The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 54, April, 1862

Then lifting Agnes to her seat, he placed the reins in her hand.

"Are you rested?" he asked.

It was the first time since her rescue that he had spoken to Agnes. The words were brief, but no expressions of endearment could convey more than the manner in which they were spoken.

"Yes, my Lord," said Agnes, firmly, "I am rested."

"You think you can bear the ride?"

"I can bear anything, so I escape," she said.

The company were now all mounted, and were marshalled in regular order. A body of armed men rode in front; then came Agnes and the Princess, with Agostino between them, while two or three troopers rode on either side; Elsie, Monica, and the servants of the Princess followed close behind, and the rear was brought up in like manner by armed men.

The path wound first through the grounds of the villa, with its plats of light and shade, its solemn groves of stone-pines rising like palm-trees high in air above the tops of all other trees, its terraces and statues and fountains,—all seeming so lovely in the midnight stillness.

"Perhaps I am leaving all this forever," said the Princess.

"Let us hope for the best," said Agostino. "It cannot be that God will suffer the seat of the Apostles to be subjected to such ignominy and disgrace much longer. I am amazed that no Christian kings have interfered before for the honor of Christendom. I have it from the best authority that the King of Naples burst into tears when he heard of the election of this wretch to be Pope. He said that it was a scandal which threatened the very existence of Christianity. He has sent me secret messages divers times expressive of sympathy, but he is not of himself strong enough. Our hope must lie either in the King of France or the Emperor of Germany: perhaps both will engage. There is now a most holy monk in Florence who has been stirring all hearts in a wonderful way. It is said that the very gifts of miracles and prophecy are revived in him, as among the holy Apostles, and he has been bestirring himself to have a General Council of the Church to look into these matters. When I left Florence, a short time ago, the faction opposed to him broke into the convent and took him away. I myself was there."

"What!" said Agnes, "did they break into the convent of the San Marco?

My uncle is there."

"Yes, and he and I fought side by side with the mob who were rushing in."

"Uncle Antonio fight!" said Agnes, in astonishment.

"Even women will fight, when what they love most is attacked," said the knight.

He turned to her, as he spoke, and saw in the moonlight a flash from her eye, and an heroic expression on her face, such as he had never remarked before; but she said nothing. The veil had been rudely torn from her eyes; she had seen with horror the defilement and impurity of what she had ignorantly adored in holy places, and the revelation seemed to have wrought a change in her whole nature.

"Even you could fight, Agnes," said the knight, "to save your religion from disgrace."

"No," said she; "but," she added, with gathering firmness, "I could die. I should be glad to die with and for the holy men who would save the honor of the true faith. I should like to go to Florence to my uncle. If he dies for his religion, I should like to die with him."

"Ah, live to teach it to me!" said the knight, bending towards her, as if to adjust her bridle-rein, and speaking in a voice scarcely audible. In a moment he was turned again towards the Princess, listening to her.

"So it seems," she said, "that we shall be running into the thick of the conflict in Florence."

"Yes, but my uncle hath promised that the King of France shall interfere. I have hope something may even now have been done. I hope to effect something myself."

Agostino spoke with the cheerful courage of youth. Agnes glanced timidly up at him. How great the change in her ideas! No longer looking on him as a wanderer from the fold, an enemy of the Church, he seemed now in the attitude of a champion of the faith, a defender of holy men and things against a base usurpation. What injustice had she done him, and how patiently had he borne that injustice! Had he not sought to warn her against the danger of venturing into that corrupt city? Those words which so much shocked her, against which she had shut her ears, were all true; she had found them so; she could doubt no longer. And yet he had followed her, and saved her at the risk of his life. Could she help loving one who had loved her so much, one so noble and heroic? Would it be a sin to love him? She pondered the dark warnings of Father Francesco, and then thought of the cheerful, fervent piety of her old uncle. How warm, how tender, how life-giving had been his presence always! how full of faith and prayer, how fruitful of heavenly words and thoughts had been all his ministrations!—and yet it was for him and with him and his master that Agostino Sarelli was fighting, and against him the usurping head of the Christian Church. Then there was another subject for pondering during this night-ride. The secret of her birth had been told her by the Princess, who claimed her as kinswoman. It had seemed to her at first like the revelations of a dream; but as she rode and reflected, gradually the idea shaped itself in her mind. She was, in birth and blood, the equal of her lover, and henceforth her life would no more be in that lowly plane where it had always moved. She thought of the little orange-garden at Sorrento, of the gorge with its old bridge, the Convent, the sisters, with a sort of tender, wondering pain. Perhaps she should see them no more. In this new situation she longed once more to see and talk with her old uncle, and to have him tell her what were her duties.

Their path soon began to be a wild clamber among the mountains, now lost in the shadow of groves of gray, rustling olives, whose knotted, serpent roots coiled round the rocks, and whose leaves silvered in the moonlight whenever the wind swayed them. Whatever might be the roughness and difficulties of the way, Agnes found her knight ever at her bridle-rein, guiding and upholding, steadying her in her saddle when the horse plunged down short and sudden descents, and wrapping her in his mantle to protect her from the chill mountain-air. When the day was just reddening in the sky, the whole troop made a sudden halt before a square stone tower which seemed to be a portion of a ruined building, and here some of the men dismounting knocked at an arched door. It was soon swung open by a woman with a lamp in her hand, the light of which revealed very black hair and eyes, and heavy gold earrings.

"Have my directions been attended to?" said Agostino, in a tone of command. "Are there places made ready for these ladies to sleep?"

"There are, my Lord," said the woman, obsequiously,—"the best we could get ready on so short a notice."

Agostino came up to the Princess. "Noble Madam," he said, "you will value safety before all things; doubtless the best that can be done here is but poor, but it will give you a few hours for repose where you may be sure of being in perfect safety."

