CHAPTER VI

SERGIUS THORD


The next day the heavens were clouded; and occasional volleys of heavy
thunder were mingled with the gusts of wind and rain which swept over
the city, and which lashed the fair southern sea into a dark semblance
of such angry waves as wear away northern coasts into bleak and rocky
barrenness. It was disappointing weather to multitudes, for it was the
feast-day of one of the numerous saints whose names fill the calendar
of the Roman Church,--and a great religious procession had been
organized to march from the market-place to the Cathedral, in which two
or three hundred children and girls had been chosen to take part. The
fickle bursts of sunshine which every now and again broke through the
lowering sky, decided the priests to carry out their programme in spite
of the threatening storm, in the hope that it would clear off
completely with the afternoon. Accordingly, groups of little maidens,
in white robes and veils, began to assemble with their flags and
banners at the appointed hour round the old market cross, which,--grey
and crumbling at the summit,--bent over the streets like a withered
finger, crook'd as it were, in feeble remonstrance at the passing of
time,--while glimpses of young faces beneath the snowy veils, and
chatter of young voices, made brightness and music around its frowning
and iron-bound base. Shortly before three o'clock the Cathedral bells
began to chime, and crowds of people made their way towards the sacred
edifice in the laughing, pushing, gesticulating fashion of southerners,