They drank my wine, I ate their bread, and we parted: they to go to their accustomed place, and I to cross this unknown valley. But when I had left these grave and kindly men, the echo of their voices remained with me; the deep valley of the Enza seemed lonely, and as I went lower and lower down towards the noise of the river I lost the sun. The Enza was flooded. A rough bridge, made of stout logs resting on trunks of trees that were lashed together like tripods and supported a long plank, was afforded to cross it. But in the high water it did not quite reach to the hither bank. I rolled great stones into the water and made a short causeway, and so, somewhat perilously, I attained the farther shore, and went up, up by a little precipitous path till I reached the hamlet of Ceregio standing on its hill, blessed and secluded; for no road leads in or out of it, but only mule-paths. The houses were all grouped together round a church; it was dim between them; but several men driving oxen took me to a house that was perhaps the inn, though there was no sign; and there in a twilight room we all sat down together like Christians in perfect harmony, and the woman of the house served us. Now when, after this communion, I asked the way to Collagna, they must have thought me foolish, and have wondered why I did not pass the night with them, for they knew how far off Collagna was. But I (by the error in language of which I have told you) believed it to be but a short way off. It was in reality ten miles. The oldest of my companions said he would put me on the way. We went together in the half light by a lane that followed the crest of the hill, and we passed a charming thing, a little white sculpture in relief, set up for a shrine and representing the Annunciation; and as we passed it we both smiled. Then in a few hundred yards we passed another that was the Visitation, and they were gracious and beautiful to a degree, and I saw that they stood for the five joyful mysteries. Then he had to leave me, and he said, pointing to the little shrine: 'When you come to the fifth of these the path divides. Take that to the left, and follow it round the hollow of the mountain: it will become a lane. This lane crosses a stream and passes near a tower. When you have reached the tower it joins a great highroad, and that is the road to Collagna.' And when he indicated the shrines he smiled, as though in apology for them, and I saw that we were of the same religion. Then (since people who will not meet again should give each other presents mutually) I gave him the best of my two pipes, a new pipe with letters carved on it, which he took to be the initials of my name, and he on his part gave me a hedge-rose which he had plucked and had been holding in his fingers. And I continued the path alone.