As they were used to be led by the priests, so they were now led by the placemen.

The advantage of the exchange was questionable.

Signore Luca Finti made his oration successfully in the Pretura of Pomodoro, speaking in the same chamber where Carmelo had been brought to judgment, since it was the largest in that town; and the good folks who heard him, understanding about one half that he said, and dazzled by the other half, imbibed only the conviction that they were the glory and wonder of Europe, and said one to another that to be sure the Marchese Roldano had never told them all those fine things.

Then the agents of Signore Finti, sitting there as mere auditors, muttered to their neighbours that it was the interest of the nobility everywhere and at all seasons to keep the people ignorant; and this idea

worked its way into the shaven heads of the Pomodorians and stirred their vanity as yeast stirs the flour, and made them say one to another in the streets in the evening, as they lounged and smoked and chattered, that it was a very fine thing to be a great nation, and to have ships bigger than any that could be boasted of, even by that great buccatone1 and buscatore, England.

The Pomodorian mind was not wide, nor was it brilliant; it understood wine, oil, and dyes, but there it closed; it thought England was somewhere down Rome way, as it thought Austria was somewhere over the hills; it still believed in the priest's blessing on the fields, in the poisonous nature of frogs, in the weather prophecies of its calendario, in hydrophobia being as common as catarrh, and in other things of a like en2 Brawler, bully.

1 Hypocrite.

lightenment; it did not in the least know what a congress meant, nor where Epirus was, and it had a vague notion of Europe as of a disorderly place beyond seas where you sent pictures and wine when you had more than you wanted of either.

Yet so strong is the power of vanity, and so strong is the power of oratory, that Pomodoro voted by a big majority for Messer Luca Finti, because he had told them he would make them a Power, though he had never said he would cheapen bread, extinguish conscription, or lighten any of the burdens with which the land is laden, as a pack-mule is chinked' on the march.

Great is the might of words-above all,

is it great in Italy.

A

CHAPTER XI.

LL this while that Pomodoro was

in a political fever and ferment,

Carmelo languished in his prison

cell. Everyone had quite forgotten him except his father and his brothers and his betrothed. Old Pastorini had to pay heavily for him to have a separate cell and a little better food; at least it seemed a heavy expense for the miller, who was by no means rich, and had a large family dependent on him, and had had his gains much lessened of late years by a great steam mill that worked at Pomodoro, and took

away much of the grain of the neighbourhood. Old Pastorini had gone to an attorney in the town and put his son's cause in his hands, seeing how badly for want of a lawyer things had fared with Carmelo; but the lawyer had said, 'After the elections: after the elections,' and no more could be got out of him, though he accepted his preliminary fees.

'After the elections,' said the miller with a tremulous sigh to his son, in the few times he was allowed to visit the prison.

Carmelo shook his head.

He had known men innocent of any crime kept in prison for months and months, without being allowed a trial; it is probably by way of compensation that assassins and thieves are allowed very often to go scot free for months and months without being had up to justice.