Page:Moods (Alcott).djvu/285

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SIX MONTHS.
273

with an equal love and honor for the Patriot Soldier, whose name upon Italian lips means liberty.

"Where is he now, this friend of mine, so nearly lost, so happily found?"

A dozen hands pointed to the convent, a dozen brown faces lighted up, and a dozen eager voices poured out directions, messages, and benedictions in a breath. Ordering his carriage to follow presently, the traveller rapidly climbed the steep road, guided by signs he could not well mistake. The convent gate stood open, and he paused for no permission to enter, for looking through it, down the green vista of an orchard path, he saw his friend and sprang to meet him.

"Adam!"

"Geoffrey!"

"Truant that you are, to desert me for ten days, and only let me find you when you have no need of me."

"I always need you, but am not always needed. I went away because the old restlessness came upon me in that dead city Rome. You were happy there, but I scented war, followed and found it by instinct, and have had enough of it. Look at my hands."

He laughed as he showed them, still bruised and blackened with the hard usage they had received; nothing else but a paler shade of color from loss of blood, showed that he had passed through any suffering or danger.

"Brave hands, I honor them for all their grime. Tell me about it, Adam; show me the wound; describe the scene, I want to hear it in calm English."

But Warwick was slow to do so being the hero of the tale, and very brief was the reply Moor got.

"I came to watch, but found work ready for me. It is