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I am putting here, however, my cart before my horse, for the hour just glanced at was but a final tag to a day of much brighter curiosity, and which seemed to take its baptism, as we passed through prodigious perched and huddled, adorably scattered and animated and even crowded Tivoli, from the universal happy spray of the drumming Anio waterfalls, all set in their permanent rainbows and Sibylline temples and classic allusions and Byronic quotations; a wondrous romantic jumble of such things and quite others heterogeneous inns and clamorous <i>guingettes</i> and factories grabbing at the torrent, to say nothing of innumerable guides and donkeys and white-tied, swallow-tailed waiters dashing out of grottos and from under cataracts, and of the air, on the part of the whole population, of standing about, in the most characteristic <i>contadino</i> manner, to pounce on you and take you somewhere, snatch you from somebody else, shout something at you, the aqueous and other uproar permitting, and then charge you for it, your innocence aiding.
Very curious it is to step out of the blinding sunlight into the interior of one of these medieval buildings, where in the icy gloom stand great barrels of the new white wine, each carefully inscribed with a prayer in praise of St Restituta, from one of which the swarthy contadino, in expectation of a few pence, draws a glassful of the sour chilly liquid to offer his visitor.
For Artois had not been satisfied with this early victory. In returning from a tour in North America the following spring, when Vere was nearly two years old, he had paid a visit to Marechiaro, and, while there, had seen the contadino from whom Hermione had rented, and still rented, the house of the priest. The man was middle-aged, ignorant but shrewd, and very greedy.
"Remain here, father, I beseech you." said the prisoner, perceiving that the priest was about to retire; "it is some contadino, or some tradesman, whose claims have been overlooked. I am happy that he has come: one would wish to stand acquitted of injustice before he dies. Let them come in, my friend."
Slowly the cart came up over the crest of the hill, a dark spot against the twilight sky, and mounted on the top of a load of brushwood sat a contadino, who was singing to himself these words, not very consolatory, perhaps, but so completely in harmony with the scene and the time that they struck me forcibly:
The horns of the oxen were decorated with garlands of flowers and gay paper streamers, because they were again to take part in a festival, the festival of the vintage; and on the drag behind them rested a great tun for the wine. Rafael spoke to the smiling contadino and asked if they might follow him to the harvest.
The gestures had been imperative. Maurice looked round. A little way up the mountain there was a large, closed building, like a barn, built of stones. It belonged to a contadino, but Maurice had never seen it open, or seen any one going to or coming from it. As he stared at it an idea occurred to him.
But one must have money to pay the ticket." "Yes. This terreno belongs to you?" "Only the bit where the house stands, signore. And it is all rocks. It is no use to any one. And in winter the winds come over it. Why, it would take years of work to turn it into anything. And I am not a contadino. Once I had a wine-shop, but I am a man of the sea." "But you are a man with sharp wits.
She scanned the mule-track with growing eagerness, but the procession did not appear. She saw only an old contadino in a long woollen cap riding slowly into the recesses of the hills on a donkey, and a small boy leading his goats to pasture. The train must have been late. She turned round from the view and examined her new home once more.
In the busiest street of Rome, the pure Campagna song may often be heard from the throat of some contadino, as he slowly rumbles along in his loaded wine-cart, the little dog at his side barking a sympathetic chorus. This song is rude enough, and seems in measure founded upon the Church chant.
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