Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/124

 the land looked almost lovely, with the dark masses of the mountains at the back still keeping the clouds and the mists about them. They were far away, but they looked almost near, those blue and sombre hills that had held so many secrets and so many sins of the father of whom she knew nothing.

When she had left Santa Tarsilla behind her by a mile, the water was rougher, the wind was brisker, the boat flew faster, the child grew gayer. She was all alone on the sea as far as her eyes could reach, except for a few large vessels away on the horizon, merchant ships bearing grain or spice to the old harbours of the classic world.

The voice that according to her own fancy was not herself, but some bird singing in her, rose unconsciously to her lips as she felt happy; happy in the sense of liberty, of movement, of space, and air, and light. She sang aloud; all that sweet, wild, unwritten music of the people which they sing at marriage feasts and in threshing yards, about the forest fires, and behind the oxen's yoke; natural song, pastoral and amorous, that might thrill the world with its sweetness, only no Theocritus has arisen amongst these