Part 1

TWO

PILGRIMS' PROGRESS

BY JOSEPH AND ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL AUTHORS OF "_A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE_"

BOSTON ROBERTS BROTHERS LONDON SEELEY & CO. 1887

_Copyright, 1886_, BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.

University Press: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.

TWO Pilgrims' Progress

FROM FAIR FLORENCE, TO The eternal City of ROME:

Delivered under the Similitude of a RIDE

Wherein is Discovered, The manner of their setting out, Their Dangerous Journey; And safe Arrival at the Desired City.

_And Behold they wrought a Work on the Wheels._ _IER.18.3_

By _Joseph & Elizabeth Robins Pennell_.

Licensed and Entred according to Order.

_And_ _Published By_ ROBERTS BROS. BOSTON MDCCCLXXXVI

_A FRIEND'S Apology_

_For this Booke._

_By CHARLES G. LELAND._

_Loe! what is this which Ime to sett before ye? It is, I ween, a very pleasant Story, How two young_ Pilgrimes _who the World would see, Did Wheele themselves all over Italy. One meant to write on't, whence it may be said That for the Nonce hers was the Wheelwright's trade; Which is a clever Crafte, for yee have heard What flits about as a familiar Word Which in a Workshopp often meets the Eare, "Bad Wheelwright maketh a good Carpentere," If of a bad one such a Saying's true, Oh what, I pray, may not a good one do? For by Experience I do declare 'Tis easier to make Books than build a Chaire._ Experto crede--I _have tried them Both, And sweare a Book is easier--on my Oathe!_

_He who with her a Pilgriming did go,--_ That was her Husband. As this Book doth show, _Rare skill he had when he would Sketches take, And from those Sketches prittie Pictures make. She with the Pen could well illuminate, He with the Pencil Nature illustrate. Oh, is't not strange that what they did so well In the Pen way meets in the Name Pen-nell? By which the Proverb doth approved appeare,_ Nomen est Omen,--_as is plain and cleere. Which means to say that every Soule doth Bear A Name well suited to his charactere._

_Now, when this Couple unto Mee did come, And askt me iff I'de write a little Pome, That Tale and Picture as they rouled along Might have some small Accomp'niment of Song, I set my Pen to Paper with Delighte, And quickly had my Thoughts in Black and White. Even as_ JOHN BUNYAN _said he did of yore, So I, because I'd done the like before. Since I was the first man of modern time Who on the bycicle e'er wrote a Rime, How I a Lady in a Vision saw Upon a Wheel like that of Budda's Law, Which kept the Path and went exceeding fast; Loe! now my Vision is fulfilled at last, In this brave writer who with ready Hand Hath guided well the Wheel ore many a Land, Showing the World by her adventurous Course How one may travel fast as any Horse, Without a Steed, and stop where'er ye will, And have for oats or stable nere a Bill._

_Now, for the Book I something have to say (Pray mark Mee well, good Reader, while_ you _may)._ They _say that in the Publick some there bee Who'll take it ill 'cause it doth Parody_ JOHN BUNYAN'S Progress. _That can ne'er be said By any who_ JOHN BUNYAN'S _Booke have read, Since he himself protests against the Whim Of those who said the selfsame thing of him, And thought he lightly treated solemn Things. List the Defence which to this Charge he brings: "This Book will make a Traveler of_ Thee, _If by its Councill_ thou _wilt guided be. And it is writ in such a Dialect As may the Minds of listless Men affect. It seems a_ NOVELTY, _and yet contains Nothing but sound and honest Gospel Strains."_

_Now I can make no more Apologie Than Honest_ JOHN _did make for himself, d'ye see; As for the Rest--if you but cast your Eye Upon the Pictures ere the Booke ye buy, And if of Art you are a clever Judge, The Price for it you'll surely not begrudge. Now, Reader, I have praysed this Booke to Thee, I trust that Thou wilt scan Itt carefullie; 'T will set before thee Portraiture of Townes, Castles and Towres, antient Villes and Downs, How rowling Rivers to y^e Ocean hast, Of Roadside Inns and many a faire Palast, Served up, I ween, with so much gentle Mirthe, Thoulte fairly own thou'st gott_ thy _Money's Worth. If thou art Cheated Mine shall bee the Sinn,-- Turn o'er the Page, my Lady, and Begin!_

* * * * *

_Loe! Vanity Faire!--the Worlde is there, Hee and his Wife beside. Ye may see it afoot, or from the Traine, Or if on a Wheel you ride._

_To

CHARLES GODFREY LELAND,

Who is responsible for our First Work Together, & Who has been the Great-Heart of many a Pilgrimage taken in his Company,

We dedicate this Book._

CONTENTS.

