“Yonder lies Paestum,” said Mallard, pointing to the dim plain beyond the Gulf of Salerno; and his companion’s eyes were agleam.

Early in the afternoon they reached the coast at Positano, and thence took boat for Amalfi.  Elgar was like one possessed at his first sight of the wonderful old town, nested in its mountain gorge, overlooked by wild crags; this relic saved from the waste of mediaeval glory.  When they had put up at an inn less frequented and much cheaper than the “Cappuccini,” he would not rest until he had used the last hour of sunlight in clambering about the little maze of streets, or rather of mountain paths and burrows beneath houses piled one upon another indistinguishably.  Forced back by hunger, he still lingered upon the window-balcony, looking’ up at the hoary riven tower set high above the town on what seems an inaccessible peak, or at the cathedral and its many-coloured campanile.

How could Mallard help comparing these manifestations of ardent temper with what he had witnessed in Cecily?  The resemblance was at moments more than he could endure; once or twice he astonished Elgar with a reply of unprovoked savageness.  The emotions of the day, even more than its bodily exercise, had so wearied him that he went early to bed.  They had a double-bedded room, and Elgar continued talking for hours.  Even without this, Mallard felt that he would have been unable to sleep.  To add to his torments, the clock of the cathedral, which was just on the opposite side of the street, had the terrible southern habit of striking the whole hour after the chime at each quarter; by midnight the clangour was all but incessant.  Elgar sank at length into oblivion, but to his companion sleep came not.  Very early in the morning there sounded the loud blast of a horn, all through the town and away into remoteness.  Signify what it might, the practical result seemed to be a rousing of the population to their daily life; lively voices, the tramp of feet, the clatter of vehicles began at once, and waxed with the spread of daylight.

The sun rose, but only to gleam for an hour on clouds and vapours which it had not power to disperse.  The mountain summits were hidden, and down their sides crept ominously the ragged edges of mist; a thin rain began to fall, and grew heavier as the sky dulled.  Having breakfasted, the two friends spent an hour in the cathedral, which was dark and chill and gloomy.  Two or three old people knelt in prayer, their heads bowed against column or wall; remarking the strangers, they came ’up to them and begged.

“My spirits are disagreeably on the ebb,” said Elgar.  “If it’s to be a Scotch day, let us do some mountaineering.”

They struck up the gorge, intending to pursue the little river, but were soon lost among ascents and descents, narrow stairs, precipitous gardens, and noisy paper-mills.  Probably no unassisted stranger ever made his way out of Amalfi on to the mountain slopes.  They had scorned to take a guide, but did so at length in self-defence, so pestered were they by all but every person they passed; man, woman, and child beset them for soldi, either frankly begging or offering a direction and then extending their hands.  The paper-mills were not romantic; the old women who came along bending under huge bales of rags were anything but picturesque.  And it rained, it rained.