The train passed through the tunnel under the headland on which stands the Albergo Belvedere, and steamed into the station of Castellinaria, a town that is not so marked on any map of Sicily. I had written to Carmelo to meet the train and drive me up, but he was not among the coachmen. I recognized his brother, and said to him

“Hullo! Rosario, where have you been all these years?”

“Well, you see,” he replied, “I have been away. First there was the military service and then I had a disgrazia; but I have come back now.”

I avoided inquiring into the disgrazia till I could ascertain from some one else whether he meant what we should call a misfortune or something more serious and merely said I was glad it was all over and asked after his brother.

“Carmelo is quite well he is in private service. He told me to meet you and sent you his salutes and apologies for not coming himself; he will call on you this evening.”

“At the Albergo Belvedere?”

“No, excuse me, the Belvedere is closed; he told me to take you to the Albergo della Madonna, unless you wish to go anywhere else.”

So Rosario drove me with my luggage up the zigzags for an hour and a half through dust and sunshine, past orchards of lemons and oranges, among prickly pears and agave overgrown with pink and red geranium, by rocky slopes of mesembryanthemum, yellow marguerites, broom and sweet peas, between white walls with roses straggling over them and occasional glimpses of the sea dotted with fishing boats and, now and then, of the land covered with olives, almonds, and vines.

We stopped in the corso at the Albergo della Madonna (con giardino) and were received by a young man who introduced himself as Peppino, the son of the landlord. He also said he remembered me, that he had been a waiter in a restaurant in Holborn where I used to dine; I did not recognize him, though, of course, I did not say so. There was something in his manner as though he had recently been assured by my banker that the balance to my credit during the last ten years or so had never fallen below a much larger sum than my passbook had been in the habit of recording. He would not hear of my doing anything about my luggage or dinner, he knew my ways and would show me to my room at once. It was a very fine room with two beds, and he promised that no one should be put into the second bed, not even during the festa which in a few days would fill the town with pilgrims. He then departed to bring up my luggage and I went out on to the balcony.

Before me lay one of those stupendous panoramas which are among the glories of Sicily. First a garden of flowers with orange and lemon trees whose blossoms scented the air, then a thicket of almonds full of glittering goldfinches, then a drop of several hundred feet; beyond, to the right, a great mountain with snow on its rocky summit, its lower slopes and the intervening country highly cultivated; to the left the sea, an illimitable opal gleaming in the sunset. Between the mountain and the sea the coastline went in and out, in and out, in a succession of bays and promontories that receded and receded until sea and land and sky were blended into one distant haze. Across the first bay was the port and, as the dusk deepened, constellations of lights gathered and glowed among the shipping. I took possession, thinking that if, like Peppino’s parents, I might spend my declining days here, the troubles of life, and especially those attendant upon old age, might be easier to bear. And yet, possibly, a stupendous panorama might turn out as deceitful as proficiency at whist, or great riches, or worldly honours, or any of the other adjuncts of age popularly supposed to be desirable; for I suspect that most of these things fail and become as naught in the balance when weighed against a good digestion, a modest competency and a quiet conscience. These are the abiding securities that smooth our passage through life and bring a man peace at the last, and each of us has his own way of going about to win them.

Peppino brought my luggage and, with no nonsense about what I would have for dinner or when or where I should like it, told me that it would be ready at 7.30 in the garden. Accordingly I went down punctually and found a table spread under a trellis of vines from which hung an electric light. Peppino waited on me as, according to his account, he used to do in London, and entertained me with reminiscences of his life there. He had attended divine service at St. Paul’s, which he called il Duomo di Londra, and had found it a more reverent function, though less emotional, than Mass at home. He was enthusiastic about the river Thames, the orators in Hyde Park and the shiny soldiers riding in the streets. He remembered the lions in the Zoological Gardens and the “Cock” at Highbury, where he once drank a whisky-soda and disliked it intensely. He had stood on the base of La Torre del Duca di Bronte (by which he meant the Nelson Column) to see the Lord Mayor’s Show, and considered it far finer than any Sicilian procession more poetical in conception, he said, and carried out with greater magnificence. He had been to Brighton from Saturday to Monday and burst into tears when he saw the sea again. It is difficult to travel on the Underground Railway without losing oneself, but Peppino can do it. He got lost once, but that was in some street near Covent Garden, soon after his arrival, and before he had ventured alone in the Underground; he asked his way of a policeman who spoke Italian and told him the way: he believes that all London policemen speak Italian, but he himself prefers English if he can get a chance to speak it.

