For an hour they walked in silence an empty road.  And then they came upon a row of donkeys; piled high with the bark of the cork-tree, that men were bringing slowly from far woods.  Some of the men were singing as they went.  They passed slow in the sunshine.

“Oh, master,” said Morano when they were gone, “I like not that lascivious loitering.”

“Why, Morano?” said Rodriguez.  “It was not God that made hurry.”

“Master,” answered Morano, “I know well who made hurry.  And may he not overtake my soul at the last.  Yet it is bad for our fortunes that these men should loiter thus.  You want your castle, master; and I, I want not always to wander roads, with la Garda perhaps behind and no certain place to curl up and sleep in front.  I look for a heap of straw in the cellar of your great castle.”

“Yes, yes, you shall have it,” his master said, “but how do these folks hinder you?” For Morano was scowling at them over his shoulder in a way that was somehow spoiling the gladness of Spring.

“The air is full of their singing,” Morano said.  “It is as though their souls were already flying to Hell, and cawing hoarse with sin all the way as they go.  And they loiter, and they linger...”  Oh, but Morano was angry.

“But,” said Rodriguez, “how does their lingering harm you?”

“Where are the wars, master?  Where are the wars?” blurted Morano, his round face turning redder.  “The donkeys would be dead, the men would be running, there would be shouts, cries, and confusion, if the wars were anywhere near.  There would be all things but this.”

The men strolled on singing and so passed slow into distance.  Morano was right, though I know not how he knew.

And now the men and the donkeys were nearly out of sight, but had not yet at all emerged from the wrath of Morano.  “Lascivious knaves,” muttered that disappointed man.  And whenever he faintly heard dim snatches of their far song that a breeze here, and another there, brought over the plain as it ran on the errands of Spring, he cursed their sins under his breath.  Though it seemed not so much their sins that moved his wrath as the leisure they had for committing them.

“Peace, peace, Morano,” said Rodriguez.

“It is that,” said Morano, “that is troubling me.”

“What?”

“This same peace.”

“Morano,” said Rodriguez, “I had when young to study the affairs of men; and this is put into books, and so they make history.  Now I learned that there is no thing in which men have taken delight, that is ever put away from them; for it seems that time, which altereth every custom, hath altered none of our likings:  and in every chapter they taught me there were these wars to be found.”

“Master, the times are altered,” said Morano sadly.  “It is not now as in old days.”

And this was not the wisdom of Morano, for anger had clouded his judgment.  And a faint song came yet from the donkey-drivers, wavering over the flowers.