So saying, he assisted her and Agnes to dismount, and Elsie and Monica also alighting, they followed the woman into a dark stone passage and up some rude stone steps. She opened at last the door of a brick-floored room, where beds appeared to have been hastily prepared. There was no furniture of any sort except the beds. The walls were dusty and hung with cobwebs. A smaller apartment opening into this had beds for Elsie and Monica.

The travellers, however, were too much exhausted with their night-ride to be critical, the services of disrobing and preparing for rest were quickly concluded, and in less than an hour all were asleep, while Agostino was busy concerting the means for an immediate journey to Florence.

CHAPTER XXX

"LET US ALSO GO, THAT WE MAY DIE WITH HIM."

Father Antonio sat alone in his cell in the San Marco in an attitude of deep dejection. The open window looked into the garden of the convent, from which steamed up the fragrance of violet, jasmine, and rose, and the sunshine lay fair on all that was without. On a table beside him were many loose and scattered sketches, and an unfinished page of the Breviary he was executing, rich in quaint tracery of gold and arabesques, seemed to have recently occupied his attention, for his palette was wet and many loose brushes lay strewed around. Upon the table stood a Venetian glass with a narrow neck and a bulb clear and thin as a soap-bubble, containing vines and blossoms of the passion-flower, which he had evidently been using as models in his work.

The page he was illuminating was the prophetic Psalm which describes the ignominy and sufferings of the Redeemer. It was surrounded by a wreathed border of thorn-branches interwoven with the blossoms and tendrils of the passion-flower, and the initial letters of the first two words were formed by a curious combination of the hammer, the nails, the spear, the crown of thorns, the cross, and other instruments of the Passion; and clear, in red letter, gleamed out those wonderful, mysterious words, consecrated by the remembrance of a more than mortal anguish,—"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

The artist-monk had perhaps fled to his palette to assuage the throbbings of his heart, as a mourning mother flies to the cradle of her child; but even there his grief appeared to have overtaken him, for the work lay as if pushed from him in an access of anguish such as comes from the sudden recurrence of some overwhelming recollection. He was leaning forward with his face buried in his hands, sobbing convulsively.

The door opened, and a man advancing stealthily behind laid a hand kindly on his shoulder, saying softly, "So, so, brother!"

Father Antonio looked up, and, dashing his hand hastily across his eyes, grasped that of the new-comer convulsively, and saying only, "Oh, Baccio! Baccio!" hid his face again.

The eyes of the other filled with tears, as he answered gently,—

"Nay, but, my brother, you are killing yourself. They tell me that you have eaten nothing for three days, and slept not for weeks; you will die of this grief."

"Would that I might! Why could not I die with him as well as Fra Domenico? Oh, my master! my dear master!"

"It is indeed a most heavy day to us all," said Baccio della Porta, the amiable and pure-minded artist better known to our times by his conventual name of Fra Bartolommeo. "Never have we had among us such a man; and if there be any light of grace in my soul, his preaching first awakened it, brother. I only wait to see him enter Paradise, and then I take farewell of the world forever. I am going to Prato to take the Dominican habit, and follow him as near as I may."

"It is well, Baccio, it is well," said Father Antonio; "but you must not put out the light of your genius in those shadows,—you must still paint for the glory of God."

"I have no heart for painting now," said Baccio, dejectedly. "He was my inspiration, he taught me the holier way, and he is gone."

At this moment the conference of the two was interrupted by a knocking at the door, and Agostino Sarelli entered, pale and disordered.

"How is this?" he said, hastily. "What devils' carnival is this which hath broken loose in Florence? Every good thing is gone into dens and holes, and every vile thing that can hiss and spit and sting is crawling abroad. What do the princes of Europe mean to let such things be?"

"Only the old story," said Father Antonio,—"Principes convenerunt in unum adversus Dominum, adversus Christum ejus."

So much were all three absorbed in the subject of their thoughts, that no kind of greeting or mark of recognition passed among them, such as is common when people meet after temporary separation. Each spoke out from the fulness of his soul, as from an overflowing bitter fountain.

"Was there no one to speak for him,—no one to stand up for the pride of Italy,—the man of his age?" said Agostino.

"There was one voice raised for him in the council," said Father Antonio. "There was Agnolo Niccolini: a grave man is this Agnolo, and of great experience in public affairs, and he spoke out his mind boldly. He told them flatly, that, if they looked through the present time or the past ages, they would not meet a man of such a high and noble order as this, and that to lay at our door the blood of a man the like of whom might not be born for centuries was too impious and execrable a thing to be thought of. I'll warrant me, he made a rustling among them when he said that, and the Pope's commissary—old Romalino—then whispered and frowned; but Agnolo is a stiff old fellow when he once begins a thing,—he never minded it, and went through with his say. It seems to me he said that it was not for us to quench a light like this, capable of giving lustre to the faith even when it had grown dim in other parts of the world,—and not to the faith alone, but to all the arts and sciences connected with it. If it were needed to put restraint on him, he said, why not put him into some fortress, and give him commodious apartments, with abundance of books, and pen, ink, and paper, where he would write books to the honor of God and the exaltation of the holy faith? He told them that this might be a good to the world, whereas consigning him to death without use of any kind would bring on our republic perpetual dishonor."

"Well said for him!" said Baccio, with warmth; "but I'll warrant me, he might as well have preached to the north wind in March, his enemies are in such a fury."

"Yes, yes," said Antonio, "it is just as it was of old: the chief priests and Scribes and Pharisees were instant with loud voices, requiring he should be put to death; and the easy Pilates, for fear of the tumult, washed their hands of it."

"And now," said Agostino, "they are putting up a great gibbet in the shape of a cross in the public square, where they will hang the three holiest and best men of Florence!"