a broken limb attribute his
mishap to other than Domeneddio? However drunk he may have been, however
absurdly in a hurry--act of God! If it thunder and lighten of a summer
night, if it turn the milk--a judgment! Luckily Monsignore has broad
shoulders by all accounts; _per Bacco!_--He had need. Now then, look at
this case. A belated woman with a baby stumbles upon a company of
shepherds all in the twittering dark. Hearts jump to mouths, flesh
creeps, hairs stand tiptoe--Madonna, of course! Whom else could they
call her, pray? They don't know the woman: name her they must. Well! Who
is there they don't know whose name comes readiest to the tongue?
Madonna, of course. Good: _Ecco Madonna!_"

This was very eloquently reasoned, but the bishop shook his head. "It
was not a brace of goat-herds last night, Excellency, but a roomful of
brigands and their trulls in the Golden Fish. The worst company in
Verona, Excellency--the most brazen, the most case-hardened. But the
story is the same from their mouths as from the lads'; not a detail is
wanting; not one point gives the lie to another. Excellency, I would bow
to your wit in any case but this. The affair is inexplicable short of a
miracle."

Can Grande knit his black brows; he objected to be crossed, and the more
so when he had a sneaking thought that he was rightly crossed.

"I should like to see my Lady this night with my own eyes, bishop," said
he.