PAGE

THE START 11

IN THE VAL D'ARNO 14

AT EMPOLI 22

THE ROAD TO FAIR AND SOFT SIENA 25

AT POGGIBONSI 34

IN THE MOUNTAINS 36

FAIR AND SOFT SIENA 45

AN ITALIAN BY-ROAD 61

MONTE OLIVETO 81

THROUGH THE WILDERNESS TO A GARDEN 94

WE ARE DETAINED IN MONTEPULCIANO 101

IN THE VAL DI CHIANA 109

LUCA SIGNORELLI'S TOWN 118

TO PERUGIA: BY TRAIN AND TRICYCLE 122

AT PERUGIA 128

ACROSS THE TIBER TO ASSISI 134

AT ASSISI 138

VIRGIL'S COUNTRY 142

TERNI AND ITS FALLS 155

IN THE LAND OF BRIGANDS 157

A MIDDLING INN 164

ACROSS THE CAMPAGNA 166

THE FINISH 173

* * *

APPENDIX 175

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

* * *

PAGE

OVER THE PONTE VECCHIO 14

IN THE SUNLIGHT 18

LASTRA 20

A PERUGINO LANDSCAPE 24

ON THE ARNO--NEAR EMPOLI 36

A SLIGHT OBSTRUCTION 40

NOONTIME 42

BY THE RIVER 50

CHIUSURE 68

MONTE OLIVETO 84

AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS 96

LEAVING MONTEPULCIANO 106

CORTONA 118

ON THE HILL 126

THE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION, PERUGIA 134

A FROWN OF DISAPPROVAL, ASSISI 136

GATHERING LEAVES 146

"PIPING DOWN THE VALLEY" 160

FROM VIA FLAMINIA, NEAR PONTE MOLLE 170

"ASPETTO!" 172

TWO

PILGRIMS' PROGRESS.

TWO PILGRIMS' PROGRESS.

THE START.

"_They are a couple of far-country men, and, after their mode, are going on Pilgrimage._"

We stayed in Florence three days before we started on our pilgrimage to Rome. We needed a short rest. The railway journey straight through from London had been unusually tiresome because of our tricycle. From the first mention of our proposed pilgrimage, kind friends in England had warned us that on the way to Italy the machine would be a burden worse than the Old Man of the Sea; porters, guards, and custom-house officials would look upon it as lawful prey, and we should pay more to get it to Italy than it had cost in the beginning. It is wonderful how clever one's friends are to discover the disagreeable, and then how eager to point it out!

Our first experience at the station at Holborn Viaduct seemed to confirm their warnings. We paid eight shillings to have the tricycle carried to Dover, porters amiably remarking it would take a pile of money to get such a machine to Italy. Crossing the Channel, we paid five-and-sixpence more, and the sailors told us condolingly we should have an awful time of it in the custom-house at Calais. This, however, turned out a genuine seaman's yarn. The tricycle was examined carefully, but to be admired, not valued. "That's well made, that!" one guard declared with appreciation, and others playfully urged him to mount it. To make a long story short, our friends proved false prophets. From Calais to Florence we paid only nine francs freight and thirty-five francs duty at Chiasso. But unfortunately we never knew what might be about to happen. We escaped in one place only to be sure the worst would befall us in the next. It was not until the cause of our anxiety was safe in Florence that our mental burden was taken away.

But here were more friends who called our pilgrimage a desperate journey, and asked if we had considered what we might meet with in the way we were going. There was the cholera. But we represented that to get to Rome we should not go near the stricken provinces. Then they persisted that our road lay through valleys reeking with malaria until November at least. We should not reach these valleys before November, was our reply. Well, then, did we know we must pass through lonely districts where escaped convicts roamed abroad; and in and out of villages where fleas were like unto a plague of Egypt, and good food as scarce as in the wilderness? In a word, ours was a fool's errand. Perhaps it was because so little had come of the earlier prophecies that we gave slight heed to these. They certainly made no difference in our plans. On October 16, the third morning after our arrival, we rode forth _sans_ flea-powder or brandy, _sans_ quinine or beef-extract, _sans_ everything our friends counselled us to take,--and hence, according to them, right into the jaws of death.

IN THE VAL D'ARNO.

