wolves in these solitudes; but he never used it upon bird or beast.

Like St. Francis of Assissi, both he and Don Silverio took more
pleasure in the life than in the death of fair winged things.

"We are witness, twice in every year, of that great and inexplicable
miracle," the priest said often, "that passage of small, frail,
unguided creatures, over seas and continents, through tempests and
simoons, and with every man's hand against them, and death waiting to
take them upon every shore, by merciless and treacherous tricks, and
we think nought of it; we care nought for it; we spread the nets and
the gins--that is all. We are unworthy of all which makes the earth
beautiful--vilely unworthy!"

One of the causes of his unpopularity in Ruscino was the inexorable
persistence with which he broke their gins, lifted their nets,
cleared off their birdlime, dispersed their watertraps, and forbade
the favourite night poaching by lanterns in the woods. More than once
they threatened his life, but he only smiled.

"_Faccia pure_!" he said, "you will cut a knot which I did not tie,
and which I cannot myself undo."

But they held him in too much awe to dare to touch him, and they knew
that again and again he went on bread and water himself to give his
wine to their sick, or his strip of meat to their old people.

Moreover, they feared Adone.

"If you touch a hair of Don Silverio's head, or the hem of his