Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/285

 mouth of a sensale; that is, a go-between, who negotiates with the farmers or shepherds who sell cattle, and the butchers or breeders who buy them.

Owners and buyers would be much better served if they did their own negotiations without the middleman; but Italy is the land of go-betweens, in commerce as in love, and these men swarm over the land and fill their money-bags not ill nor slowly.

This one, riding about the moors in the evening time, viewing herds and flocks, had business which took him to San Lionardo; a little white-washed place lying on the amethyst and pearl-grey of the hills like a humble sea-shell on a grand table of pietra dura and mosaic.

San Lionardo never knew anything unless by some rare stray visit of a pedlar or of a dealer; it had very few dwellers in it, and had not even a church or a priest. When any were wedded or buried in the hamlet they had to go up miles above, along the road that wound over the bare face of the stone mountain, where every tree and shrub had been felled, and the sun scorched the rock, that had not the shade of even a leaf or a blade of grass.