a way. Now and then he found a moment's glee in a sharp tussle with one
of the younger children who had been tormenting a frog or a beetle; but
he was still too young for real fighting, and could only hang on the
outskirts when the bigger boys closed, and think how some day he would
be at them and break their lubberly heads. There were thus many hours
when he turned to the silent consolations of the chapel. So familiar had
he grown with the images on its walls that he had a name for every one:
the King, the Knight, the Lady, the children with guinea-pigs, basilisks
and leopards, and lastly the Friend, as he called Saint Francis. An
almond-faced lady on a white palfrey with gold trappings represented his
mother, whom he had seen too seldom for any distinct image to interfere
with the illusion; a knight in damascened armour and scarlet cloak was
the valiant captain, his father, who held a commission in the ducal
army; and a proud young man in diadem and ermine, attended by a retinue
of pages, stood for his cousin, the reigning Duke of Pianura.

A mist, as usual at that hour, was rising from the marshes between
Pontesordo and Pianura, and the light soon ebbed from the saint's face,
leaving the chapel in obscurity. Odo had crept there that afternoon with
a keener sense than usual of the fact that life was hard on little boys;
and though he was cold and hungry and half afraid, the solitude in which
he cowered seemed more endurable than the noisy kitchen where, at that
hour, the farm hands were gathering for their polenta, and Filomena was
screaming at the frightened orphan who carried the dishes to the table.
He knew, of course, that life at Pontesordo would not last for
ever--that in time he would grow up and be mysteriously transformed into
a young gentleman with a sword and laced coat, who would go to court and
perhaps be an officer in the Duke's army or in that of some neighbouring
prince; but, viewed from the lowliness of his nine years, that dazzling
prospect was too remote to yield much solace for the cuffs and sneers,