ountain hay, but distinctly
meadow hay, such as is mown in valleys along streams. It was all in
bundles, such bundles as are carried on mule-back, two to a mule. This was
queer; even queerer the absence of any fowls or pigeons, or of any sign
that any had ever been about the place. An Umbrian mountain farm without
pigeons was unthinkable.

In the granary we found an amazingly large store of excellent barley, but
only two jars of wheat, and that not very good, and neither jar entirely
full. On the floor were loose piles of turnips, beets and of dried pods of
coarse beans. There were jars of chick-peas, cow-peas, lentils, beans and
millet, more millet than wheat. From the rafters hung dried bean-bushes,
with the pods on; long strings of onions, dried herbs, marjoram, thyme,
sage, bay-leaves and other such seasonings, dried peppers, strung like the
onions, and bunches of big sweet raisins. Also many rush-mats of dried
figs, the biggest and best of figs, some of them indubitably Caunean figs.
On the floor, in heaps, were some hard-headed cabbages, only one or two
spoiled. It was a very ample store and we marvelled at it and wondered
whence it all came and how it came where it was.

The other store-house amazed us. It was, as we had conjectured, full of
great jars; jars of wine, of olive oil, of pickled olives, of pickled
fish, of pickled pork, of vinegar, of plums in vinegar, and smaller jars
of honey, sauces and prepared relishes. The rafters were set full of
cornel-wood pegs till they looked like weavers-combs. From the pegs hung
hams, flitches, strings of smoked sausage, cheeses of all sizes, smoked so
heavily that they appeared mere lumps of soot, and bags of a shape
unfamiliar to both of us. Agathemer knocked one down and opened it. It was
full of tight packed fish, salted, dried and smoked, a fish of a kind
unknown to us.

There was, along the upper edge of the clearing, under the boughs of the
pine trees, a huge pile of trimmed logs of oak, chestnut, pine and fir,
with a scarcely smaller heap of cut lengths of boughs and branches. Under
a lean-to shed was a small store of cut fire-wood. In a corner of the same
shed were four big cornel-wood mauls and eleven good iron wedges, not one
of them bearing any sign of ever having been used, but appearing as if
fresh from the maker's hands. By the woodpile were four even heavier
mauls, showing plenty of marks of hard usage and near them or about the
woodpile we found eight