“Still rain—mist—snow—drizzle—and all the incalculable combinations of a climate, where heat and cold struggle for mastery. Read Spence, and turned over Roscoe, to find a passage I have not found. Read the 4th vol. of W. Scott’s second series of ‘Tales of my Landlord.’ Dined. Read the Lugano Gazette. Read—I forget what. At 8 went to conversazione. Found there the Countess Geltrude, Betti V. and her husband, and others. Pretty black-eyed woman that—only twenty-two—same age as Teresa, who is prettier, though.
“The Count Pietro G. took me aside to say that the Patriots have had notice from Forli (twenty miles off) that to-night the government and its party mean to strike a stroke—that the Cardinal here has had orders to make several arrests immediately, and that, in consequence, the Liberals are arming, and have posted patroles in the streets, to sound the alarm and give notice to fight for it.
“He asked me ‘what should be done?’—I answered ‘fight for it, rather than be taken in detail;’ and offered, if any of them are in immediate apprehension of arrest, to receive them in my house (which is defensible), and to defend them, with my servants and themselves (we have arms and ammunition), as long as we can,—or to try to get them away under cloud of night. On going home, I offered him the pistols which I had about me—but he refused, but said he would come off to me in case of accidents.
| A. D. 1821. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 401 |
“It wants half an hour of midnight, and rains;—as Gibbet says. ‘a fine night for their enterprise—dark as hell, and blows like the devil.’ If the row don’t happen now, it must soon. I thought that their system of shooting people would soon produce a reaction—and now it seems coming. I will do what I can in the way of combat, though a little out of exercise. The cause is a good one.
“Turned over and over half a score of books for the passage in question, and can’t find it. Expect to hear the drum and the musquetry momently (for they swear to resist, and are right)—but I hear nothing, as yet, save the plash of the rain and the gusts of the wind, at intervals. Don’t like to go to bed, because I hate to be waked, and would rather sit up for the row, if there is to be one.
“Mended the fire—have got the arms—and a book or two, which I shall turn over. I know little of their numbers, but think the Carbonari strong enough to beat the troops, even here. With twenty men this house might be defended for twenty-four hours against any force to be brought against it now in this place, for the same time; and, in such a time, the country would have notice, and would rise,—if ever they will rise, of which there is some doubt. In the mean time, I may as well read as do any thing else, being alone.
