nd bursting in showers of the most beautiful
fireworks, so that I said to myself, 'O for the wings of a dove,' I
said, 'so that I fetch some one to put a stop to this!' And I'd
hardly said the words before it was broad day, and me lying in the
street with a small crowd about me, very solemn and curious, and my
head in the lap of a middle-aged woman that smelt of garlic, but
without any pretensions to looks. And she was lifting up her head
and singing a song, and the sound of it as melancholy as a gib-cat in
a garden of cucumbers. Whereby the whole crowd stood by and stared,
without offering to help. Whereby I said to myself, 'This is a
pretty business, and no mistake.' Whereby I saw Sir John come forth
from the house where the drinking had been, and his face was white
but his step steady; and says he, 'What have you been doing to this
woman?' 'Nothing at all,' said I; 'or, leastways, nothing to warrant
this behaviour on her part.' 'Well,' said he, 'you may be surprised
to hear it, but she maintains that you are betrothed to her.'
'A man,' said I, 'may woo where he will, but must wed where his wife
is. If this woman be my fate, I'll say no more except that 'tis
hard; but as for courting her, I never did so.' 'You are in a worse
case than you guess,' said he; 'for, to begin with, the lady is a
widow; and, secondly, she is marrying you, not for your looks, but
for revenge.' 'Why, what have I done?' said I. 'Nothing at all,'
said he; 'but from what I can hear of it, five years ago a man of
Evisa, up the valley, stole a goat belonging to this woman's husband;
whereupon the husband took a gun and went to Evisa and shot the
thief's cousin, mistaking him for the thief; whereupon the thief came
down to Otta and shot the honest man one day while he was gathering
olives in his orchard. He himself left neither chick nor child; but
his kinsmen of the family of Paolantonuccio (I can pronounce the
name, gentlemen, if you will kindly look the other way) took up the
quarrel, and with so much liveliness that to-day but three of them
survive, and these are serving just now with the militia. For the
while, therefore, the Widow Paolantonuccio has no one to carry on the
custom of the country; nor will have, until a husband offers.'
'For pity's sake, Sir John,' said I, `get me out of this! Tell them
that if any man has been courting this woman 'tis not I, William
Priske, but another in my image.' 'Why, to be sure!' cried Sir Joh