sister’s name) walking in the vineyard to gather herbs for a salad (as women frequently do), heard a rustling under the leaves, and turning toward it she fancied it cried, and going towards it she saw the hands and face of a child, which, tumbling up and down in the leaves, seemed to call for relief.  Donna Dianora, partly astonished and partly afraid, took it up very tenderly, carried it home, washed it, and having put it in clean clothes, presented it to Messer Antonio. “Eccololi!” says she, “and what will Messere do with this?” “Dianora,” says he, with a gasp, “Dianora...!” “No, it is not,” says she, fluttering suddenly with rage, “and I’ll thank you, Messer Antonio,” and that she said for spite, “I’ll thank you to keep your lewd thoughts to yourself,” says she, “and for the fine ladies, fine ladies,” says she, “that come to see you at S. Michele,” and she fell to weeping, holding the child in her arms.  “I that might have had little hands (manine) under my chin many’s the time if Buonaccorso had not died so old.”  And she carried the child out of his sight.  Then Messer Antonio later, when he understood the case, being no less affected with wonder and compassion than his sister before him, debated with himself what to do, and presently concluded to bring the little fellow up; for, as he said, “I, Antonio, am a priest, and my sister hath no children.”  So he christened the child Castruccio after his own father, and Dianora looked to him as carefully as if he had been her own.  Now Castruccio’s graces increased with his years, and therefore in his heart Messer Antonio designed him for a priest; but Dianora would not have it so, and indeed he showed as yet but little inclination to that kind of life, which was not to be wondered at, his natural disposition, as Dianora said, tending quite another way.  For though he followed his studies, when he was scarce fourteen years old he began to run after the soldiers and knights, and always to be wrestling and running, and soon he troubled himself very little with reading, unless it were such things as might instruct him for war.  And Messer Antonio was sore afflicted.

Now the great house in Lucca at that time was Guinigi, and Francesco was then head of it.  Ah! a handsome gentleman, rich too, who had borne arms all his life long under the Visconti of Milan.  With them he had fought for the Ghibellines till the Lucchesi looked upon him as the very life of that party.  This Francesco was used to walk in Piazza S. Michele, where one day he watched Castruccio playing among his companions.  Seeing his strength and confidence, he called him to him, and asked him if he did not prefer a gentleman’s family, where he could learn to ride the great horse and exercise his arms, before the cloister of a churchman.  Guinigi had only to look at him to see which way his heart jumped, so not long after he made a visit to Antonio and begged Castruccio of him in so pressing and yet so civil a manner, that Antonio, finding he could not master the natural inclinations of the lad, let him go.