“Well, well!  But be off with you now, in the devil’s name, and let us go on our way!”

At last the herdsmen departed, trotting rapidly off toward the village, but they stopped every here and there, at all the highest spots on the road, as though they were looking out for some hidden ambuscade, always keeping near enough to Orso and his sister to be able to come to their assistance if necessary.  And old Polo Griffo said to his comrades: 

“I understand him!  I understand him!  He’ll not say what he means to do, but he’ll do it!  He’s the born image of his father.  Ah! you may say you have no spite against any one, my boy!  But you’ve made your vow to Saint Nega.[*] Bravo!  I wouldn’t give a fig for the mayor’s hide—­there won’t be the makings of a wineskin in it before the month is out!”

     [*] This saint is not mentioned in the calendar.  To make a
     vow to Saint Nega means to deny everything deliberately.

Preceded by this troop of skirmishers, the last descendant of the della Rebbia entered the village, and proceeded to the old mansion of his forefathers, the corporals.  The Rebbianites, who had long been leaderless, had gathered to welcome him, and those dwellers in the village who observed a neutral line of conduct all came to their doorsteps to see him pass by.  The adherents of the Barricini remained inside their houses, and peeped out of the slits in their shutters.

The village of Pietranera is very irregularly built, like most Corsican villages—­for indeed, to see a street, the traveller must betake himself to Cargese, which was built by Monsieur de Marboeuf.  The houses, scattered irregularly about, without the least attempt at orderly arrangement, cover the top of a small plateau, or rather of a ridge of the mountain.  Toward the centre of the village stands a great evergreen oak, and close beside it may be seen a granite trough, into which the water of a neighbouring spring is conveyed by a wooden pipe.  This monument of public utility was constructed at the common expense of the della Rebbia and Barricini families.  But the man who imagined this to be a sign of former friendship between the two families would be sorely mistaken.  On the contrary, it is the outcome of their mutual jealousy.  Once upon a time, Colonel della Rebbia sent a small sum of money to the Municipal Council of his commune to help to provide a fountain.  The lawyer Barricini hastened to forward a similar gift, and to this generous strife Pietranera owes its water supply.  Round about the evergreen oak and the fountain there is a clear space, known as “the Square,” on which the local idlers gather every night.  Sometimes they play at cards, and once a year, in Carnival-time, they dance.  At the two ends of the square stands two edifices, of greater height than breadth, built of a mixture of granite and schist.  These are the Towers of the two opposing families, the Barricini and the della Rebbia.  Their architecture is exactly alike, their height is similar, and it is quite evident that the rivalry of the two families has never been absolutely decided by any stroke of fortune in favor of either.