“In this very valley; but, mind you, at the price of swearing fealty to the Republic of Genoa—­this and the repayment of a beggarly thousand piastres which the Republic had advanced to pay the captain of the ship which brought them, and to buy food and clothing.  Very generous treatment it seemed.  Yet you have heard me say before now that liberty never stands in its worst peril until the hour of success; then too often men turn her sword against her.  So these men of Lacedaemon, coming to an island where the rule of Genoa was a scourge to all except themselves, in gratitude, or for their oath’s sake, took sides with the oppressor.  Therefore the Corsicans, who never forget an injury, turned upon them, drove them for shelter to Ajaccio, and laid their valley desolate; nor have the Genoese power to restore them.

“Fate, Prosper, has landed you on this very spot where your kinsmen found refuge for awhile, and broke the ground, and planted orchards, hoping for a fair continuance of peace and peaceful tillage.

     “’Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum
       Tendimus in Latium—­’

“How will you read the omen?”

“You say,” said I, “that had we found our kinsmen here we had found them in league against freedom, and friends of the tyranny we are here to fight?”

“Assuredly.”

“Then, sir, let me read the omen as a lesson, and avoid my kinsmen’s mistake.”

My father smiled and clapped me on the shoulder.  “You say little, as a rule, Prosper.  It is a good fault in kings.”

We walked back to the churchyard, where Mr. Fett sat up, rubbing his eyes in the dawn, and hailed us.

“Good morning, signors!  I have been dreaming that I came to a kingdom which, indeed, seemed to be an island, but on inspection proved to be a mushroom.  What interpretation have you when a man dreams of mushrooms?”

“Why, this,” said I, “that we passed some score of them in the meadow below.  I saw them plain by the moonlight, and kicked at them to make sure.”

“I did better,” said Mr. Fett; I gathered a dozen or two in my cap, foreseeing breakfast.  Faith, and while you have been gadding I might have had added a rasher of bacon.  Did you meet any hogs on your way?  But no; they turned back and took the path that appears to run up to the woods yonder.”

“Hogs?” queried my father.

“They woke me, nosing and grunting among the nettles by the wall—­ lean, brown beasts, with Homeric chines, and two or three of them huge as the Boar of Calydon.  I was minded to let off my gun at ’em, but refrained upon two considerations—­the first, that if they were tame, to shoot them might compromise our welcome here, and perhaps painfully, since the dimensions of the pigs appeared to argue considerable physical strength in their masters; the second, that if wild they might be savage enough to defend themselves when attacked.”

“Doubtless,” said my father, “they belong to some herdsman in the forest above us, and have strayed down in search of acorns.  They cannot belong to this village.”