return mournfully my wondering glances; they seemed to look at me and
say, "What do you here? We have seen other men, heard other footsteps!"
The peace of the cloister brooded over these aged blocks of masonry,
stained with the green trails of mosses, infiltrated with shadows.

At times the belfry of a church would volley a tremendous crash of
bronze into the narrow streets; and between whiles I could hear the
faint echoes of far-off chanting, the brassy distant gasps of trombones.
A woman in black whisked round a corner, hurrying towards the route of
the procession. I took the same direction. From a wine-shop, yawning
like a dirty cavern in the basement of a palatial old building, issued
suddenly a brawny ruffian in rags, wiping his thick beard with the
back of a hairy paw. He lurched a little, and began to walk before me
hastily. I noticed the glitter of a gold earring in the lobe of his huge
ear. His cloak was frayed at the bottom into a perfect fringe and, as he
flung it about, he showed a good deal of naked skin under it. His calves
were bandaged crosswise; his peaked hat seemed to have been trodden upon
in filth before he had put it on his head. Suddenly I stopped short. A
_Lugareno_!

We were then in the empty part of a narrow street, whose lower end
was packed, close with a crowd viewing the procession which was filing
slowly past, along the wide thoroughfare. It was too late for me to go
back. Moreover, the ruffian paid no attention to me. It was best to
go on. The people, packed between the houses with their backs to us,
blocked our way. I had to wait.

He took his position near me in the rear of the last rank of the crowd.
He must have been inclined to repentance in his cups, because he began
to mumble and beat his breast. Other people in the crowd were also
beating their breasts. In front of me I had the facade of a building
which, according to the little plan of my route Sebright drew for me,
was the Palace of Justice. It had a peristyle of ugly columns at the top
of a flight of steps. A cordon of infantry kept the roadway clear. The
singing went on without interruption; and I saw tall saints of wood,
gilt and painted red and blue, pass, borne shoulder-high, swaying and
pitching above the heads of the crowd like the masts of boats in a
seaway. Crucifixes were carried, flashing in the sun; an enormous
Madonna, which must have weighed half a ton, tottered across my line of
sight, dressed up in gold brocade