Now when, after this communion, I asked the way to Collagna, they must have thought me foolish, and have wondered why I did not pass the night with them, for they knew how far off Collagna was. But I (by the error in language of which I have told you) believed it to be but a short way off. It was in reality ten miles. The oldest of my companions said he would put me on the way.
We went together in the half light by a lane that followed the crest of the hill, and we passed a charming thing, a little white sculpture in relief, set up for a shrine and representing the Annunciation; and as we passed it we both smiled. Then in a few hundred yards we passed another that was the Visitation, and they were gracious and beautiful to a degree, and I saw that they stood for the five joyful mysteries. Then he had to leave me, and he said, pointing to the little shrine:
'When you come to the fifth of these the path divides. Take that to the left, and follow it round the hollow of the mountain: it will become a lane. This lane crosses a stream and passes near a tower. When you have reached the tower it joins a great highroad, and that is the road to Collagna.'
And when he indicated the shrines he smiled, as though in apology for them, and I saw that we were of the same religion. Then (since people who will not meet again should give each other presents mutually) I gave him the best of my two pipes, a new pipe with letters carved on it, which he took to be the initials of my name, and he on his part gave me a hedge-rose which he had plucked and had been holding in his fingers. And I continued the path alone.
Certainly these people have a benediction upon them, granted them for their simple lives and their justice. Their eyes are fearless and kindly. They are courteous, straight, and all have in them laughter and sadness. They are full of songs, of memories, of the stories of their native place; and their worship is conformable to the world that God made. May they possess their own land, and may their influence come again from Italy to save from jar, and boasting, and ineptitude the foolish, valourless cities, and the garish crowds of shouting men.... And let us especially pray that the revival of the faith may do something for our poor old universities.
Already, when I heard all these directions, they seemed to argue a longer road than I had expected. It proved interminable.
It was now fully dark; the night was very cold from the height of the hills; a dense dew began to fall upon the ground, and the sky was full of stars. For hours I went on slowly down the lane that ran round the hollow of the wooded mountain, wondering why I did not reach the stream he spoke of. It was midnight when I came to the level, and yet I heard no water, and did not yet see the tower against the sky. Extreme fatigue made it impossible, as I thought, to proceed farther, when I saw a light in a window, and went to it quickly and stood beneath it. A woman from the window called me Caro mio, which was gracious, but she would not let me sleep even in the straw of the barn.
I hobbled on in despair of the night, for the necessity of sleep was weighing me down after four high hills climbed that day, and after the rough ways and the heat and the continual marching.
I found a bridge which crossed the deep ravine they had told me of. This high bridge was new, and had been built of fine stone, yet it was broken and ruined, and a gap suddenly showed in the dark. I stepped back from it in fear. The clambering down to the stream and up again through the briars to regain the road broke me yet more, and when, on the hill beyond, I saw the tower