"On the contrary,
he would be able to manufacture miracles by the cart-load, I warrant, in
order to satisfy his flock's thirst for the marvellous. He would
probably die in the odour of sanctity and be canonised after his death." "My friend, my friend," said the arch-priest, gravely, "our church is
not, as you think, rash in canonising a man a saint. Our lawsuits are
extremely rigid, and long--so much so, that many a holy man has been
rejected as a saint on account of the insufficient evidence of his
miracles." Then he proceeded to enlarge upon the miracles of the saints of old and
all the legendary lore of his religion, and thus he entertained me until
we found ourselves once more at the door of his house. "Signor Arciprete," said the aforementioned servant girl, whom we
discovered on the threshold, conversing with an elderly peasant, "here
is a man who wishes to speak to you in private. He says he has something
to communicate." "Show him into my study," said the arch-priest. "I suppose you do not
mind my friend being present?" said he, addressing the man and glancing
at me. "No, Reverenza," said the peasant, shutting the door of the priest's
study behind him, "it was only to bring you some information concerning
the brigands." "Ha!" exclaimed the arch-priest, pricking up his ears. "Proceed." "Well, your Reverence," began the peasant, "hearing that a reward had
been offered to anyone able to give such information as should lead to
the discovery of the brigands, I thought I would make known what
happened to me on the very night of the robbery, which I hope may prove
of some use to the brigand-catchers. "It was long past midnight when I was returning from Civitella, having
purchased a hog there, which I was leading along by a string attached to
its hind leg, when in the darkness I heard the sound of many voices, and
upon listening attentively I recognised them as belonging to the
brigands, into whose hands I had fallen twice before, and I began to be
alarmed for my hog, which I made sure would be seized as a prize, and
accordingly hid myself behind a tree until the whole band should have
passed by. I was near enough to hear every word they said, but their
voices seemed neither to grow louder nor to grow less. "At length the moon breaking from behind a cloud, revealed to me the
features of the brigand chief. He was standing erect whilst the rest of
his band were squatting or lounging around him in a circle. He then
proceeded to harangue them. "I trembled from head to foot, and felt that my only chance of escaping
observation was to continue rooted to the spot without disturbing the
dead leaves that lay strewn at my feet, but the wretched animal, my
companion, commenced grunting and squealing, as if purposely to mark my
whereabouts, and I made sure every moment that the brigands would be
down upon us both. "'Hush!' I cried, coaxingly. "'Grunt,' went the brute, louder than ever. "'Madonna mia Santissima!' I muttered, crossing myself, 'preserve a poor
man and his pig from the depredations of these marauders!' "I know not if our good lady vouchsafed to hear my prayer, but certain
it was that the brigands paid no attention whatever to either of us, so
engrossed did they all seem with the oration of their chief, every word
of which fell distinctly on my ear in the stillness of the night, and I
must own that the tenor of it surprised me, for instead of the profane
oaths, fiendish laughter, or the planning of some new daring exploit, as
I should have expected from such men, I now listened to a pious
discourse, filled with godly phrases such as you, Signor Arciprete,
might have used yourself from the pulpit. I think I can give you almost
word for word the discourse as it ran. "'My comrades,' he commenced, 'we have for many years toiled together in
an arduous and perilous profession; at war with society, wresting from
the innocent and good their hard-earned substance to supply our own
wants, instead of getting our own livelihood honestly and by the sweat
of our brow, as God hath decreed. Oppressed in our turn by the avengers
of our victims, we are hunted like wolves, and have to take refuge from
our pursuers in the most inaccessible parts of the mountains, in caves,
in forests and such-like secret places. "'Rest has departed from our slumbers--for what man can rest in the fear
that the vigilant myrmidons of the law with which he has lived at enmity
are ever on his track? "'Like Ishmael, our hand is against every man, and every man's hand is
against us. This is the lot of the brigand, as we all know. Born and
bred in danger, nurtured from the breast, not with the milk of human
kindness, but by the blood of his fellow men; his childish joys, the
groans and sufferings of his mutilated victims; feasting on horrors from
his earliest youth, unbridled and brutal in his appetites, his highest
ambition through life to be a hardier ruffian than his father before
him. "'Have we not, my friends, committed every sort of atrocity of which
degraded humanity is capable? Nay, revelled in it, impiously defying
that very God whom we ought humbly and reverently to thank as the Author
of our beings? Let each of us look back upon our past lives and ask
ourselves how we have thanked Almighty God for his innumerable
blessings. "'How have we repaid His ineffable love and care over us? Has it not
been by subverting His wise laws, despising His holy ordinances,
brutalising our natures, even to a degree lower than the very brutes
themselves? My brethren, we may be powerful against the weak and against
the law, yet there is One above us more powerful than ourselves, to Whom
we shall all one day have to give an account. Let us fight no longer
against God; for what is man when matched against Omnipotence. Deem it
not cowardice, my friends, to relinquish a life of evil now that your
souls have received the light of truth, but rather thank God for His
infinite mercy in vouchsafing so great a miracle through His Holy Mother
to save our souls from the bottomless pit. "'I confess that almost from my earliest youth I never have looked upon
religion as aught but priest-craft, and scoffed at all miracles as
tricks of the priesthood to impose upon the ignorant and simple; but
what shall we say, my brethren, to the miracle we have all so lately
witnessed, or how shall we attempt to explain it away? Was it not the
intervention of the blessed Virgin herself to scare us--the impious
desecraters of her holy Church--from our evil ways? Could anything short
of Divine power have raised the dead at the lonely hour of midnight
within the very church itself, and have struck such terror into us, the
hardy sons of the mountains, who never yet quailed before mortal man? "'Tell me, my friends, if in all my wild life, in all our joint
villainies and wicked enterprises, in the very face of death, if you
have ever known me to lack courage before to-night?' "'Never, Capitano, never,' cried several voices at once.