s us, and the sun draws himself upward to his
strength. We have on us the English itch for change. The breeze comes
and goes as we plunge among the groves of Virgilian ilex, and through
the interstices of the trees we see on a hill-slope above us thirty
great horned oxen, etched black against the sky.

Here Pan leaves us, saying farewell with tears in his woman's eyes; with
silver also in his pocket, which, to do him justice, does not comfort
him wholly. Before he goes, for love and gratitude he tells us of a
rhyme with which to please the children and to cause the good wives to
give us a lodging.

At the next village we try its efficacy upon a company by the well--a
group with those oriental suggestions which are common to all villages
south of the Alps. The effect is instantaneous. The shy maidens draw
nearer, the boys gather from their noisy game, the bambinos stretch to
us from many a sisterly shoulder. We sit down, a couple of wayfarers,
dusty and hot. But no sooner is the rhyme said than, lo! a tin is dipped
for our drinking, and the Rebekah of the well herself expects her kiss,
nor, spite of a possible knife, is she disappointed. For the rhyme's
sake we are friends of the fairies and can put far the evil eye. It is
good to entertain us. Thanks be to Pan! We shall offer him a garland of
enduring ivy, or it may be half a kid. The cry that was heard over the
waters was not true! Pan is not dead. Perhaps he too but sleeps a while,
and in the likeness of young goatherds the god of the earlier time,
reborn in dew, comes out still to tell his secrets to wandering lads
who, asking no favour, go a-wayfaring with strong hearts as in the
ancient days.

Round the corner peeps a laughing face. An urchin of surpassing
impishness, one who has come too late to hear our password, taunts us in
evil words.

"Ha, Giuseppe, beware of the Giant Caranco! Behold, he has the great
teeth of the English. At the water-trough this morning I saw him
sharpening them to eat thee, thou exceeding plump one! In the bag at his
back he carries the bones of sixteen just as fat as thou art!"

And the rascal flees with a cry of pretended fear. So contagious is
terror, that more than half our band flees away a dozen paces, halting
there upon one foot, balancing our evil and our good.

But we have wiles as well as rhymes, and great in all places of the
earth is the fascination of ready money.

"The Giant Caranco! forsooth," we say; "what lack of