278 The Corsican Bandit. [MARCH, 



light of pleasure for a moment brightened her countenance, and its fitful 

 flash resembled a glimmering of reason. " Have you seen him ?" repeated 

 she more slowly, and with less vivacity than before : and her eye again 

 assumed its unmeaning, cheerless expression, benighted of intelligence, 

 and bereft of hope. 



Poor wanderer ! I could understand thee ! I had for a season known 

 that sickness of the heart that loneliness of suffering, which finds no 

 echo in the sympathy of the hacknied, selfish crowd. Coarse, rustic 

 hinds gazed upon thy agonies as on a holiday spectacle, or taunted thee 

 with their witless jests. Thou hadst undergone the tender mercies of 

 human kind the inflictions of the experimental philanthropist, who wins 

 back reason to her throne with the sovereign panacea of the prison and 

 the scourge. But I could pity thy woes, for I had felt them : and could 

 the accents of kindness now speak thee comfort, I would bear with thy 

 frantic ravings ; I would soothe thee in thy milder hours of tranquil 

 sorrow ; and " weep with thee tear for tear !" 



My rude companion approached her, and tapping her on the shoulder, 

 " Ebbe, Cecca, non Thai mica truvatu ?"* said he, with insolent and 

 boorish familiarity. Maniac as she was, the ill-timed raillery stung her 

 to the quick : her lip quivered her eye kindled. " No, che no 1'haggio 

 truvatu,"t replied she, gnashing her teeth with wild execration, and in 

 an attitude of menace which forced my guide, though armed, to recoil 

 several paces. But her ideas instantly taking another direction, she 

 paused. " Aggia pazienza," said she, " so io, so be duve lu truvero :"J 

 and, with another convulsive laugh, she fled, swift as the chamois of her 

 native hills, and was lost among the thickets. 



During the rapid apparition of Cecca, astonishment and pity had 

 rooted me to the spot. My eyes, fixed on the path by which she had 

 disappeared, still followed her trance ; but the volubility of my guide 

 soon roused me from my emotion. " You would see her once more ?" 

 said he, with an inquiring look ; and without waiting for my answer, he 

 led back the horses which had been grazing on the luxuriant herbage. 

 As we resumed our route, my guide acquainted me with the poor 

 creature's story. 



Cecca was the daughter of a rich farmer, who lived in one of the most 

 elevated of the little villages forming the canton of Bastilica. The tough 

 old forester, who was an equal adept in the chase of the chamois and of 

 the marauding poacher, felt his bosom swell with conscious importance 

 as he boasted that his household could furnish, at a pinch, at least twelve 

 good men at arms. His daughter was the prettiest maiden in all the 

 canton ; and as she attended her devotions each Sunday, adorned with 

 her coral necklace, and the kerchief which vied in whiteness with the 

 bosom whose charms it concealed, the old man's heart warmed with a 

 father's fondness, and a tear of pride glistened in his eye as the glance of 

 many a village youth told how he envied him his darling treasure. 

 Cecca was his only child : her winning graces, her playful caresses, 

 enlivened his drooping age, and softened his regret that he had been 

 denied a son, to whom he might one day bequeath his antique chesnut- 

 trees, his hereditary animosities, and his double-barrelled gun. " The 



* " Well, Cecca, have you not found him ?" [u for o in the Corsican dialect.] 

 f- " No, I have not found him." \Thaggio for Pho.] 

 % " Have patience ; I know where to find him." 



