e soldiers and knights, and always to be wrestling and
running, and soon he troubled himself very little with reading, unless
it were such things as might instruct him for war. And Messer Antonio
was sore afflicted.

Now the great house in Lucca at that time was Guinigi, and Francesco was
then head of it. Ah! a handsome gentleman, rich too, who had borne arms
all his life long under the Visconti of Milan. With them he had fought
for the Ghibellines till the Lucchesi looked upon him as the very life
of that party. This Francesco was used to walk in Piazza S. Michele,
where one day he watched Castruccio playing among his companions. Seeing
his strength and confidence, he called him to him, and asked him if he
did not prefer a gentleman's family, where he could learn to ride the
great horse and exercise his arms, before the cloister of a churchman.
Guinigi had only to look at him to see which way his heart jumped, so
not long after he made a visit to Antonio and begged Castruccio of him
in so pressing and yet so civil a manner, that Antonio, finding he could
not master the natural inclinations of the lad, let him go.

Often after that, Dianora and Antonio too, seeing him ride by in
attendance on Francesco, would admire with what address he sat his
horse, with what grace he managed his lance, with what comeliness his
sword; and indeed scarce any of his age dare meet him at the _Barriere_.
He was about eighteen years old when he made his first campaign. For the
Guelphs had driven the Ghibellines out of Pavia, and Visconti sought the
help of his friends, among them of Francesco Guinigi. Francesco gave
Castruccio a company of foot, and marched with him to help Visconti: and
Castruccio won such reputation in that fight, that his name galloped
through Lombardy, and when he returned to Lucca the whole city had him
in respect.

Not long after, Guinigi fell sick; in truth he was about to die. Seeing,
then, that he had a son scarcely thirteen years old, called Pagolo, he
gave him into Castruccio's charge, begging him to show the same
generosity to his son as he had received from him. And all this
Castruccio promised.

Now the head of the Guelph party in Lucca was a certain Signor Giorgio
Opizi, who hoped when Francesco was dead to get the city into his power,
so that when he saw Castruccio so well thought of and so strong, he
began to speak secretly of a new tyranny, by which he meant the growing
favour of Castruccio. Pisa at th