"_Now their way lay just upon the bank of the river; here, therefore, Christian and his companion walked with great delight._"

The _padrone_ who helped to strap our portfolio and two bags to the luggage-carrier, our coats to the handle-bars, and the knapsack to J.'s back, and Mr. Mead, the one friend who foretold pleasure, stood at the door of the Hotel Minerva to see us off. The sunlight streamed over the Piazza of Santa Maria Novella and the beggars on the church-steps and the cabmen who good-naturedly cried "No carriage for you," as we wheeled slowly on, over to the Via Tornabuoni, past Doni's, by Viesseux's, up the Lung' Arno to the crowded Ponte Vecchio where for this once at least we were not attacked by the little shopmen, by the Via de' Bardi, then back through the Borgo San Jacopo, again along the Lung' Arno, and then around with the twisting street-car tracks, through the Porta San Frediano, and out on the broad white road which leads to Pisa.

But even before we left Florence we met with our first accident. The luggage-carrier swung around from the middle to the side of the backbone. The one evil consequence, however, was a half-hour's delay. Beyond the gate we stopped at the first blacksmith's. Had either of us known the Italian word for "wire," the delay might have been shorter. It was only by elaborate pantomime we could make our meaning clear. Then the blacksmith took the matter in his own hands, unstrapped the bags, and went to work with screw-driver and wire, while the entire neighborhood, backed by passing pedlers and street-car drivers and citizens, pronounced the tricycle "beautiful!" "a new horse!" "a tramway!" When the luggage-carrier was fastened securely and loaded again, the blacksmith was so proud of his success that he declared "nothing" was his charge. But he was easily persuaded to take something to drink the _Signore's_ health. After this there were no further stops.

Our road for some distance went over streets laid with the great stones of the old Tuscan pavement,--and for tricyclers these streets are not very bad going,--between tall gray houses, with shrines built in them, and those high walls which radiate from Florence in every direction, and keep one from seeing the gardens and green places within. Women plaiting straw, great yellow bunches of which hung at their waists, and children greeted us with shouts. Shirtless bakers, their hands white with flour, and barbers holding their razors, men with faces half shaved and still lathered, and others with wine-glasses to their lips, rushed to look at this new folly of the foreigner,--for ours was the first tandem tricycle ever seen in Italy. At Signa, on the steep up-grade just outside the town, we had a lively spurt with a dummy engine, the engineer apparently trying to run us down as we were about to cross the track. After this we rode between olives and vineyards where there were fewer people. There was not a cloud in the sky, so blue overhead and so white above the far hill-tops on the horizon. The wind in the trees rustled gently in friendliness. Solemn, white-faced, broad-horned oxen stared at us sympathetically over the hedges. One young peasant even stopped his cart to say how beautiful he thought it must be to travel in Italy after our fashion. All day we passed gray olive-gardens and green terraced hillsides, narrow Tuscan-walled streams dry at this season, and long rows of slim straight poplars,--"white trees," a woman told us was their name. Every here and there was a shrine with lamp burning before the Madonna, or a wayside cross bearing spear and scourge and crown of thorns. Now we rode by the fair river of Arno, where reeds grew tall and close by the water's edge, and where the gray-green mountains rising almost from its banks were barren of all trees save dark stone-pines and towering cypresses, like so many mountains in Raphael's or Perugino's pictures. Now we came to where the plain broadened and the mountains were blue and distant. Mulberries the peasants had stripped of their leaves before their time, but not bare because of the vines festooned about them, broke with their even ranks the monotony of gray and brown ploughed fields. Here on a hill was a white villa or monastery, with long, lofty avenue of cypresses; there, the stanch unshaken walls and gates of castle or fortress, which, however, had long since disappeared. It is true, all these things are to be seen hastily from the windows of the railway train; but it is only by following the windings and straight ways of the road as we did that its beauty can be worthily realized.

Later in the afternoon, with a turn of the road, we came suddenly in view of Capraia, high up above, and far to the other side of the river,--so far, indeed, that all detail was lost, and we could only see the outline of its houses and towers and campanile washed into the whitish-blue sky. And all the time we were working just hard enough to feel that joy of mere living which comes with healthy out-of-door exercise, and, I think, with nothing else. Sometimes we rode seeing no one, and hearing no other sound than the low cries of a cricket in the hedge and the loud calls of an unseen ploughman in a neighboring field; then an old woman went by, complimenting us on going so fast without a horse; and then a baker's boy in white shirt and bare legs, carrying a lamb on his shoulders. But then, again, we met wagon after wagon, piled with boxes and baskets, poultry and vegetables, and sleeping men and women, and with lanterns swinging between the wheels,--for the next day would be Friday and market-day, and peasants were already on their way to Florence. There were pedlers, too, walking from village to village, selling straw fans and gorgeous handkerchiefs. Would not the _Signora_ have a handkerchief? one asked, showing me the gayest of his stock. For answer I pointed to the bags on the luggage-carrier and the knapsack on J.'s back. "Of course," he said; we already had enough to carry; would the _Signora_ forgive him for troubling her? And with a polite bow he went on his way.

