My Friend Prospero

  I

  Rather early next morning John was walking among the olives. He had gone(straight from his bed, and in perhaps the least considered of toilets:an old frieze ulster, ornamented with big buttons of mother-of-pearl, apair of Turkish slippers, a bathing-towel over his shoulder, and forhead-covering just his uncombed native thatch) he had gone for a swim,some half a mile upstream, to a place he knew where the Rampio--themadcap Rampio, all shallows and rapids--rests for a moment in a pool,wide and deep, translucent, inviting, and, as you perceive when you havemade your plunge, of a most assertive chill. Now he was on his leisurelyway home, to the presbytery and what passed there for breakfast.

  The hill-side rose from the river's bank in a series of irregularterraces, upheld by rough stone walls. The gnarled old trees benttowards each other and away like dwarfs and crook-backs dancing afantastic minuet; and in the grass beneath them, where the sun shot hisfiery darts and cast his net of shadows, Chloris had scatteredinnumerable wildflowers: hyacinths, the colour of the sky; violets, thatthreaded the air for yards about with their sentiment-provokingfragrance; tulips, red and yellow; sometimes a tall, imperial iris; hereand there little white nodding companies of jonquils. Here and there,too, the dusty-green reaches were pointed by the dark spire of acypress, alone, in a kind of glooming isolation; here and there ablossoming peach or almond, gaily pink, sent an inexpressible littlethrill of gladness to one's heart. The air was sweetened by manyincense-breathing things besides the violets,--by moss and bark, thedew-laden grass, the moist brown earth; and it was quick with music:bees droned, leaves whispered, birds called, sang, gossiped, disputed,and the Rampio played a crystal accompaniment.

  John swung onwards at ease, while lizards, with tails that seemedextravagantly long, fled from before his feet, terrible to them, nodoubt, as an army with banners, for his Turkish slippers, though not intheir pristine youth, were of scarlet leather embroidered in a richdevice with gold. And presently (an experience unusual at that hour inthe olive wood) he became aware of a human voice.

  "Ohe! My good men, there! Will you be so kind as to gather me some ofthose anemones? Here is a lira for your pains."

  It was a feminine voice; it was youthful and melodious; it was finished,polished, delicately modulated. And its inflection was at once confidentand gracious,--clearly the speaker took it for granted that she wouldreceive attention, and she implied her thanks abundantly beforehand. Itwas a voice that evoked in the imagination a charming picture of fresh,young, confident, and gracious womanhood.

  "Hello!" said John to himself. "Who is there in this part of the worldwith a voice like that?"

  And he felt it would not be surprising if on glancing round he shouldbehold--as, in fact, he did--the stranger of yesterday, the Unknown ofthe garden.