eans to deny everything deliberately.

Preceded by this troop of skirmishers, the last descendant of the della
Rebbia entered the village, and proceeded to the old mansion of
his forefathers, the corporals. The Rebbianites, who had long been
leaderless, had gathered to welcome him, and those dwellers in the
village who observed a neutral line of conduct all came to their
doorsteps to see him pass by. The adherents of the Barricini remained
inside their houses, and peeped out of the slits in their shutters.

The village of Pietranera is very irregularly built, like most Corsican
villages--for indeed, to see a street, the traveller must betake
himself to Cargese, which was built by Monsieur de Marboeuf. The houses,
scattered irregularly about, without the least attempt at orderly
arrangement, cover the top of a small plateau, or rather of a ridge of
the mountain. Toward the centre of the village stands a great evergreen
oak, and close beside it may be seen a granite trough, into which
the water of a neighbouring spring is conveyed by a wooden pipe. This
monument of public utility was constructed at the common expense of the
della Rebbia and Barricini families. But the man who imagined this to
be a sign of former friendship between the two families would be sorely
mistaken. On the contrary, it is the outcome of their mutual jealousy.
Once upon a time, Colonel della Rebbia sent a small sum of money to
the Municipal Council of his commune to help to provide a fountain.
The lawyer Barricini hastened to forward a similar gift, and to this
generous strife Pietranera owes its water supply. Round about the
evergreen oak and the fountain there is a clear space, known as "the
Square," on which the local idlers gather every night. Sometimes they
play at cards, and once a year, in Carnival-time, they dance. At the two
ends of the square stands two edifices, of greater height than breadth,
built of a mixture of granite and schist. These are the _Towers_ of
the two opposing families, the Barricini and the della Rebbia. Their
architecture is exactly alike, their height is similar, and it is quite
evident that the rivalry of the two families has never been absolutely
decided by any stroke of fortune in favor of either.

It may perhaps be well to explain what should be understood by this
word, "Tower." It is a square building, some forty feet in height, which
in any other country would be simply described as a pigeon-house. A
narrow ent