The Gadfly | Page 9

son," Montanelli answered softly, "it is only like a human
soul."
"The souls of them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death?"
"The souls of them that pass you day by day in the street."
Arthur shivered, looking down into the shadows. A dim white mist was
hovering among the pine trees, clinging faintly about the desperate
agony of the torrent, like a miserable ghost that had no consolation to
give.
"Look!" Arthur said suddenly. "The people that walked in darkness
have seen a great light."
Eastwards the snow-peaks burned in the afterglow. When the red light
had faded from the summits Montanelli turned and roused Arthur with
a touch on the shoulder.
"Come in, carino; all the light is gone. We shall lose our way in the

dark if we stay any longer."
"It is like a corpse," Arthur said as he turned away from the spectral
face of the great snow-peak glimmering through the twilight.
They descended cautiously among the black trees to the chalet where
they were to sleep.
As Montanelli entered the room where Arthur was waiting for him at
the supper table, he saw that the lad seemed to have shaken off the
ghostly fancies of the dark, and to have changed into quite another
creature.
"Oh, Padre, do come and look at this absurd dog! It can dance on its
hind legs."
He was as much absorbed in the dog and its accomplishments as he had
been in the after-glow. The woman of the chalet, red-faced and
white-aproned, with sturdy arms akimbo, stood by smiling, while he
put the animal through its tricks. "One can see there's not much on his
mind if he can carry on that way," she said in patois to her daughter.
"And what a handsome lad!"
Arthur coloured like a schoolgirl, and the woman, seeing that he had
understood, went away laughing at his confusion. At supper he talked
of nothing but plans for excursions, mountain ascents, and botanizing
expeditions. Evidently his dreamy fancies had not interfered with either
his spirits or his appetite.
When Montanelli awoke the next morning Arthur had disappeared. He
had started before daybreak for the higher pastures "to help Gaspard
drive up the goats."
Breakfast had not long been on the table, however, when he came
tearing into the room, hatless, with a tiny peasant girl of three years old
perched on his shoulder, and a great bunch of wild flowers in his hand.
Montanelli looked up, smiling. This was a curious contrast to the grave
and silent Arthur of Pisa or Leghorn.
"Where have you been, you madcap? Scampering all over the
mountains without any breakfast?"
"Oh, Padre, it was so jolly! The mountains look perfectly glorious at
sunrise; and the dew is so thick! Just look!"
He lifted for inspection a wet and muddy boot.
"We took some bread and cheese with us, and got some goat's milk up
there on the pasture; oh, it was nasty! But I'm hungry again, now; and I

want something for this little person, too. Annette, won't you have
some honey?"
He had sat down with the child on his knee, and was helping her to put
the flowers in order.
"No, no!" Montanelli interposed. "I can't have you catching cold. Run
and change your wet things. Come to me, Annette. Where did you pick
her up?"
"At the top of the village. She belongs to the man we saw
yesterday--the man that cobbles the commune's boots. Hasn't she lovely
eyes? She's got a tortoise in her pocket, and she calls it 'Caroline.'"
When Arthur had changed his wet socks and came down to breakfast
he found the child seated on the Padre's knee, chattering volubly to him
about her tortoise, which she was holding upside down in a chubby
hand, that "monsieur" might admire the wriggling legs.
"Look, monsieur!" she was saying gravely in her half-intelligible patois:
"Look at Caroline's boots!"
Montanelli sat playing with the child, stroking her hair, admiring her
darling tortoise, and telling her wonderful stories. The woman of the
chalet, coming in to clear the table, stared in amazement at the sight of
Annette turning out the pockets of the grave gentleman in clerical
dress.
"God teaches the little ones to know a good man," she said. "Annette is
always afraid of strangers; and see, she is not shy with his reverence at
all. The wonderful thing! Kneel down, Annette, and ask the good
monsieur's blessing before he goes; it will bring thee luck."
"I didn't know you could play with children that way, Padre," Arthur
said an hour later, as they walked through the sunlit pasture-land. "That
child never took her eyes off you all the time. Do you know, I think----"
"Yes?"
"I was only going to say--it