‘So we go down into the valley from whence on both hands the big hills roll up their limbs, and I, coming to that place where it is of the custom to show where the man from the market was bereft of his goods, and where his body was cut off, turn on my head, and tell them in usual words the story. ‘Chickenheads! never yet did any understand, and my Italian is very pure, very--always in great estimation. ‘These only say, “_Si, si!_” and presently many times: “How far San Felice? How far? How far?” What shall this mean? I know not, yet surely I must to tell them--being of great intelligence, so I stop my Nicolas and speak of the country and how many peoples live in the town, and the name of the mayor; and then, for greater satisfaction of these, because they will pay largely--turning a little to think the better, and outspit once, twice, very skilfully on two hairs of Nicolas’ back-tail--again to them, concerning the other road, and the number of horses my master has, and how I, Pietro, have a wife (whom God plant!) and several offsprings. ‘But these only laugh, and point in many ways, having no intelligence, and say, “How far, how far? More?” ‘Chickenheads! and do? What to do? But nod my top, and on again where the brown water runs swiftly down from the hills towards its Mother, the great blue lake. Ai--so it runs busily from the hills where the snow cloak lies shining in the sun. And now these are quiet, quiet as the deep Mother herself, or as the tall Father with his white head. Perhaps they are frightened; well, _I_ was frightened once; that was many years ago, being but a whipperling; for the Mother is very blue and still and deep, and the Father is of a giantness strong as the death itself. ‘So the little brown Son runs over between them, and carries messages and greeting. ‘Yet not always, for in the great heat comes the Fiery One and licks him up for a space, and tears off the Father’s white hairs that get thinner and thinner with every golden dawning. Surely the _he_ with the hat, upon which he sits, should regard and understand of this, taking warning lest the same befall; yet perchance there is a difference, his hair being of a fair mud, as is that of all the English.