If he had been born that little boy, Calamy wondered, would he still be working, unquestioningly, among these hills: tending the beasts, cutting wood; every now and then carting his faggots and his cheeses down the long road to Vezza? Would he, still, unquestioningly? Would he see that the mountains were beautiful, beautiful and terrible? Or would he find them merely ungrateful land, demanding great labour, giving little in return? Would he believe in heaven and hell? And fitfully, when anything went wrong, would he still earnestly invoke the aid of the infant Jesus, of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, that patriarchal family trinity—father, mother and baby—of the Italian peasant? Would he have married? By this time, very likely, his eldest children would be ten or twelve years old—driving the goats afield with shrill yellings and brandished sticks. Would he be living quietly and cheerfully the life of a young patriarch, happy in his children, his wife, his flocks and herds? Would he be happy to live thus, close to the earth, earthily, an ancient, instinctive, animally sagacious life? It seemed hardly imaginable. And yet, after all, it was likely enough. It needs a very strong, a passionately ardent spirit to disengage itself from childish tradition, from the life which circumstances impose upon it. Was his such a spirit?
He was startled out of his speculations by the sound of his own name, loudly called from a little distance. He turned round and saw Mr. Cardan and Chelifer striding up the road towards him. Calamy waved his hand and went to meet them. Was he pleased to see them or not? He hardly knew.
“Well,” said Mr. Cardan, twinkling jovially, as he approached, “how goes life in the Thebaid? Do you object to receiving a couple of impious visitors from Alexandria?”
Calamy laughed and shook their hands without answering.
“Did you get wet?” he asked, to change the conversation.
“We hid in a cave,” said Mr. Cardan. He looked round at the view. “Pretty good,” he said encouragingly, as though it were Calamy who had made the landscape, “pretty good, I must say.”
“Agreeably Wordsworthian,” said Chelifer in his precise voice.
“And where do you live?” asked Mr. Cardan.
Calamy pointed to the cottage. Mr. Cardan nodded comprehendingly.
“Hearts of gold, but a little niffy, eh?” he asked, lifting his raised white eyebrow still higher.