uld we not arrange to sleep here?
_S'accomodi, Signore! S'accomodi, Signora!_ These encouraging words,
uttered in various tones of cheerful and insinuating politeness to each
member of the party in succession, failed to make us comprehend how a
gentleman and his wife, with a lean but rather lengthy English friend,
and a bulky native of the Grisons, could "accommodate themselves"
collectively and undividedly with what was barely sufficient for their
just moiety, however much it might afford a night's rest to their worse
half. Christian was sent out into the storm to look for supplementary
rooms in Montepulciano, which he failed to get. Meanwhile we ordered
supper, and had the satisfaction of seeing set upon the board a huge red
flask of _vino nobile_. In copious draughts of this the King of Tuscan
wines, we drowned our cares; and when the cloth was drawn, our friend
and Christian passed their night upon the supper table. The good folk of
the inn had recovered from their surprise, and from the inner recesses
of their house had brought forth mattresses and blankets. So the better
and larger half of the company enjoyed sound sleep.

It rained itself out at night, and the morning was clear, with the
transparent atmosphere of storm-clouds hurrying in broken squadrons from
the bad sea quarter. Yet this is just the weather in which Tuscan
landscape looks its loveliest. Those immense expanses of grey undulating
uplands need the luminousness of watery sunshine, the colour added by
cloud-shadows, and the pearly softness of rising vapours, to rob them of
a certain awful grimness. The main street of Montepulciano goes straight
uphill for a considerable distance between brown palaces; then mounts by
a staircase-zigzag under huge impending masses of masonry; until it ends
in a piazza. On the ascent, at intervals, the eye is fascinated by
prospects to the north and east over Val di Chiana, Cortona, Thrasymene,
Chiusi; to south and west over Monte Cetona, Radicofani, Monte Amiata,
the Val d'Ombrone, and the Sienese Contado. Grey walls overgrown with
ivy, arcades of time-toned brick, and the forbidding bulk of houses hewn
from solid travertine, frame these glimpses of aerial space. The piazza
is the top of all things. Here are the Duomo; the Palazzo del Comune,
closely resembling that of Florence, with the Marzocco on its front; the
fountain, between two quaintly sculptured columns; and the vast palace
Del Monte, of heavy Renaissance arch