Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/310

 travelling tribes more than once; dusty jaded crowds moving slowly over the marsh and moor. The shepherds are solitary and sullen people for the most part, and instead of a crook they often have a carbine. She avoided them and let them pass on southward to the rich low pastures, afraid that if they knew of her retreat they might rob her of it. As little did she like the hunters who harried the boar in his brake and shot the wildfowl in the marshes. What harm did those wild boars do, living on the roots of the earth and the acorns, or the lovely green-throated drake of the swamp floating his little day away amongst the weeds and lilies?

Except these, there were not many newcomers to fear, her own immediate portion in the Etruscan kingdom was so overgrown with thickets and low timber and matted parasites that walking was almost impracticable, and a bill-hook was needed at almost every step, and the quagmires and swamps that separated it from the vast grain fields to the north deterred all save the boldest and the hardiest from adventuring there.

It never occurred to her that her life would alter. Of love she knew nothing, and marriage, when she thought about it,