u have had a taste of the cross,' I
said to him. 'Yes, you devil, but I shan't let you off,' he said to
me.

"To make the time go he would ask me questions. Once he said, 'Now,
Califano, what time is it? I give you three guesses, and if you
guess right once I give you sixpence.' So I guessed three o'clock.
'That's one. Now then, what time is it? 'Again, three o'clock.
'That's two guesses gone, you silly devil. Now then, what time is
it? 'So now I was obstinate, and I said _Three o'clock_. He took out
his watch. 'Why damn you, how did you know? I give you a shilling--'
It was three o'clock, as I said, so he gave me a shilling instead of
sixpence as he had said--"

It was strange, in the silent winter afternoon, downstairs in the
black kitchen, to sit drinking a cup of tea with Pancrazio and
hearing these stories of English painters. It was strange to look at
the battered figure of Pancrazio, and think how much he had been
crucified through the long years in London, for the sake of late
Victorian art. It was strangest of all to see through his yellow,
often dull, red-rimmed eyes these blithe and well-conditioned
painters. Pancrazio looked on them admiringly and contemptuously, as
an old, rakish tom-cat might look on such frivolous well-groomed
young gentlemen.

As a matter of fact Pancrazio had never been rakish or debauched,
but mountain-moral, timid. So that the queer, half-sinister drop of
his eyelids was curious, and the strange, wicked yellow flare that
came into his eyes was almost frightening. There was in the man a
sort of sulphur-yellow flame of passion which would light up in his
battered body and give him an almost diabolic look. Alvina felt that
if she were left much alone with him she would need all her English
ascendancy not to be afraid of him.

It was a Sunday morning just before Christmas when Alvina and Ciccio
and Pancrazio set off for Pescocalascio for the first time. Snow had
fallen--not much round the house, but deep between the banks as they
climbed. And the sun was very bright. So that the mountains were
dazzling. The snow was wet on the roads. They wound between
oak-trees and under the broom-scrub, climbing over the jumbled hills
that lay between the mountains, until the village came near. They
got on to a broader track, where the path from a distant village
joined theirs. They were all talking, in the bright clear air of the
morning.

A little man came down an upper path. As he joined them