THE FOOL ERRANT - World eBook Library - World Public Library

touching my feet, and lay for a time awake, wondering what it might be. Some person or another was touching me there—
softly, very softly, and in kindness. I heard gentle whispering—I felt the touch as of velvet on my feet; and then a drop fell,
warm and wet. I said, "Who are you who kiss my feet?" and was answered, "It is I—Virginia—my lord."
"What do you there, Virginia?" I asked her. "What do you need of me?"
"Your pardon," she said; and I heard her crying softly to herself in the dark.
"My child," I said, and held out my hand to her, "you know that I am no man to have pardons worth a woman's accepting, but I
can assure you of Aurelia's pity and pardon for what you have said against her. Draw near and you shall have it from my
hands."
The straw rustled as she crept on hands and knees towards me. Her face encountered my hands and rested between them. It
was burning hot, and so were her lips, which kissed my palms alternately and thirstily as if she were lapping water. "Forgive me,
my lord, forgive me," she urged me. "Oh, I am dreadfully ashamed! Forgive me this once, I am wretched."
"Child," I said, "think no more of it. I have no grudge against you—all my thoughts are kindly. Lie down, Virginia, and sleep.
Our friendship is too strong for a tiff to break it." She kissed my palms again and again and crept off the straw. I heard her shut
the door of the stable after her. Where she passed the night I know not; but I remarked that in our subsequent wanderings she
never let me know how or where she did sleep. She met me next morning, her usual cool, nonchalant, reasonable self.
CHAPTER XVII. ERCOLE AT THE FAIR
If needs must have it that I was to accommodate crime by falling into it myself, it would appear that I was to do it with a certain
air. When I awoke I found a very decent suit of black prepared for me against the proceedings of the day: a ribbon for my hair,
shoes, shoebuckles, silk stockings, ruffles, a neat cravat edged with lace. Thus attired, I was to be Fra Palamone's secretary
and lieutenant, to hold his devotional objects, pass them about for inspection, praise them discreetly, and take the money.
Virginia was to play the country girl, who, by simple ardour and appropriate questioning, was to excite general interest and
stimulate the sale. She, too, had a new gown and stomacher, and looked so well that, the frate said, it was quite on the cards
that half his stock would be bought for her by enamoured contadini, and thus brought into circulation over and over again. It
was noticeable that far less time was spent upon her instructions than upon mine. Fra Palamone was not at all sure how far I
should prove amenable.
Crime, however, by which I mean an unfailing fount of ready lying, was a more difficult accomplishment than I had reckoned it.
I had no notion when I began what hard work it could be. It was not for want of an exemplar, for although Fra Palamone
sweated as he lied, it would be impossible to relate the quantity, the quality or quiddity of his lies. Their variety was indeed
admirable, but apart from that they shocked me not a little, for I could not but see that as ready a way as any of discrediting true
religion is to overcredit it; and that, where people believe in a miracle, to give them a glib hundred is to tempt them to infidelity.
Because it might be true, as I undoubtedly believe it to be, that St. Francis of Assisi floated between pavement and rafters, that
were no reason for pronouncing that Santa Caterina de' Ricci could stroke the chimney-pots; or if one thought it possible that
St. Antony of Padua preached to the fishes of the sea, I contend that one would not be supported, but rather discouraged, in
the opinion by hearing that Santa Caterina de' Ricci argued with eels in the stew-pan. But the melancholy fact remains to be told
that, haranguing all day long, the wilder grew the anecdotes of Palamone, the brisker was his trade. Virginia also, I freely own,
acted her part superbly, with a lisp and a trick of sucking her fingers for one batch, an "O la!" for another, which brought in
showers of purchasers. She presently took a fit of bargaining—by mere caprice, I believe—in which she was so keen that she
beat down Fra Palamone to half his prices and set an example which made him desperately angry. As for me, I fell into entire
disgrace almost at the outset, for when an old countryman asked me whether it was true that Roses of Sharon were good for
the stone, unthinkingly I replied that prayer was better. "Cospetto!" cried my man, "and cheaper too! Many thanks to you for an
honest young gentleman." Fra Palamone ordered me to resume my old part of deaf-mute.
The procession of the day, which, of course, put an end to all marketing for the time, began at half after ten, with High Mass set
for eleven o'clock. It was a pompous business—the nuns of San Vincenzio, two and two, with lighted tapers; their friends of the
world, ladies in hoops and feathers, attendant cavaliers; Donna Violante, widow of the Grand Prince Ferdinand, deceased—a
48