against his wont to speak so many words on any other thing than
the cattle or the olive harvest or the prices of seeds and grain in the
market in the town. He set his heel upon his spade and pitched the
earth-begrimed potatoes in the skip he filled.

The old man nodded and went--to wend his way to Carmignano.

Suddenly he turned back: he was a tender-hearted, fanciful soul, and had
had a long, lonely life himself.

"I tell you what," he said, a little timidly; "perhaps the bells,
praising God always, ringing the sun in and out, and honouring Our Lady;
perhaps they went for something in the lives of the men that made them?
I think they must. It would be hard if the bells got everything, the
makers nothing."

Over Bruno's face a slight change went. His imperious eyes softened. He
knew the old man spoke in kindness.

"Take these home with you. Nay; no thanks," he said, and lifted on the
other's back the kreel full of potatoes dug for the market.

The old man blessed him, overjoyed; he was sickly and very poor; and
hobbled on his way along the side of the mountains.

Bruno went to other work.

If the bells ring true and clear, and always to the honour of the
saints, a man may be content to have sweated for it in the furnace and
to be forgot; but--if it be cracked in a fire and the pure ore of it
melt away shapeless?

* * *

"Tocco" was sounding from all the city clocks. He met another man he
knew, a farmer from Montelupo.

"Brave doings!" said the Montelupo man. "A gala night to-night for the
foreign prince, and your boy summoned, so they say. No doubt you are
come in to see it all?"

Bruno shook himself free quickly, and went on; for a moment it occurred
to him that it might be best to wait and see Signa in the town; but then
he could not do that well. Nothing was done at home, and the lambs could
not be left alone to the shepherd lad's inexperience; only a day old,
one or two of them, and the ground so wet, and the ewes weakly. To leave
his farm would have seemed to Bruno as to leave his sinking ship does to
a sailor. Besides, he had nothing to do with all the grandeur; the king
did not want _him_.

All this stir and tumult and wonder and homage in the city was for
Signa; princes seemed almost like his servants, the king like his
henchman! Bruno was proud, under his stern, calm, lofty bearing, which
would not change, and would not let him smile, or seem so womanish-weak
as to be glad fo