“Well, your reverence, it seems that if you are drawn you must,” said Beppo, simply.
“My notion is,” said the priest, “that there will be a pretty considerable number of young men—God-fearing, well-educated young men—drawn for the conscription in this province who will do neither the one nor the other: who will neither suffer themselves to be torn away from their country to fight against their Holy Father and lawful sovereign, nor yet give money to his enemies to hire somebody else to do so.” And as he spoke he rubbed his hands slowly together, and looked hard at Beppo.
The old father and mother looked from one to the other with watchful interest; the former much relieved in his mind, and feeling more than ever that Don Evandro was a second Daniel come to judgment.
“But it’s no use for a man to say he won’t go,” rejoined Beppo. “Willy nilly, he must go. If he won’t go by his own will, he will be taken by force.”
“Oh, no! certainly; it is of no use for a man to say he won’t go—of no use at all. It is not by saying that a man can do his duty to his God, and his Church, and his country. Duty mostly needs something more than saying,” returned the priest, with a very marked emphasis, and still looking hard at Beppo.
“I don’t see it, your reverence,” said Beppo, looking puzzled. “What is a man to do, then?”
“And yet it seems pretty clear, too,” rejoined the curate. “You say, if a man won’t go, he will be taken by force?”
“So I am told,” said Beppo.
“Who will take him?” asked the priest, Socratically.
“Why, the soldiers, I suppose!” said Beppo, with very widely opened eyes.
“And where will they take him from? Where would they take you from, for instance, if you did not go to them?” continued the priest, pushing on his catechism to its conclusion.
“If I were drawn, and did not go to give myself up at Fano, they would come here after me, and take me by force,” said Beppo, beginning to think that the priest was really uninformed upon the subject.
“Very true; they would come here—here to Bella Luce! But suppose they did not find you here?”
“Then they would take me wherever they could find me. Why, bless your reverence’s heart, they aren’t put off in that way.”
“They would take you wherever they could find you, no doubt. But suppose that they could not find you at all?”
“What! If I were to put an end to myself,” said poor Beppo, not appearing to be very much startled by the suggestion; “but I thought, your reverence, that that was not lawful to do in any case?”
“Put an end to yourself? I am shocked at you, Beppo! Unlawful?—of course it is. How could you imagine I had such a thing in my thoughts?”
“Then I am sure I don’t know, and it is not for such as I am to guess, what is in your reverence’s thoughts!” said Beppo, utterly puzzled.
“Why, my good friend, Beppo, you are not so quick as I thought you. If you are drawn for the conscription,—say, you don’t go. The soldiers come here to look for you;—don’t find you.—‘We want Beppo Vanni,’ say they; ‘where is he?’—‘Really can’t say,’ says my friend, Signor Paolo.—‘Sure he is not in the house?’ says the officer.—‘Quite sure,’ says Signor Paolo. ‘You can search it if you like.’ They do search it, but they don’t find Beppo Vanni. Then they come away to Santa Lucia to see the curato, and try what they can make out of him. ‘We are come to look for one Beppo Vanni, a parishioner of yours, your reverence. Can you tell us where we can find him?’—‘He lives at Bella Luce, when he is at home,’ says his reverence; ‘is he not there now?’—‘No, he is not there. But I suppose your reverence knows where to find him?’ says the officer.—“If he is not there, he must be out in the hills. There are many wolves and wild boars, and such like, in our mountains, but they are mostly very hard to catch,’ says his reverence; ‘Beppo Vanni is very fond of hunting. If you keep on the wolf’s track, I dare say you will find him; and I wish you a pleasant job of it,’ says his reverence.
“Now do you see it, friend Beppo?” asked the priest, when he had concluded his little exposition, of which the latter part was delivered with considerable dramatic effect.
“What, take to the hills per bene?” said Beppo, with a grim smile;—“for good and all,” as an Englishman might have said.
“Ay, for good, assuredly?” said the priest. “But it would only be for a short time, just till the secret was blown over, and the soldiers out of the country. That is what all the best men in the country will do. The excommunicated king will find that he will get very few men in Romagna, except the scum of the towns, to fight for him against the Holy Father.”
“It looks like skulking, as if one had done something to be ashamed of, keeping out of the way in the hills in that fashion,” said Beppo, thoughtfully.
“You will find, my friend, that all the shame will lie on the other side,” returned the priest. “I tell you that all the best men in the country—those of them, at least, who have the misfortune to be drawn—will take to the hills.”
“Your reverence spoke of the wolves and the wild boars,” said Beppo, with a sigh; “every man’s hand is against them, and they are hunted down.”
“Yes,” returned the priest, quickly; “they are hunted down because every man’s hand is against them. But there is just the difference. Those who take to the hills in this sacred cause will have every good man for their friend. We priests,” continued Don Evandro, with a grim smile of conscious power, “are everywhere; and, do what they will, they will never root us out. Wherever there is a parish—what do I say?—wherever there is Catholic soil, there is a Catholic priest. And wherever there is a priest, those who are homeless for the good cause will have a friend. We shall have our eyes on those who are out in the hills on account of this business. They will not