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Laden with bouquets we again threaded the olive-grounds, whose huge trunks are truly patriarchal, and saw basking in the sun old Eumaeus, the Swine-King, waiting upon his black and bristly herd. The glimpse led to a characteristic tale.
Athens and Attica were then all the country they had, and these lost they had nothing left but their ships, their strong arms, and their stout hearts. In our case, on the other hand, all the essential elements of our power our city, our fleet, our colonial empire remain untouched. Shall we, then, sell our honour to save a few vineyards and olive-grounds from temporary damage?
Pipa, who, next to Adamo and the marchesa, loved Enrica with all the strength of her warm heart, sings all day those unwritten songs of Tuscany that rise and fall with such spontaneous cadence among the vineyards, and in the olive-grounds, that they seem bred in the air Pipa sings all day for gladness that the signorina is going to marry a rich and handsome gentleman.
The view is rather pretty, stretching over vineyards, and gardens, and olive-grounds down to the shore, with the islands in the far foreground rearing themselves against the sky, clear and blue, or if the weather is misty to seaward, sleeping in an aureole of golden haze, so that the whole effect would be cheerful if it were not for the melancholy invalids who haunt the spot perpetually.
At length the army of Titus advanced to the siege of the sacred city, still strong and well provisioned. Four legions, with mercenary troops and allies, burning to avenge the past, encamped beneath the walls, destroying the orchards and olive-grounds and gardens which everywhere gladdened the beautiful environs.
Peasant folk coming from Albano or the olive-grounds between it and the villa would take a short cut through the garden to Marinata; dark-faced gardeners, in blue linen suits, would doff their peaked hats to the strange lady; or a score or two of young black-frocked priestlings from a neighbouring seminary would suddenly throng its paths, playing mild girlish games, with infinite clamour and chatter, running races as far and fast as their black petticoats would allow, twisting their long overcoats and red sashes meanwhile round a battered old noseless bust that stood for Domitian at the end of a long ilex-avenue, and was the butt for all the slings and arrows of the day, poor helpless State, blinded and buffeted by the Church!
"I have recently built a house without the walls, and I have planted my hill with fruit-trees, and made vineyards and olive-grounds, but I have done this as much perhaps more to set an example, which, I am glad, to say, has been followed, as for my own convenience or pleasure. My home is in the north of Palestine, on the other side of, Jordan, beyond the Sea of Galilee.
Then it was that, after halting a short time in England, he with his school and camp companion in so many changes, prepared a second crossing over the Atlantic, to revisit its victor President in his olive-grounds at Mount Vernon. But Niemcivitz had another errand.
On the day we speak of, the 21st of December, 1852, the proprietors of olive-grounds in San Cipriano wore very blank faces; they talked sadly of the falling prices of the fruit and oil, and the olive-pickers crossed their hands and looked vacantly at the gray sky.
Everywhere in spring the ground is carpeted with a profusion of wild-flowers, cistus and brown orchis, narcissus and the scarlet anemone; sometimes the forest scenery sweeps away, and leaves us among olive-grounds and orange-gardens arranged in formal, picturesque rows.
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