meward through the Merceria, crossed the Piazza, and dived into the
narrow _calle_ which leads to the _traghetto_ of the Salute.
It was a warm moist starless night, and there seemed no air to breathe
in those narrow alleys. The gondolier was half asleep. Eustace called
him as we jumped into his boat, and rang our _soldi_ on the
gunwale. Then he arose and turned the _ferro_ round, and stood
across towards the Salute. Silently, insensibly, from the oppression
of confinement in the airless streets to the liberty and immensity
of the water and the night we passed. It was but two minutes ere we
touched the shore and said good-night, and went our way and left
the ferryman. But in that brief passage he had opened our souls to
everlasting things--the freshness, and the darkness, and the kindness
of the brooding, all-enfolding night above the sea.

* * * * *

_THE GONDOLIER'S WEDDING_

The night before the wedding we had a supper-party in my rooms. We
were twelve in all. My friend Eustace brought his gondolier Antonio
with fair-haired, dark-eyed wife, and little Attilio, their eldest
child. My own gondolier, Francesco, came with his wife and two
children. Then there was the handsome, languid Luigi, who, in his best
clothes, or out of them, is fit for any drawing-room. Two gondoliers,
in dark blue shirts, completed the list of guests, if we exclude the
maid Catina, who came and went about the table, laughing and joining
in the songs, and sitting down at intervals to take her share of wine.
The big room looking across the garden to the Grand Canal had been
prepared for supper; and the company were to be received in the
smaller, which has a fine open space in front of it to southwards. But
as the guests arrived, they seemed to find the kitchen and the cooking
that was going on quite irresistible. Catina, it seems, had lost her
head with so many cuttlefishes, _orai_, cakes, and fowls, and
cutlets to reduce to order. There was, therefore, a great bustle below
stairs; and I could hear plainly that all my guests were lending their
making, or their marring, hands to the preparation of the supper. That
the company should cook their own food on the way to the dining-room,
seemed a quite novel arrangement, but one that promised well for their
contentment with the banquet. Nobody could be dissatisfied with what
was everybody's affair.

When seven o'clock struck, Eustace and I, who had been entertaini