ivion.

The terrible stories Gerald had heard of these outcasts from his
school-fellows, the horror in which they were held by all honest
villagers, inspired him with a strange interest to see them with his
own eyes. It savoured, too, of courage; it smacked, to his heart, like
bravery, to throw himself among such reckless and daredevil associates,
and he felt a sort of hero to himself when he had determined on it.
'Ay,' said he, 'they have been taunting me here for some time back, that
my friends take little trouble about me--that they half forget me, and
so on. Let us see if I cannot make a path for myself, and spare them all
future trouble.'

CHAPTER VIII. THE TANA IN THE MAREMMA

Simply turning his steps westward, in the direction where he knew the
Maremma lay, Gerald set out on his lonely journey. It was nothing new
in his habits to be absent the entire day, and even night, so that no
attention was drawn to his departure till late the following day; nor,
perhaps, would it have been noticed then, if a summons had not come from
the Contessina that she desired to speak with him. A search was at once
made, inquiries instituted on every side, and soon the startling fact
acknowledged, that he had gone away, none knew whither or why.

The Contessina at once ordered a pursuit; he was to be overtaken and
brought back. Mounted couriers set off on every side, scouring the
high-roads, interrogating hotel-keepers, giving descriptions of the
fugitive at passport stations--taking, in short, all the palpable and
evident means of discovery; while he--for whose benefit this solicitude
was intended--was already deep among the dreary valleys to the west of
the Lake of Bolseno. The country through which he journeyed was, indeed,
sad-coloured as his own thoughts. Hills, not large enough to be called
mountains, succeeded each other in unbroken succession, their sides
covered with a poor and burned-up herbage, interspersed with masses of
rock or long patches of shingle; no wood, no cultivation on any side. A
few starved and wretched sheep, watched by one even more wretched still,
were all that represented life; while in the valleys, a stray hut or
two, generally on the borders of a swampy lake, offered the only thing
in the shape of a village. After he had crossed the great post-road from
Sienna to Rome, Gerald entered a tract of almost perfect desolation.

He bought two loaves of rye-bread and some apples at a small house on
th