"Yes," said Rosie; "I should think she could do that."
"The child," continued Mr. George, "in looking upon the cross, and seeing all those curious objects upon it, would ask his mother what they mean. Then his mother would tell him about the crucifixion of Christ. 'They nailed him to the cross,' she would say, 'by long nails passing through his hands and feet. Don't you see the nails?' And the child would say, 'Yes,' and look at the nails very intently. 'The soldiers climbed up by a ladder,' she would say. 'Don't you see the ladder? And by and by, when in his fever he called for some drink, they reached something up to him by a sponge fastened to the end of a long pole. Do you see the pole?' The child would look at all these things, and would get a much more clear and vivid idea of the transaction than it would be possible for so ignorant a mother to communicate to it in any other way."
"Yes," said Rosie; "I think she would."
"Thus you see," continued Mr. George, "there is a right and proper use of such contrivances as these, as well as a wrong and an idolatrous one. Unfortunately, however, pretty much all of them, though perhaps originally well intended, have degenerated, in Catholic countries, into superstition and idolatry."
The scenery of the country through which the journey lay was enchanting. The ground was every where cultivated like a garden. There were wheat fields, and vineyards, and olive orchards, and rows of mulberry trees for the silk worms, and gardens of vegetables of every kind. Here and there groups of peasants were to be seen at work, men and women together, some digging fresh fields, some ploughing, some planting, and some pruning the trees or the vines. In many places the vines were trained upon the trees, so that in riding along the road you seemed to see an immense orchard on each side of you, with a carpet of rich verdure below, and a monstrous serpent climbing up into every tree, from the grass beneath it.
[Illustration: ASCENDING THE MOUNTAINS.]
The scenery was very much varied, too; and the changes were on so grand a scale that they made the views which were presented on every side appear extremely imposing. Sometimes the road lay across a wide plain, many miles in extent, but extremely fertile and luxuriant, and bounded in the distance by blue and beautiful mountains. After travelling upon one of these plains for many hours, the road would gradually approach the mountains, and then at length would enter among them, and begin to wind, by zigzags, up a broad slope, or into a dark ravine. At such places Vittorio would stop, usually at a post house at the foot of the ascent, and take an additional horse, or pair of horses, and sometimes a yoke of oxen, to help his team draw the carriage up the hill. Many of these ascents were four or live miles long, and as the road turned upon itself in continual zigzags, there was presented to Mr. George and Rollo, and also to Mrs. Gray's party within the carriage, as they ascended, a perpetual succession of widely-extended views over the vast plain below, with the road which they had traversed stretching across it in a straight line for ten or fifteen miles, like a white ribbon.
Sometimes Mr. George and the two boys descended from the carriage, and walked for a while, in going up these hills; but generally they remained in their seats and rode. Indeed the men who came with the extra horses or oxen often rode themselves. When oxen were employed, the man used to ride, sometimes sitting on the yoke between them, and facing backward, so that he could watch them and see how they performed their work. He kept them up to their work by means of a small whip, which he had in his hand.
After reaching the top of the ascent, Vittorio would stop, and the man would detach his oxen from the team. Vittorio would pay him for his services, and then the man would come and hold out his hat to Mr. George and Rollo for a buono mano from them. Rollo always had it ready.
The party stopped every day at noon for breakfast, as Vittorio called it. The coffee, and eggs, and bread and butter, which they had early in the morning, was not called breakfast; it was called simply coffee. The breakfast, which came about noon, consisted of fried fish, beefsteaks, or mutton chops, fried potatoes, all hot, and afterwards oranges and figs. With this there was always what they called wine set upon the table, which tasted like a weak mixture of sour cider and water. Every thing, except the wine, was very good.
Mrs. Gray, however, always called this meal the dinner, and all the rest of the party were very willing to have it called so; and when they stopped at night, all that they required was tea and coffee, with bread and butter.
The inns where the party stopped were very quaint and queer. They looked, Josie said, precisely as he had imagined the inns to look which he had read about in Don Quixote. The entrance was generally under an arched passage way, where the horses and carriage could go in. From this passage a flight of broad stone steps led up into the house. The lower floor was usually occupied for stables, sheds, and other such purposes, and the one above for kitchens and the like. Higher up came the good rooms.
The apartment which was used by the party for their sitting and eating room was usually a large hall, with a brick or stone floor, and a vaulted ceiling above, painted in fresco. The walls of the room were usually painted too. There was generally a small and very coarse carpet under the table, and sometimes one before the fireplace. The doors were massive; and the locks and hinges upon them, and also the andirons and the shovel and tongs, were of the most ancient and curious construction. The first thing which the children did, on being ushered into one of these old halls, was to walk all about, and examine these various objects in detail. Rollo made drawings of a great many of them in his drawing book, to bring home and show to people in America.
The bed rooms opened out from this great hall, on the different sides of it. There were generally, but not always, two beds in each. According to the agreement, Mrs. Gray had her first choice of these rooms. She chose one, if possible, which had one wide bed in it, and one narrow one. The wide one was for herself and Rosie; the narrow one was for Susannah.
Mr. George came next in the order of choice, and he generally took a room which had only one bed in it, leaving another room with two single beds in it for the two boys. They always had a fire in the great hall every evening. Mrs. Gray usually went to her room with Rosie and Susannah at half past eight, leaving Mr. George and the two boys in the hall. The first evening of the journey-that is, the evening of the night spent at Arezzo-Mr. George told Rollo, as soon as Mrs. Gray had gone, that he had some bad news to tell him.
"What is it?" asked Rollo.
"It is that I am going to make a rule for you, that every night, from and after the time that Mrs. Gray goes into her room, you are not to have any conversation with any body."
"Why not, uncle George?" asked Rollo.
"Because I want to have the room still, so that I can write. I have journals and letters to write, and so have you,-and so I suppose has Josie; and the evening, after Mrs. Gray and Rosie have gone to their room, will be the best time to appropriate to the work. You can do your own work of this kind at that time or not, just as you please; but if you do not do it, you must not interrupt me in doing mine."
"I suppose that is a rule for me and Josie too," said Rollo.
"No," said Mr. George, "it is for you alone."
"Why is it not a rule for Josie," said Rollo, "as much as for me?"