it enjoys a great oval of sky: the falls of shade are dispersed, dot the
hollow range, and are not at noontide a broad curtain passing over from
right to left. The sun reigns and also governs in the Val di Non.

'The, grape has his full benefit here, padrone,' said Jacopo.

But the place was too populous, and too much subjected to the general
eye, to please Angelo. At Cles they were compelled to bear an
inspection, and a little comedy occurred. Jacopo, after exhibiting
Angelo as his son-in-law, seeing doubts on the soldiers' faces, mentioned
the name of the German suitor for his daughter's hand--the carpenter,
Johann Spellmann, to whose workshop he requested to be taken. Johann,
being one of the odd Germans in the valley, was well known: he was
carving wood astride a stool, and stopped his whistling to listen to
the soldiers, who took the first word out of Jacopo's mouth, and were
convinced, by Johann's droop of the chin, that the tale had some truth in
it; and more when Johann yelled at the Valtelline innkeeper to know why,
then, he had come to him, if he was prepared to play him false. One of
the soldiers said bluntly, that as Angelo's appearance answered to the
portrait of a man for whom they were on the lookout, they would, if their
countryman liked, take him and give him a dose of marching and
imprisonment.

'Ach! that won't make my little Rosetta love me better,' cried Johann,
who commenced taking up a string of reproaches against women, and pitched
his carving-blade and tools abroad in the wood-dust.

'Well, now, it 's queer you don't want to fight this lad,' said Jacopo;
'he's come to square it with you that way, if you think best.'