Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 | Page 8

for the love of Christ."
And thus, at the ninth hour of the night, he passed the threshold of San
Marco.
As he was leaving, a plaintive voice of distress was heard from a young
novice who had been peculiarly dear to him, who stretched his hands
after him, crying,--"Father! father! why do you leave us desolate?"
Whereupon he turned back a moment, and said,--"God will be your
help. If we do not see each other again in this world, we surely shall in
heaven."
When the party had gone forth, the monks and citizens stood looking

into each other's faces, listening with dismay to the howl of wild
ferocity that was rising around the departing prisoner.
"What shall we do?" was the outcry from many voices.
"I know what I shall do," said Agostino. "If any man here will find me
a fleet horse, I will start for Milan this very hour; for my uncle is now
there on a visit, and he is a counsellor of weight with the King of
France: we must get the King to interfere."
"Good! good! good!" rose from a hundred voices.
"I will go with you," said Father Antonio. "I shall have no rest till I do
something."
"And I," quoth Jacopo Niccolini, "will saddle for you, without delay,
two horses of part Arabian blood, swift of foot, and easy, and which
will travel day and night without sinking."

CHAPTER XXII
.
THE CATHEDRAL.
The rays of the setting sun were imparting even more than their wonted
cheerfulness to the airy and bustling streets of Milan. There was the
usual rush and roar of busy life which mark the great city, and the
display of gay costumes and brilliant trappings proper to a ducal capital
which at that time gave the law to Europe in all matters of taste and
elegance, even as Paris does now. It was, in fact, from the reputation of
this city in matters of external show that our English term Milliner was
probably derived; and one might well have believed this, who saw the
sweep of the ducal cortege at this moment returning in pomp from the
afternoon airing. Such glittering of gold-embroidered mantles, such
bewildering confusion of colors, such flashing of jewelry from cap and
dagger-hilt and finger-ring, and even from bridle and stirrup, testified
that the male sex at this period in Italy were no whit behind the
daughters of Eve in that passion for personal adornment which our age
is wont to consider exclusively feminine. Indeed, all that was visible to
the vulgar eye of this pageant was wholly masculine; though no one
doubted that behind the gold-embroidered curtains of the litters which
contained the female notabilities of the court still more dazzling
wonders might be concealed. Occasionally a white jewelled hand

would draw aside one of these screens, and a pair of eyes brighter than
any gems would peer forth; and then there would be tokens of a visible
commotion among the plumed and gemmed cavaliers around, and one
young head would nod to another with jests and quips, and there would
be bowing and curveting and all the antics and caracolings supposable
among gay young people on whom the sun shone brightly, and who felt
the world going well around them, and deemed themselves the
observed of all observers.
Meanwhile, the mute, subservient common people looked on all this as
a part of their daily amusement. Meek dwellers in those dank, noisome
caverns, without any opening but a street-door, which are called
dwelling-places in Italy, they lived in uninquiring good-nature,
contentedly bringing up children on coarse bread, dirty cabbage-stumps,
and other garbage, while all that they could earn was sucked upward by
capillary attraction to nourish the extravagance of those upper classes
on which they stared with such blind and ignorant admiration.
This was the lot they believed themselves born for, and which every
exhortation of their priests taught them to regard as the appointed
ordinance of God. The women, to be sure, as women always will be,
were true to the instinct of their sex, and crawled out of the damp and
vile-smelling recesses of their homes with solid gold ear-rings shaking
in their ears, and their blue-black lustrous hair ornamented with a
glittering circle of steel pins or other quaint coiffure. There was sense
in all this: for had not even Dukes of Milan been found so
condescending and affable as to admire the charms of the fair in the
lower orders, whence had come sons and daughters who took rank
among princes and princesses? What father, or what husband, could be
insensible to prospects of such honor? What priest would not readily
absolve such sin? Therefore one might have observed more than one
comely dark-eyed woman, brilliant as some tropical