“Well, I can’t walk over this mountain all night. We don’t get anywhere; we merely move in circles. I don’t think much of the guide you engaged. He doesn’t know his way.”
“He wasn’t engaged to know his way,” Tony retorted. “He was engaged to wear earrings and sing Santa Lucia.”
Constance continued to sit on her rock while Tony went forward on a reconnoitering expedition. He returned in ten minutes with the information that there was a shepherd’s hut not very far off with a shepherd inside who would like to be friendly. If the signorina would deign to ask some questions in the Italian language which she spoke so fluently, they could doubtless obtain directions as to the way home.
They found the shepherd, the shepherdess and four little shepherds eating their evening polenta in an earth-floored room, with half a dozen chickens and the family pig gathered about them in an expectant group. They rose politely and invited the travellers to enter. It was an event in their simple lives when foreigners presented themselves at the door.
Constance commenced amenities by announcing that she had been walking on the mountain since sunrise and was starving. Did they by chance have any fresh milk?
“Starving! Madonna mia, how dreadful!” Madame held up her hands. But yes, to be sure they had fresh milk. They kept four cows. That was their business—turning milk into cheese and selling it on market day in the village. Also they had some fresh mountain strawberries which Beppo had gathered that morning—perhaps they too might be pleasing to the signorina?
Constance nodded affirmatively, and added, with her eyes on the pig, that it might be pleasanter to eat outside where they could look at the view. She became quite gay again over what she termed their afternoon tea-party, and her father had to remind her most insistently that if they wished to get down before darkness overtook them they must start at once. An Italian twilight is short. They paid for the food and presented a lira apiece to the children, leaving them silhouetted against the sky in a bobbing row shouting musical farewells.
Their host led them through the woods and out on to the brow of the mountain in order to start them down by the right path. He regretted that he could not go all the way but the sheep had still to be brought in for the night. At the parting he was garrulous with directions.
The easiest way to get home now would be straight down the mountain to Grotta del Monte—he pointed out the brown-tiled roofs of a village far below them—there they could find donkeys or an ox-cart to take them back. It was nine kilometres to Valedolmo. They had come quite out of their way; if they had taken the right path in the morning they would have reached the top where the view was magnificant—truly magnificant. It was a pity to miss it. Perhaps some other day they would like to come again and he himself would be pleased to guide them. He shook hands and wished them a pleasant journey. They would best hurry a trifle, he added, for darkness came fast and when one got caught on the mountain at night—he shrugged his shoulders and looked at Tony—one needed a guide who knew his business.
They had walked for ten minutes when they heard someone shouting behind and found a young man calling to them to wait. He caught up with them and breathlessly explained.