The result was, that Giuseppe did not appear at the mustering-office on the day set; and, when the file of soldiers came for him, he was nowhere to be found.  He had fled to the mountains.  I scarcely know what his plan was, but he probably trusted to some good luck to escape the conscription altogether, if he could shun it now; and, at least, I know that he had many comrades who did the same, so that at times the mountains were full of young fellows who were lurking in them to escape the soldiers.  And they fared very roughly usually, and sometimes nearly perished from hunger; for though the sympathies of the peasants were undoubtedly with the quasi-outlaws rather than with the carbineers, yet the latter were at every hamlet in the hills, and liable to visit every hut, so that any relief extended to the fugitives was attended with great danger; and, besides, the hunted men did not dare to venture from their retreats.  Thus outlawed and driven to desperation by hunger, these fugitives, whom nobody can defend for running away from their duties as citizens, became brigands.  A cynical German, who was taken by them some years ago on the road to Castellamare, a few miles above here, and held for ransom, declared that they were the most honest fellows he had seen in Italy; but I never could see that he intended the remark as any compliment to them.  It is certain that the inhabitants of all these towns held very loose ideas on the subject of brigandage:  the poor fellows, they used to say, only robbed because they were hungry, and they must live somehow.

What Fiammetta thought, down in her heart, is not told:  but I presume she shared the feelings of those about her concerning the brigands, and, when she heard that Giuseppe had joined them, was more anxious for the safety of his body than of his soul; though I warrant she did not forget either, in her prayers to the Virgin and St. Antonino.  And yet those must have been days, weeks, months, of terrible anxiety to the poor child; and if she worked away at the counterpane, netting in that elaborate border, as I have no doubt she did, it must have been with a sad heart and doubtful fingers.  I think that one of the psychological sensitives could distinguish the parts of the bedspread that were knit in the sunny days from those knit in the long hours of care and deepening anxiety.

It was rarely that she received any message from him and it was then only verbal and of the briefest; he was in the mountains above Amalfi; one day he had come so far round as the top of the Great St. Angelo, from which he could look down upon the piano of Sorrento, where the little Fiammetta was; or he had been on the hills near Salerno, hunted and hungry; or his company had descended upon some travelers going to Paestum, made a successful haul, and escaped into the steep mountains beyond.  He didn’t intend to become a regular bandit, not at all.  He hoped that something might happen so that he could steal back into Sorrento,