18 The Woman of Visions ; [^July, 



" I want to bring down those four wood-pigeons that are perched up 

 there, on that pine-branch. Give me your gun." 



The Corsican hesitated. — " If it were shot, indeed — but with ballsf I 

 yoii can get at no more tlian two." 



" I am sure of four, however !" replied Lord Charles, as he took the 

 fusil from the hands of the guide, who, more through surprise than 

 good- will, suffered himself to be thus disarmed. The shot was fired : 

 three birds fell at the foot of the tree ; and the fourth, struck in his 

 flight, dropped a few paces off. 



" A fair shot that !" observed Paolo j " but also, in aW the Nebbia, 

 there is no fusil like mine, and " 



" I should like to buy it !" interrupted the Count TalzikofF. 



" Buy my fusil !" replied Paolo ; " were you to give me for it ten 

 years' produce of the vines of La Bulagna, I would refuse it. This fusil 

 must never go out of my family." 



" Of course, there is some good reason to give it such value in your 

 eyes ?" continued the young Russ. 



" There surely is. This fusil was the hanging of my grandfathei', 

 when the French forbade us the use of arms, at the time of the Union." 



" It is a melancholy remembi-ance !" said Lord Charles. " But why 

 did your grandfather persist in retaining his fusil when the laws for- 

 bade it.?" 



Paolo looked at the inquirer with astonishment, as he replied, " And 

 wliat man, think you, would surrender the arms of which he knows how 

 to make use > ]\Iy grandfather was as good a shot as yourself He was 

 at the head of fifty ('orsicans, who beat eight companies of grenadiers, 

 who wanted to occupy La Nebbia in 1768 ; and it was with this same 

 fusil that he took such good aim at a certain Count de Bethizy, in that 

 same war, that he never rose from the spot where he fell." 



" It was unlucky that such a brave man should have been hanged !" 

 said the Count Alexis. 



" It certainly was ; but there is no ?11 without a remedy." 



" I don't very well see any for death, however !" 



" Excuse me. My father, who escaped into the mountains, had car- 

 ried off the arms of the family. — ' This fusil,' said he to himself, ' has 

 taused the death of Nicolo Ruspi. Well, then, in the hands of Carlo 

 Ruspi, it must revenge that death.' — And my father shot the five judges 

 who had condemned my grandfather." 

 ^ " And what happened to your father ?" 



" Nothing." 



" However, to assassinate five men appears to me worse than not 

 delivering up. one's arms." 



" Assassinate !— Carlo Ruspi was not an assassin. I tell you that he 

 revenged his father !" 



" "That is quite different," observed Lord Charles, who perceived that 

 his; coiupanion's remark had by no means gratified the mountaineer ; " it 

 is quite different : but yet it might happen that persons, unjust enough 

 to hang a man for concealing his fusil, would think that Carlo Ruspi had 

 done wrong." . 



" IMy father had the same thought as you ; so he passed into Spain, 

 where he took service, and never returned here again. I was about 

 fifteen then — old enough to estimate the noble action of my father ; and 

 I swore that this fusil, which had helped him in it, should pass from 



