The curtain of an early autumnal morning was everywhere lifted around the Motterone, save for one milky strip of cloud that lay lizard-like across the throat of Monte Boscero facing it, when a party of five footfarers, who had met from different points of ascent some way below, and were climbing the mountain together, stood upon the cropped herbage of the second plateau, and stopped to eye the landscape; possibly also to get their breath.  They were Italians.  Two were fair-haired muscular men, bronzed by the sun and roughly bearded, bearing the stamp of breed of one or other of the hill-cities under the Alps.  A third looked a sturdy soldier, squareset and hard of feature, for whom beauties of scenery had few awakening charms.  The remaining couple were an old man and a youth, upon whose shoulder the veteran leaned, and with a whimsical turn of head and eye, indicative of some playful cast of mind, poured out his remarks upon the objects in sight, and chuckled to himself, like one who has learnt the necessity to appreciate his own humour if he is disposed to indulge it.  He was carelessly wrapped about in long loose woollen stuff, but the youth was dressed like a Milanese cavalier of the first quality, and was evidently one who would have been at home in the fashionable Corso.  His face was of the sweetest virile Italian beauty.  The head was long, like a hawk’s, not too lean, and not sharply ridged from a rapacious beak, but enough to show characteristics of eagerness and promptitude.  His eyes were darkest blue, the eyebrows and long disjoining eyelashes being very dark over them, which made their colour precious.  The nose was straight and forward from the brows; a fluent black moustache ran with the curve of the upper lip, and lost its line upon a smooth olive cheek.  The upper lip was firmly supported by the under, and the chin stood freely out from a fine neck and throat.

After a space an Austrian war-steamer was discerned puffing out of the harbour of Laveno.

“That will do,” said the old man.  “Carlo, thou son of Paolo, we will stump upward once more.  Tell me, hulloa, sir! are the best peaches doomed to entertain vile, domiciliary, parasitical insects?  I ask you, does nature exhibit motherly regard, or none, for the regions of the picturesque?  None, I say.  It is an arbitrary distinction of our day.  To complain of the intrusion of that black-yellow flag and foul smoke-line on the lake underneath us is preposterous, since, as you behold, the heavens make no protestation.  Let us up.  There is comfort in exercise, even for an ancient creature such as I am.  This mountain is my brother, and flatters me not—­I am old.”

“Take my arm, dear Agostino,” said the youth.

“Never, my lad, until I need it.  On, ahead of me, goat! chamois! and teach me how the thing used to be done in my time.  Old legs must be the pupils of young ones mark that piece of humility, and listen with respectfulness to an old head by-and-by.”