ich
means 'Sir Crayfish'--and it must be admitted that 'Anguish' was an
improvement.

"Angus," said Dalrymple. "My name is Angus. The abbess has caught a
severe cold from sitting in a draught when she was overheated. It has
immediately settled on her lungs, and you may be sent for at any moment.
I passed by the back of the convent on my way down, and the gardener was
just coming out of the postern. He told me."

"Dear me, dear me!" exclaimed Sor Tommaso, shaking his head.
"Cold--bronchitis, pleurisy, pneumonia--it is soon done! One would be
enough! Those nuns, what do they eat? A little grass, a little boiled
paste, a little broth of meat on Sundays. What strength should they
have? And then pray, pray, sing, sing! It needs a chest! Poor lungs! I
will go to my home and get ready--blisters--mustard--a lancet--they
will not allow a barber in the convent to bleed them. Well--I make
myself the barber! What a life, what a life! If you wish to die young,
be a doctor at Subiaco, Sor Angoscia. Good night, dear friend. Good
night, Stefanone. I wish not to have said anything--you know--that
little affair. Let us speak no more about it. I am more beast than you,
because I said anything. Good night."

Sor Tommaso got his stick from a dark corner, pressed his broad catskin
hat upon his head, and took his respectability away on its tightly
encased black legs.

"And may the devil go with you," said Stefanone, under his breath, as
the doctor disappeared.

"Why?" inquired Dalrymple, who had caught the words.

"I said nothing," answered the peasant, thoughtfully trimming one wick
of the lamp with the bent brass wire which, with the snuffers, hung by a
chain from the ring by which the lamp was carried.

"I thought you spoke," said the Scotchman. "Well--the abbess is very
ill, and Sor Tommaso has a job."

"May he do it well! So that it need not be begun again."

"What do you mean?" Dalrymple slowly sipped the remains of his little
measure of wine.

"Those nuns!" exclaimed Stefanone, instead of answering the question.
"What are they here to do, in this world? Better make saints of
them--and good night! There would be one misery less. Do you know what
they do? They make wine. Good! But they do not drink it. They sell it
for a farthing less by the foglietta than other people. The devil take
them and their wine!"

Dalrymple glanced at the angry peasant with some amusement, but did not
make any answer.

"Eh, Signore!" cried Stef