isading could be repaired and made secure after a
fashion, and I started upon it at once, sharpening the rotten posts
with my axe, driving, fixing, nailing, binding them firmly with
osier-twists, of which I had fetched a fresh supply from the
stream-side. I had rolled my jacket into a pillow for Nat, that he
might lie easily and watch me.

The sun was sinking beyond the mountain, staining with deep rose the
pinnacles of granite that soared eastward above the pines, when a
horn sounded on the slope and Marc'antonio came down the track
driving the hogs before him. He instructed me good-naturedly enough
in the art of penning the brutes, breaking off from time to time to
compliment me on my labours, the sum of which appeared to affect him
with a degree of wonder not far short of awe. "But why are you doing
it? Perche? perche?" he broke off once or twice to ask, eyeing me
askance with a look rather fearful than unfriendly.

"The Princess laid this task upon me," I answered cheerfully, indeed
with elation, feeling that so long as I could keep my tyrants puzzled
I still kept, somehow, the upper hand.

"I have travelled, in my time," said Marc'antonio with a touch of
vainglorious pride. "I have made the acquaintance of many
continentals, even with some that were extremely rich. But I never
crossed over to England."

"You would have found it full of eccentrics," said I.

"I dare say," said he. "For myself, I said to myself when I took
ship, 'Marc'antonio,' said I, 'you must make it a rule to be
surprised at nothing.' But do Englishmen clean hogs'-sties for
pleasure?"

"And the Princess? She has also travelled?" I asked, meeting his
question with another.

For the moment my question appeared to disturb him. Recovering
himself, he answered gravely--

"She has travelled, but not very far. You must not do her an
injustice. . . . We form our opinions on what we see."

"It is admittedly the best way," I assented, with equal gravity.

At the shut of night he left me and went his way up the mountain
path, and an hour later, having attended to Nat's wants, tired as in
all my life I had never been, I stretched myself on the turf and
slept under the stars.

The grunting of the hogs awakened me, a little before dawn. I went
to the pen, and as soon as I opened the hatch they rushed out in a
crowd, all but upsetting me as they jostled against my legs.
Then, after listening for a while after they had vanished into the