A Golden Book of Venice | Page 5

pleasantly echoed about, as the ranks of the Servi parted and an old
man, with a face full of benignity, came forward, holding the hand of a
boy with blue eyes and light hair, who walked timidly with him to the

pulpit on the left, where the older man encouraged the shrinking
disputant to mount the stair.
There was a murmur of astonishment as the young face appeared in the
tribunal of that grave assembly.
"Impossible! It is only a child!"
It was, in truth, a strange picture; this child of thirteen, small and
delicate for his years, yet with a face of singular freshness and gravity,
his youthfulness heightened by cassock and cowl--a unique, simple
figure, against the bizarre magnificence of the background, the central
point of interest for that learned and brilliant assembly, as he stood
there above the beautiful kneeling angel who held the Book of the Law,
just under the pulpit.
For a moment he seemed unable to face his audience, then, with an
effort, he raised his hand, nervously pushing back the white folds of his
unaccustomed cowl, and casting a look of perplexity over the sea of
faces before him; but the expression of trouble slowly cleared away as
his eyes met those of a friar, grave and bent, who had stepped out from
the company of the Servi and fixed upon the boy a steadying gaze of
assurance, triumph, and command. It was Fra Gianmaria, who was
known throughout Venice for his great learning.
"Pierino!" broke from the mother, in a tone of quick emotion, as she
saw her boy for the first time in the dress of his order, which thrust, as
it were, the claims of her motherhood quite away; it was so soon to
surrender all the beautiful romance of mother and child, so soon to have
done with the joy of watching the development which had long
outstripped her leadership, so soon to consent to the absolute parting of
the ways!
She had not willed it so, and she was weary from the struggle.
But the boy was satisfied; the presence of his stern and learned mentor
sufficed to restore his composure; he did not even see his mother's face
so near him, piteous in its appeal for a single glance to confess his need
of her.
"Nay, have no fear," Don Ambrogio counseled, his face glowing with
pride; "the boy is a wonder."
The good Fra Giulio, turning back from the pulpit stairs, saw the faces
of the two whose hearts were hanging on the words of the child; he
went directly to them and sat down beside Donna Isabella, for he had a

tender heart and he guessed her trouble. "I also," he said, leaning over
her and speaking low, "I also love the boy, and while I live will I care
for him. He shall lack for nothing."
It was a promise of great comfort; for Pierino--she could not call him
by the new name--would need such loving care; already the mother's
pulse beat more tranquilly, and she almost smiled her gratitude in the
large-hearted friar's face.
Then Fra Gianmaria, his mentor, seeing that the boy had gained
courage, came also to a seat beside Donna Isabella, with a look of
radiant congratulation; for he had been the boy's teacher ever since the
little lad had passed beyond the limits of Don Ambrogio's modest
attainments. Although she had resented the power of Fra Gianmaria
over Pierino, she was proud of the confidence of the learned friar in her
child; already she began to teach herself to accept pride in the place of
the lowlier, happier, daily love she must learn to do without. Her face
grew colder and more composed; Don Ambrogio gave her a nod of
approval.
"It is Pierino!" the bare-legged Beppo proclaimed, pushing his way
between dignitaries and elegant nobles and taking a position, in
wide-eyed astonishment, in front of the pulpit, where he could watch
every movement of his quondam school-fellow, whose words carried
no meaning to his unlearned ears. But his heart throbbed with sudden
loyalty in seeing his comrade the centre of such a festa; Beppo would
stay and help him to get fair play, if he should need it, since it was well
known that Pierino could not fight, for all his Latin!
But the little fellow in robe and cowl had neither eyes nor thoughts for
his vast audience when he once gathered courage to begin--no memory
for the pride of his teachers, no perception of his mother's yearning;
shrinking and timid as he was, the first voicing of his own thought, in
his childish treble voice, put him in presence of a problem and banished
all other consciousness. It was merely a question to be met and
answered, and