seen a space of far-off sea, a space of
mountain-flank, and, when one came near to it, and the awning was drawn
up, the snowy cone of Etna, struck now to the soul of Lucrezia a sense of
half-puzzled peace. Her large eyes opened wider, and she laid her hands
on her hips and fell into a sort of dream as she stood there, hearing
only the faint and regular ticking of the clock in the sitting-room. She
was well accustomed to the silence of the mountain world and never heeded
it, but peace within four walls was almost unknown to her. Here no hens
fluttered, no turkeys went to and fro elongating their necks, no children
played and squalled, no women argued and gossiped, quarrelled and worked,
no men tramped in and out, grumbled and spat. A perfectly clean and
perfectly peaceful room--it was marvellous, it was--she sighed again.
What must it be like to be gentlefolk, to have the money to buy calm and
cleanliness?

Suddenly she moved, took her hands from her hips, settled her yellow
handkerchief, and smiled. The silence had been broken by a sound all true
Sicilians love, the buzz and the drowsy wail of the ceramella, the
bagpipes which the shepherds play as they come down from the hills to the
villages when the festival of the Natale is approaching. It was as yet
very faint and distant, coming from the mountain-side behind the cottage,
but Lucrezia knew the tune. It was part of her existence, part of Etna,
the olive groves, the vineyards, and the sea, part of that old, old
Sicily which dwells in the blood and shines in the eyes, and is alive in
the songs and the dances of these children of the sun, and of legends and
of mingled races from many lands. It was the "Pastorale," and she knew
who was playing it--Sebastiano, the shepherd, who had lived with the
brigands in the forests that look down upon the Isles of Lipari, who now
kept his father's goats among the rocks, and knew every stone and every
cave on Etna, and who had a chest and arms of iron, and legs that no
climbing could fatigue, and whose great, brown fingers, that could break
a man's wrist, drew such delicate tones from the reed pipe that, when he
played it, even the old man's thoughts were turned to dancing and the
old woman's to love. But now he was being important, he was playing the
ceramella, into which no shepherd could pour such a volume of breath as
he, from which none could bring such a volume of warm and lusty music. It
was Sebastiano coming down from the top