“And my bag?” I asked.
“A bag to be carried? Then we must get a woman.”
They unearthed a nondescript female who undertook to bear the burden as far as Sinopoli for a reasonable consideration. So far good. But as we proceeded, the boys began to drop off, till only a single one was left. And then the woman suddenly vanished down a side street, declaring that she must change her clothes. We waited for three-quarters of an hour, in the glaring dust of the turnpike; she never emerged again, and the remaining boy stoutly refused to handle her load.
“No,” he declared. “She must carry the bag. And I will keep you company.”
The precious morning hours were wearing away, and here we stood idly by the side of the road. It never struck me that the time might have been profitably employed in paying a flying visit to one of the most sacred objects in Calabria and possibly in the whole world, one which Signor N. Marcone describes as reposing at Bagnara in a rich reliquary—the authentic Hat of the Mother of God. A lady tourist would not have missed this chance of studying the fashions of those days.[[2]]
[2] See next chapter.
Finally, in desperation, I snatched up the wretched luggage and poured my griefs with unwonted eloquence into the ears of a man driving a bullock-cart down the road. So much was he moved, that he peremptorily ordered his son to conduct me then and there to Sinopoli, to carry the bag, and claim one franc by way of payment. The little man tumbled off the cart, rather reluctantly.
“Away with you!” cried the stern parent, and we began the long march, climbing uphill in the blazing sunshine; winding, later on, through shady chestnut woods and across broad tracts of cultivated land. It was plain that the task was beyond his powers, and when we had reached a spot where the strange-looking new village of Sant’ Eufemia was visible—it is built entirely of wooden shelters; the stone town was greatly shaken in the late earthquake—he was obliged to halt, and thenceforward stumbled slowly into the place. There he deposited the bag on the ground, and faced me squarely.
“No more of this!” he said, concentrating every ounce of his virility into a look of uncompromising defiance.
“Then I shall not pay you a single farthing, my son. And, moreover, I will tell your father. You know what he commanded: to Sinopoli. This is only Sant’ Eufemia. Unless——”