Solomon’s hut stood in that part of the island which, turning its back to the capital, beholds afar the blue crests of Capri.  Nothing could be simpler or brighter.  The brick walls were hung with ivy greener than emeralds, and enamelled with white bell-flowers; on the ground floor was a fairly spacious apartment, in which the men slept and the family took their meals; on the floor above was Nisida’s little maidenly room, full of coolness, shadows, and mystery, and lighted by a single casement that looked over the gulf; above this room was a terrace of the Italian kind, the four pillars of which were wreathed with vine branches, while its vine-clad arbour and wide parapet were overgrown with moss and wild flowers.  A little hedge of hawthorn, which had been respected for ages, made a kind of rampart around the fisherman’s premises, and defended his house better than deep moats and castellated walls could have done.  The boldest roisterers of the place would have preferred to fight before the parsonage and in the precincts of the church rather than in front of Solomon’s little enclosure.  Otherwise, this was the meeting place of the whole island.  Every evening, precisely at the same hour, the good women of the neighbourhood came to knit their woollen caps and tell the news.  Groups of little children, naked, brown, and as mischievous as little imps, sported about, rolling on the grass and throwing handfuls of sand into the other’s eyes, heedless of the risk of blinding, while their mothers were engrossed in that grave gossip which marks the dwellers in villages.  These gatherings occurred daily before the fisherman’s house; they formed a tacit and almost involuntary homage, consecrated by custom, and of which no one had ever taken special account; the envy that rules in small communities would soon have suppressed them.  The influence which old Solomon had over his equals had grown so simply and naturally, that no one found any fault with it, and it had only attracted notice when everyone was benefiting by it, like those fine trees whose growth is only observed when we profit by their shade.  If any dispute arose in the island, the two opponents preferred to abide by the judgment of the fisherman instead of going before the court; he was fortunate enough or clever enough to send away both parties satisfied.  He knew what remedies to prescribe better than any physician, for it seldom happened that he or his had not felt the same ailments, and his knowledge, founded on personal experience, produced the most excellent results.  Moreover, he had no interest, as ordinary doctors have, in prolonging illnesses.  For many years past the only formality recognised as a guarantee for the inviolability of a contract had been the intervention of the fisherman.  Each party shook hands with Solomon, and the thing was done.  They would rather have thrown themselves into Vesuvius at the moment of its most violent eruption than have broken so solemn an agreement.  At the