We came to several villages and towns,--some small, where pots and bowls, fresh from the potter's wheel, were set out to dry; others large, like Lastra, with heavy walls and gates and old archways, and steps leading up to crooked, steep streets, so narrow the sun never shines into them; or like Montelupo, where for a while we sat on the bridge without the farther gate, looking at the houses which climb up the hillside to the cypress-encircled monastery at the top. Women were washing in the stream below, and under the poplars on the bank a priest in black robes and broad-brimmed hat walked with a young lady. But whenever we stopped, children from far and near collected around us. There were little old-fashioned girls, with handkerchiefs tied over their heads in womanly fashion, who kept on plaiting straw, and small boys nursing big babies, their hands and mouths full of bread and grapes. If, however, in their youthful curiosity they pressed upon us too closely, polite men and women, who had also come to look, drove them back with terrible cries of _Via, ragazzi!_ ("Go away, children!") before which they retreated with the same speed with which they had advanced.

Just beyond Montelupo, when a tedious up-grade brought us to a broad plateau, a cart suddenly came out a little way in front of us from a side road. A man was driving, and on the seat behind, and facing us, were two nuns, who wore wide straw hats which flapped slowly up and down with the motion of the cart. When they saw us, the younger of the two covered her face with her hands, as if she thought us a device of the Devil. But the other, who looked the Lady Abbess, met the danger bravely, and sternly examined us. This close scrutiny reassured her. When we drew nearer she wished us good-evening, and then her companion turned and looked. We told them we were pilgrims bound for Rome. At this they took courage, and the spokeswoman begged for the babies they cared for in Florence. We gave her a few sous. She counted them quite greedily, and then--but not till then--benevolently blessed us. They were going at jog-trot pace, so that we soon left them behind. "_Buon viaggio_," the Abbess cried; and the silent sister smiled, showing all her pretty white teeth, for we now represented a temptation overcome.

AT EMPOLI.

"_The pilgrim they laid in a large upper chamber whose window opened towards the sunrising; the name of the chamber was Peace; where he slept till break of day._"

We put up that night at Empoli. The Albergo Maggiore was fair enough, and, like all large Italian inns, had a clean spacious stable in which to shelter the tricycle. The only drawback to our comfort was the misery at dinner of the black-eyed, blue-shirted waiter at our refusal to eat a dish of birds we had not ordered. He was very eager to dispose of them. He served them with every course, setting them on the table with a triumphant "_Ecco!_" as if he had prepared a delicious surprise. It was not until he brought our coffee that he despaired. Then he retired mournfully to the kitchen, where his loud talk with the _padrona_ made us fear their wrath would fall upon us or the tricycle. But later they gave us candles, and said good-night with such gracious smiles that we slept the sleep which knows neither care nor fear.

The next morning their temper was as unclouded as the sky. They both watched the loading of the tricycle with smiling interest. He had seen velocipedes with two wheels, the waiter said, but never one with three. And that a _Signora_ should ride, the _padrona_ added, ah! that indeed was strange! Then she grew confidential. Only occasionally I caught her meaning, for my knowledge of Italian was small. She had had seven children, she said, and all were dead but one. And I, had I any? And where had I bought my dress? She liked it so much; and she took it in her hand and felt it. Should we stay long in Italy? and sometime we would come back to Empoli? Her son, a little fellow, was there too. He had been hanging about the machine when we came down to breakfast, and ever since. He stood speechless while J. was by, but when the latter went away for a few minutes,--less shy with me, I suppose, because he knew I could not understand him as well,--he asked what might such a velocipede cost? as much perhaps as a hundred francs? But J. coming back he was silent as before. They all followed us out to the street, the _padrona_ shaking hands with us both, and the boy standing by the tricycle to the very last.

THE ROAD TO FAIR AND SOFT SIENA.

"_They went till they came into a certain country whose air naturally tended to make one drowsy._"

"_Let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober._"