the outlaws' various camps nor was any of them ever able to be really
sure that bandits were actually within a few miles. For the whole body of
yeomanry, peasants and slaves, even the slaves of those proprietors
keenest on the scent of the brigands and most eager to nab them, were
leagued to bamboozle, thwart and oppose their masters and betters, and to
aid the outlaws, to keep them posted on everything said and proposed by
the loyal inhabitants, and to assist them in outwitting the authorities,
the constabulary and all persons who sided with them. In this they were
notably successful.

It is my keen recollection of this condition of things which determines me
to omit from this part of my narrative all names of persons and places.
The generality of the population made a sort of religion out of their
complicity with the outlaws. They took an almost religious pride in
cooperating with them and in antagonizing their adversaries. They hated
all the adversaries of the outlaws, whether landowners, constabulary or
inspectors. But, above all, they loathed, abhorred, abominated and
detested with a white-hot animosity any yeoman, peasant or slave who
failed to do all in his power to foster the interests of the outlaws;
regarding such persons, male or female, as traitors to the cause of the
populace. Especially did they cherish an envenomed and malignant grudge
against anyone who actually sided with the constabulary, gave them
information or betrayed the outlaws: or even against anyone who helped or
shielded any such informer.

As I was the means of spoiling the long-prepared and much-hoped for coup
on which the robbers had set their highest hopes, as not a few men and
women assisted me with information, aided me in other ways and protected
me afterwards, I dare not name any names for fear that some survivor or
some son or grandson of some participant in these doings might learn
through me of long suspected but never verified treason to the unwritten
law of the country-side and might bloodily avenge it on a surviving helper
of mine or on any such helper's children or grandchildren. The Umbrian
mountaineers are spleenful, tenacious of a grudge and ferociously
acrimonious.

I learnt all these amazing facts without difficulty, for slaves, peasants
and yeoman alike assumed that I was of their party and was heart and soul
with the outlaws. I was not subject to suspicion because I visited the
post of the constabulary, became acquainte