I considered in the
darkness the noble aspect of these beasts as I had seen them in the
lantern light, and I determined when I got to Rome to buy two such
horns, and to bring them to England and have them mounted for drinking
horns - great drinking horns, a yard deep - and to get an engraver to
engrave a motto for each. On the first I would have -
King Alfred was in Wantage born
He drank out of a ram's horn.
Here is a better man than he,
Who drinks deeper, as you see.
Thus my friends drinking out of it should lift up their hearts and no
longer be oppressed with humility. But on the second I determined for
a rousing Latin thing, such as men shouted round camp fires in the
year 888 or thereabouts; so, the imagination fairly set going and
taking wood-cock's flight, snipe-fashion, zigzag and devil-may-care-
for-the-rules, this seemed to suit me -
_Salve, cornu cornuum!
Cornutorum vis Boum.
Munus excellent Deum!
Gregis o praesidium!
Sitis desiderium!
Dignum cornuum cornu
Romae memor salve tu!
Tibi cornuum cornuto - _
LECTOR. That means nothing.
AUCTOR. Shut up!
_Tibi cornuum cornuto
Tibi clamo, te saluto
Salve cornu cornuum!
Fortunatam da Domunt!_
And after this cogitation and musing I got up quietly, so as not to
offend the peasant: and I crept out, and so upwards on to the crest of
the hill.
But when, after several miles of climbing, I neared the summit, it was
already beginning to be light. The bareness and desert grey of the
distance I had crossed stood revealed in a colourless dawn, only the
Mont' Amiata, now somewhat to the northward, was more gentle, and
softened the scene with distant woods. Between it and this height ran
a vague river-bed as dry as the stones of a salt beach.
The sun rose as I passed under the ruined walls of the castle. In the
little town itself, early as was the hour, many people were stirring.
One gave me good-morning - a man of singular character, for here, in
the very peep of day, he was sitting on a doorstep, idle, lazy and
contented, as though it was full noon. Another was yoking oxen; a
third going out singing to work in the fields.
I did not linger in this crow's nest, but going out by the low and
aged southern gate, another deeper valley, even drier and more dead
than the last, appeared under the rising sun. It was enough to make
one despair! And when I thought of the day's sleep in that wilderness,
of the next night's toil through it -
LECTOR. What about the Brigand of Radicofani of whom you spoke in
Lorraine, and of whom I am waiting to hear?
AUCTOR. What about him? Why, he was captured long ago, and has since
died of old age. I am surprised at your interrupting me with such
questions. Pray ask for no more tales till we get to the really
absorbing story of the Hungry Student.
Well, as I was saying, I was in some despair at the sight of that
valley, which had to be crossed before I could reach the town of
Acquapendente, or Hanging-water, which I knew to lie somewhere on the
hills beyond. The sun was conquering me, and I was looking hopelessly
for a place to sleep, when a cart drawn by two oxen at about one mile
an hour came creaking by. The driver was asleep, his head on the shady
side. The devil tempted me, and without one struggle against
temptation, nay with cynical and congratulatory feelings, I jumped up
behind, and putting my head also on the shady side (there were soft
sacks for a bed) I very soon was pleasantly asleep.
We lay side by side for hour after hour, and the day rose on to noon;
the sun beat upon our feet, but our heads were in the shade and we
slept heavily a good and honest sleep: he thinking that he was alone,
but I knowing that I was in company (a far preferable thing), and I
was right and he was wrong. And the heat grew, and sleep came out of
that hot sun more surely than it does out of the night air in the
north. But no dreams wander under the noon.
From time to time one or the other of us would open our eyes drowsily
and wonder, but sleep was heavy on us both, and our minds were sunk in
calm like old hulls in the dark depths of the sea where there are no
storms.
We neither of us really woke until, at the bottom of the hill which
rises into Acquapendente, the oxen stopped. This halt woke us up;
first me and then my companion. He looked at me a moment and laughed.
He seemed to have thought all this while that I was some country
friend of his who had taken a lift; and I, for my part, had made more
or less certain that he was a good fellow who would do me no harm. I
was right, and he was wrong. I knew not what offering to make him to
compensate him for this trouble which his heavy oxen had taken. After
some thought I brought a cigar out of my pocket, which he smoked with
extreme pleasure. The oxen meanwhile had been urged up the slow hill,
and it was in this way that we reached the famous town of
Acquapendente. But why it should be called famous is more than I can
understand.
