"Stay; you forget that you have not got
any money.  Here are six silver groschen; take
two dozen, and see that they don't give you any
of those vile Swiss ones in the number."

He took the coin with becoming gravity, and
set out on his errand.

CHAPTER III. FELLOW-TRAVELLERS' LIFE.

PARTLY to suit Culvert's passion for fishing,
partly to meet his own love of a quiet,
unbroken, easy existence, Loyd decided for a
ramble through the lakes of Northern Italy;
and, in about ten days after the compact had
been sealed, they found themselves at the little
inn of the Trota, on the Lago d'Orta. The inn,
which is little more than a cottage, is beautifully
situated on a slender promontory that runs
into the lake, and is itself almost hidden by the
foliage of orange and oleander trees that cover
it. It was very hard to believe it to be an inn
with its trellised vine-walk, its little arched
boat-house, and a small shrine beside the lake,
where, on certain saints' days, a priest said a
mass, and blessed the fish and those that caught
them. It was still harder, too, to credit the
fact when one discovered his daily expenses to
be all comprised within the limits of a few
francs, and this with the services of the host,
Signor Onofrio, for boatman.

To Loyd it was a perfect paradise. The
glorious mountain range, all rugged and snow-
capped—the deep-bosomed chesnut-woods—the
mirror-like lake—the soft and balmy air, rich in
orange odours—the earth teeming with violets
—all united to gratify the senses, and wrap the
mind in a dreamy ecstasy and enjoyment. It
was equally a spot to relax in or to work, and
although now more disposed for the former, he
planned to himself to come back here, at some
future day, and labour with all the zest that a
strong resolve to succeed inspires.

What law would he not read? What mass
of learned lore would he not store up! What
strange and curious knowledge would he not
acquire in this calm seclusion! He parcelled
out his day in imagination; and, by rising early,
and by habits of uninterrupted study, he
contemplated that in one long vacation here he
would have amassed an amount of information
that no discursive labour could ever attain.
And then, to distract him from weightier cares,
he would write those light and sketchy things,
some of which had already found favour with
editors. He had already attained some small
literary successes, and was, like a very young
man, delighted with the sort of recognition they
had procured him; and, last of all, there was
something of romance in this life of mysterious
seclusion. He was the hero of a little story to
himself, and this thought diffused itself over
every spot and every occupation, as is only
known to those who like to make poems of their
lives, and be to their own hearts their own
epic.

Calvert, too, liked the place; but scarcely
with the same enthusiasm. The fishing was
excellent. He had taken a " four-pounder," and
heard of some double the size. The cookery of
the little inn was astonishingly good. Onofrio
had once been a courier, and picked up some
knowledge of the social chemistry on his travels.
Beccafichi abounded, and the small wine of the
Podere had a false smack of Rhenish, and then
with cream, and fresh eggs, and fresh butter,
and delicious figs in profusion, there were, as
he phrased it, " far worse places in the Hill
country!"

Besides being the proprietor of the inn,
Onofrio owned a little villa, a small cottage-like
thing on the opposite shore of the lake, to which
he made visits once or twice a week, with a trout,
or a capon, or a basket of artichokes, or some
fine peaches luxuries which apparently always
found ready purchasers amongst his tenants.
He called them English, but his young guests,
with true British phlegm, asked him no
questions about them, and he rarely, if ever, alluded
to them. Indeed, his experience of English
people had enabled him to see that they ever
maintained a dignified reserve towards each
other even when offering to foreigners all the
freedom of an old intimacy; and then he had
an Italian's tact not to touch on a dangerous
theme, and thus he contented himself with the
despatch of his occasional hamper without
attracting more attention to the matter than the
laborious process of inscribing the words
"Illustrissima Signr. Graugiari," on the top.

It was about a month after they had taken up
their abode at the Trota that Onofrio was seized
with one of tiiose fevers of the country which,
though rarely dangerous to life, are still so
painful and oppressive as to require some days
of confinement and care. In this interval,
Calvert was deprived of his chief companion, for
mine host was an enthusiastic fisherman, and an
unequalled guide to all parts of the lake. The
young soldier, chafed and fretted out of all
measure at this interruption to his sport, tried
to read; tried to employ himself in the garden;
endeavoured to write a long-promised letter
home; and at last, in utter failure, and in
complete discontent with himself and everything,
he walked moodily about, discussing within
himself whether he would not frankly declare to
Loyd that the whole thing bored him, and that
he wanted to be free.

"This sort of thing suits Loyd well enough,"
would he say. " It is the life of Brazenose or
Christchurch in a purer air and finer scenery.
He can read five or six hours at a stretch, and
then plunge into the lake for a swim, or pull an
oar for half an hour, by way of refreshment.
He is as much a man of reflection and thought
as I am of action and energy. Yet, it is
your slow, solemn fellow," he would say,
"who is bored to death when thrown upon
himself;" and now he had, in a measure, to recant
this declaration, and own that the solitude was
too much for him.

While he was yet discussing with himself
how to approach the subject, the hostess came
to tell him that Onofrio's illness would prevent
him acting as his boatman, and begged the boat