“Nor I!”

“Nor I!”

“Nor by the bones of St. Peter, will I!”

“And what, my friends, is this tyranny to which you will not submit?” said a young nobleman, addressing himself to the crowd of citizens who, heated, angry, half-armed, and with the vehement gestures of Italian passion, were now sweeping down the long and narrow street that led to the gloomy quarter occupied by the Orsini.

“Ah, my lord!” cried two or three of the citizens in a breath, “you will right us—­you will see justice done to us—­you are a Colonna.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed scornfully one man of gigantic frame, and wielding on high a huge hammer, indicative of his trade.  “Justice and Colonna! body of God! those names are not often found together.”

“Down with him! down with him! he is an Orsinist—­down with him!” cried at least ten of the throng:  but no hand was raised against the giant.

“He speaks the truth,” said a second voice, firmly.

“Ay, that doth he,” said a third, knitting his brows, and unsheathing his knife, “and we will abide by it.  The Orsini are tyrants—­and the Colonnas are, at the best, as bad.”

“Thou liest in thy teeth, ruffian!” cried the young noble, advancing into the press and confronting the last asperser of the Colonna.

Before the flashing eye and menacing gesture of the cavalier, the worthy brawler retreated some steps, so as to leave an open space between the towering form of the smith, and the small, slender, but vigorous frame of the young noble.

Taught from their birth to despise the courage of the plebeians, even while careless of much reputation as to their own, the patricians of Rome were not unaccustomed to the rude fellowship of these brawls; nor was it unoften that the mere presence of a noble sufficed to scatter whole crowds, that had the moment before been breathing vengeance against his order and his house.

Waving his hand, therefore, to the smith, and utterly unheeding either his brandished weapon or his vast stature, the young Adrian di Castello, a distant kinsman of the Colonna, haughtily bade him give way.

“To your homes, friends! and know,” he added, with some dignity, “that ye wrong us much, if ye imagine we share the evil-doings of the Orsini, or are pandering solely to our own passions in the feud between their house and ours.  May the Holy Mother so judge me,” continued he, devoutly lifting up his eyes, “as I now with truth declare, that it is for your wrongs, and for the wrongs of Rome, that I have drawn this sword against the Orsini.”

“So say all the tyrants,” rejoined the smith, hardily, as he leant his hammer against a fragment of stone—­some remnant of ancient Rome—­“they never fight against each other, but it is for our good.  One Colonna cuts me the throat of Orsini’s baker—­it is for our good!  Another Colonna seizes on the daughter of Orsini’s tailor—­it is for our good! our good—­yes, for the good of the people! the good of the bakers and tailors, eh?”