Page:Signa vol 3 ouida.djvu/8

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
2
SIGNA.


he w^s triumphant—he wanted for nothing. The}^ had to be content with that, and to imagine the rest—as best they could.

All the northern country was echoing with his music, up to the edges of the Alps, and from the one sea to the other, and the boy was wandering, welcomed and j)raised and rejoiced over every- where, and with liis own melodies alwa^^s ringmg in his ears, as the gorgeous genius of the " Ana- creon of Genoa " had been three hundred years before. This was all they knew, and they had to be content with it.

He was gone over the land like one of the improvisatori of the old times, with the sound of his " sweet singing " in herald of him everywhere ; their lark had gone up against the sun; they could see him no longer; they had then- work to do, the work that kept theii' eyes on the earth.

Bruno laboured on his lands, and went to and fro the markets, and toiled early and late in all weathers, and seldom spoke to any living thing except his dog or his oxen; Luigi Dini opened and folded the black robes of the brethren, and