ter-buckets that swung over the deep well in the garden;
he could draw the net in the little stream behind the house, or trench
about the few stunted olives that struggled for life on the hillside.
Gerald would willingly have done any or all of these, if the idea had
occurred to himself. He was not indolent by nature, and liked the very
fact of active occupation. As a task, however, he rejected the notion at
once. It savoured of servitude to his mind, and who was this same Pippo
who aspired to be his master?

The more the boy's mind became stored with knowledge, the fuller his
intelligence grew of great examples and noble instances--the more
indignantly did he repulse the advances of Pippo's companionship.
'What!' he would mutter to himself, 'leave Bossuet and his divine
teachings for his coarse converse! Quit the sarcastic intensity of
Voltaire's ridicule for the vulgar jests of this illiterate boor!
Exchange the glorious company of wits and sages, and poets and
moralists, for a life of daily drudgery, with a mean peasant to talk
to! Besides, I am not his guest, nor a burden upon his charity. It is to
Gabriel I owe my shelter here.'

When driven by many a sarcasm to assume this position, Pippo gravely
remarked: 'True enough, boy, so long as he was here; but he is gone now,
and who 'll tell us will he ever come back? He may have been sentenced
by the tribunal. At the hour we are talking here he may be in prison--at
the galleys, for aught we know; and I promise you one thing, there's
many a better man there.'

'And I, too, promise one thing,' replied Gerald angrily, 'if he ever do
come, he shall hear how you have dared to speak of him.'

Old Pippo started at the words, and his face became lividly pale, and
muttering a few words beneath his breath, he left the spot. Nothing was
further from Gerald's mind than any defence of Gabriel, for whom, do
what he might, he could feel neither affection nor gratitude. In what
he had said he merely yielded to a momentary impatience to sting the
old man by an angry reply. For the remainder of that day not a word was
exchanged between them. They met and parted without saluting; they sat
silently opposite each other at their meals. The following day opened
with the same cold distance between them, the old man barely eyeing
Gerald, when the youth was not observing him, and casting toward him
glances of doubtful meaning. Too deeply engaged in his books to pay
much attention to these si