scarcely know what his
plan was, but he probably trusted to some good luck to escape the
conscription altogether, if he could shun it now; and, at least, I
know that he had many comrades who did the same, so that at times the
mountains were full of young fellows who were lurking in them to escape
the soldiers. And they fared very roughly usually, and sometimes nearly
perished from hunger; for though the sympathies of the peasants were
undoubtedly with the quasi-outlaws rather than with the carbineers, yet
the latter were at every hamlet in the hills, and liable to visit every
hut, so that any relief extended to the fugitives was attended with
great danger; and, besides, the hunted men did not dare to venture from
their retreats. Thus outlawed and driven to desperation by hunger, these
fugitives, whom nobody can defend for running away from their duties as
citizens, became brigands. A cynical German, who was taken by them some
years ago on the road to Castellamare, a few miles above here, and held
for ransom, declared that they were the most honest fellows he had
seen in Italy; but I never could see that he intended the remark as
any compliment to them. It is certain that the inhabitants of all these
towns held very loose ideas on the subject of brigandage: the poor
fellows, they used to say, only robbed because they were hungry, and
they must live somehow.

What Fiammetta thought, down in her heart, is not told: but I presume
she shared the feelings of those about her concerning the brigands, and,
when she heard that Giuseppe had joined them, was more anxious for the
safety of his body than of his soul; though I warrant she did not forget
either, in her prayers to the Virgin and St. Antonino. And yet those
must have been days, weeks, months, of terrible anxiety to the poor
child; and if she worked away at the counterpane, netting in that
elaborate border, as I have no doubt she did, it must have been with a
sad heart and doubtful fingers. I think that one of the psychological
sensitives could distinguish the parts of the bedspread that were
knit in the sunny days from those knit in the long hours of care and
deepening anxiety.

It was rarely that she received any message from him and it was then
only verbal and of the briefest; he was in the mountains above Amalfi;
one day he had come so far round as the top of the Great St. Angelo,
from which he could look down upon the piano of Sorrento, where the
little Fiammetta