monastery, and Tito took the same direction, threading the crowd with a careless and leisurely air, but keeping careful watch on that monastic entrance, as if he expected some object of interest to issue from it.
It was no such expectation that occupied the crowd. The object they were caring about was already visible to them in the shape of a large placard, affixed by order of the Signoria, and covered with very legible official handwriting.
But curiosity was somewhat balked by the fact that the manuscript was chiefly in Latin, and though nearly every man knew beforehand approximately what the placard contained, he had an appetite for more exact knowledge, which gave him an irritating sense of his neighbour’s ignorance in not being able to interpret the learned tongue.
For that aural acquaintance with Latin phrases which the unlearned might pick up from pulpit quotations constantly interpreted by the preacher could help them little when they saw written Latin; the spelling even of the modern language being in an unorganised and scrambling condition for the mass of people who could read and write, while the majority of those assembled nearest to the placard were not in the dangerous predicament of possessing that little knowledge.
“It’s the Frate’s doctrines that he’s to prove by being burned,” said that large public character Goro, who happened to be among the foremost gazers. “The Signoria has taken it in hand, and the writing is to let us know. It’s what the Padre has been telling us about in his sermon.”
“Nay, Goro,” said a sleek shopkeeper, compassionately, “thou hast got thy legs into twisted hose there. The Frate has to prove his doctrines by not being burned: he is to walk through the fire, and come out on the other side sound and whole.”