Sicilians always want to speak English, especially those of the lower orders who invariably consider it as a master-key that will open every door leading to wealth. Sometimes what they say is, of course, nothing more than otiose compliment; sometimes they are merely introducing the subject of their want of money in an artistic manner in the hope of anything from a soldo to a promise to take them into service as valet, courier, coachman, or whatever it may be a sort of shaking of Fortune’s bag to see what will come out. Sometimes they really do want to learn English and some of them even make attempts to pick up a few words and actually retain them.

I went once from Siracusa to Malta at the end of December; it was abominably rough, and my luggage was thrown about in the cabin with such violence that some of the things slipped out of my bag. I was too sea-sick to be sure I had picked them all up, but afterwards discovered that the only thing left behind was my new diary for the next year. On returning from Valletta to Siracusa about a fortnight later, I asked the steward if he had found my diary and it was produced by the cabin-boy who must have been a youth of considerable energy and enterprise. He had apparently learnt by ear several English words and, finding a book full of blank paper, had written them down, spelling them the best way he could, that is phonetically, according to Italian pronunciation, and writing the Italian equivalents, spelt in his own way, in a parallel column. His writing is so distinct that I am certain I have got every letter right, but I do not recognize his second English word for latrina, it is probably some corrupt form of lavatory.

Peppino is not exactly of this class, his parents were able to give him a good education, he took his degree at the University of Palermo and, though he does not practise his profession, is a qualified engineer. When he returned from London his English was probably better than the cabin-boy’s will ever be, but he is a little out of practice.

I had observed a couple of picturesque ruffians hovering about in the gloom of the garden; towards the end of dinner they wandered into the circle of the electric light and resolved themselves into Carmelo and Rosario. We invited them to sit down, gave them wine and cigarettes and talked over the changes that had taken place in the town since I had last been there.

When they had gone, I asked Peppino about Rosario’s misfortune and learnt that he had been put into prison for stabbing his father. He had only wounded him, and Peppino thought the father had probably been in the wrong, for he has a bad history in the books of the police, but Rosario had not done himself any good over it, because, of course, the crime and its consequences have now gone down into his own history.

An Englishman may be a mass of prejudices, but I confess I did not like the idea of hob-nobbing with a would-be parricide and determined that Rosario should not drive me any more; if I wanted a carriage, Carmelo should get leave of his padrone and take me.

Next morning, while I was having my coffee, there was a sound of passing music; I recognized it as belonging to a funeral, and asked Peppino if he knew who was dead. Several people were dead and he did not know which this was, unless it was old Baldassare; it must be either a married woman or a grown-up man. I asked how he knew that. He replied that when apprenticed to his father, who had been sagrestano before taking the hotel, he had learnt all about the ceremonies of the Church.

“They do this,” he said, “when it is a married lady dead or a grown man. If it shall be the woman dead unmarried or a boy dead, then shall it be a different song, a different ring of bell and the dead shall go very directly in the paradiso; it is like the please, what is fuochi artificiali? Excuse me, it is the rocket; prestissimo and St. Peter he don’t be asking no question. Did you understand?”

He then diverged to ceremonies connected with last illnesses

“When the doctor is coming it is telling always that you would be good of the malady, but when the priest is coming it is telling that you are finished. This is not a good thing. It is difficult to hope when the doctor is shaking the head and is telling ’Please, you; go, catch the priest quickly, quickly.’ And sometimes the notary, the man of law, if the malade is having money; if no money, it is the notary not at all. When the doctor is coming out, the priest is coming in, and generally after would be the death. But you must pay. If to pay less would come only one priest and not well dressed, if to pay more, very well dressed and too many priests. If to pay plenty, plenty, then to ring all the bells and enter by the great door; but if to pay few, then not many bells and to enter by the second door. Did you understand?

“When they die the parents always, and also the man that is to die, they fear the please, what is not the paradiso? Excuse me, it is the inferno: and they tell to the priest ‘Please come.’ Then they pay him to tell all that is good, and sometimes the priest arrive that you will be dead. If you shall suicide, very likely you are dead before. Then shall the parents pay him to tell that the man to die has taken all the functions of religion and the holy oil to put in the foot to prevent him the death. But it is prevent not at all.

“Did you know what is sacramento? All right, I shall tell you. The priest is going with the sacramento on the hand and the umbrella on the head and you must pay always must pay, it is the interesting thing. And the old women are going and are praying because the man is dead: and the soldiers are going and are taking the arms before the risorgimento, but now the law it is redeemed. Then they arrive into the room of the malade and take the sacramento and up and down and put the holy oil in the foot and pray and went away, and the malade who is not dead would very soonly die.”