And, in fact, the mayor flatly refused to part with a single hodful of the lime, saying that he himself was going to repair his house.
The masons said that by and by it could be got from the lime-burners, who had sold their last burning to a man in Randazzo. Stone was to be had for the quarrying, in the black lands above Camaldoli, but there were no quarrymen in Santa Vittoria, and the gang of them that lived higher up Etna had taken a large contract.
'Patience,' said the head mason, gravely. 'In time you will have all you want.'
As the bit of wall was not a very important matter, San Giacinto did not care to go to the expense of bringing material from a great distance, and decided to wait. Meanwhile he hired certain men from Bronte to come and clear out all the bush and scrub from among the trees. They came without tools. He gave them tools that belonged to the tenants of Camaldoli, the same which the latter had lent him on the first day to make a clearing close to the house. The Bronte men worked for two hours and then came out of the brush and sat down quietly in the sun.
'The tools are not good for anything,' they said gravely. 'We cannot work with them.'
'What is the matter with them?' asked San Giacinto.
'They are dull. They would not cut strings.'
'Take them away and have them ground,' said San Giacinto.
'Are there knife-grinders in this country?' asked the men. 'Where are they? No. They come, they stay a day, perhaps two days, and they go away.'
San Giacinto looked at the men thoughtfully a moment, then turned on his heel and left them to their own devices. He began to understand. The men neither wished to refuse to work for him, nor dared to do the work they undertook, when its execution would in any way improve the defensive conditions of Camaldoli. San Giacinto came back when the men were gone, with two or three of the soldiers, took a hatchet himself, and leading the way proceeded to cut away the thorns and brambles, systematically clearing the ground so as to leave no cover under which an armed man could approach the house unnoticed. He regularly devoted a part of each day to the work, until it was finished.