This had been the children's playground as long as any one could remember, but in the days of the blessed Frate Agnolo the Syndic was a grim, childless, irascible old man, terribly plagued with gout, which made him so choleric that he could not endure the joyous cries and clatter of the children at their play.  So at last in his irritation he gave orders that, if the children must play at all, it would have to be in their own dull narrow alleys paved with hard rock, or outside beyond the walls of the castello.  For their part the youngsters would have been glad enough to escape into the green country among the broom and cypress, the red snapdragon and golden asters and blue pimpernels, but these were wild and dangerous times, and at any moment a troop of Free-lances from Pisa or a band of Lucchese raiders might have swept down and carried them off into captivity.