‘Signorina, I would not make you very very angry for anysing. As long as I live nosing like zat shall happen again. No, nevair, I promise.’
They plunged into a pine wood and climbed for another two hours, the summit always vanishing before them like a mirage. At the end of that time they were apparently no nearer their goal than when they had started. They had followed first one path, then another, until they had lost all sense of direction, and finally when they came to a place where three paths diverged, they had to acknowledge themselves definitely lost. Mr. Wilder elected one path, Tony another, and Constance sat down on a rock.
‘I’m not going any farther,’ she observed.
‘You can’t stay here all night,’ said her father.
‘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 reconnoitring 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?