A wreck from the last Lombard revolt landed upon our shores in June. His
right arm was in a sling, and his Italian servant following him, kept
close by his side, with a ready hand, as if fearing that at any moment
the wounded gentleman's steps might fail. There was no public war going
on just then: for which reason he was eyed suspiciously by the rest of
the passengers making their way up the beach; who seemed to entertain an
impression that he had no business at such a moment to be crippled, and
might be put down as one of those foreign fools who stand out for a
trifle as targets to fools a little luckier than themselves. Here,
within our salt girdle, flourishes common sense. We cherish life; we
abhor bloodshed; we have no sympathy with your juvenile points of honour:
we are, in short, a civilized people; and seeing that Success has made us
what we are, we advise other nations to succeed, or be quiet. Of all of
which the gravely-smiling gentleman appeared well aware; for, with an eye
that courted none, and a perfectly calm face, he passed through the
crowd, only once availing himself of his brown-faced Beppo's
spontaneously depressed shoulder when a twinge of pain shooting from his
torn foot took his strength away. While he remained in sight, some
speculation as to his nationality continued: he had been heard to speak
nothing but Italian, and yet the flower of English cultivation was
signally manifest in his style and bearing. The purchase of that day's
journal, giving information that the Lombard revolt was fully, it was
thought finally, crushed out, and the insurgents scattered, hanged, or
shot, suggested to a young lady in a group melancholy with luggage, that
the wounded gentleman was one who had escaped from the Austrians.
"Only, he is English."
"If he is, he deserves what he's got."
A stout Briton delivered this sentence, and gave in addition. a sermon
on meddling, short, emphatic, and not uncheerful apparently, if estimated
by the hearty laugh that closed it; though a lady remarked, "Oh, dear me!
You are very sweeping."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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