Later, in
Italy, he, with the rank of lieutenant, rode with the staff and still cooked for
the general. He had cooked for him in Lombardy through the whole campaign; on
the march to Rome he had lassoed his beef in the Campagna after the American
manner; he had been wounded in the defence of the Roman Republic; he was one of
the four fugitives who, with the general, carried out of the woods the inanimate
body of the general's wife into the farmhouse where she died, exhausted by the
hardships of that terrible retreat. He had survived that disastrous time to
attend his general in Palermo when the Neapolitan shells from the castle crashed
upon the town. He had cooked for him on the field of Volturno after fighting all
day. And everywhere he had seen Englishmen in the front rank of the army of
freedom. He respected their nation because they loved Garibaldi. Their very
countesses and princesses had kissed the general's hands in London, it was said.
He could well believe it; for the nation was noble, and the man was a saint. It
was enough to look once at his face to see the divine force of faith in him and
his great pity for all that was poor, suffering, and oppressed in this world.
    The spirit of self-forgetfulness, the simple devotion to a vast humanitarian
idea which inspired the thought and stress of that revolutionary time, had left
its mark upon Giorgio in a sort of austere contempt for all personal advantage.
This man, whom the lowest class in Sulaco suspected of having a buried hoard in
his kitchen, had all his life despised money. The leaders of his youth had lived
poor, had died poor. It had been a habit of his mind to disregard to-morrow. It
was engendered partly by an existence of excitement, adventure, and wild
warfare. But mostly it was a matter of principle. It did not resemble the
carelessness of a condottiere, it was a puritanism of conduct, born of stern
enthusiasm like the puritanism of religion.
    This stern devotion to a cause had cast a gloom upon Giorgio's old age. It
cast a gloom because the cause seemed lost. Too many kings and emperors
flourished yet in the world which God had meant for the people. He was sad
because of his simplicity. Though always ready to help his countrymen, and
greatly respected by the Italian emigrants wherever he lived (in his exile he
called it), he could not conceal from himself that they cared nothing for the
wrongs of down-trodden nations. They listened to his tales of