On the hot earth, half hid by
flowers of many a gorgeous hue, lay great yellow gourds and pumpkins, as
though thrown to the surface in a flood of rich abundance; and far away
in the distance the mountains closed in the view, their summit capped
with villages, or, perchance, some rugged castellated ruin, centuries
old.

How was it that Gerald stood and gazed at all these like one
spell-bound? Why was that scene not altogether new to his eyes? Why did
he follow out that little road, now emerging from the olives and now
lost again, till it gained the stream, which was spanned by a rude
wooden bridge? How is it that the humble mill yonder, whose laggard
wheel scarce stirs the water, seems to him like some old familiar thing.
And why does he strain his sight in vain to see the zigzag road up the
steep mountain-side? It was because a flood of old memories were rushing
full upon his mind, bringing up boyhood and 'long ago.' That was the
very path by which he set out to seek his fortune, when scarcely more
than a child he fled from the villa; there was the wide plain through
which he had toiled weary and foot-sore; in that little copse of
fruit-trees, beside the stream, had he slept at night; there, where a
little cross marks a shrine, had he stopped to eat his breakfast; around
the head of that little lake had he wended his way toward the mountains.

If at first these memories arose faintly, like the mere outlines of a
dream, they grew by degrees bolder and stronger. His boyish life at the
Tana then rose before him; the little room in which he used to sit,
and read, and ponder; then the narrow stair by which he would creep
noiselessly down to stroll out at night and wander all alone beside
the dark lake; and then the dusky pine-wood, through whose leafy shades
Gabriel would saunter as the evening closed in.

'I will see them all once more, cried he aloud; 'I will go back over
that scene, calling up all that I can remember of the past; I will try
if my heart has kept the promise of its boyish hopes, and see if I have
wandered away from the path I once destined for myself.' There was
a marvellous fascination in the reality of all he saw and all the
recollections it evoked, after that life of fictitious station and mock
greatness in which he had been living of late.

He who has not tried the experiment for himself cannot believe the
extent of that view obtained into his own nature from simply revisiting
the scenes of boyhood