Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/78

 An almost absolute silence reigned there, only broken by the booming of millions of mosquitoes, and the tinkling now and then of the one feeble church bell. The many pedlars that travel through Maremma did not very often give an hour to Santa Tarsilla, unless their way lay most directly over the Tombolo or sandy shore. Now and then one came with needles and pins, tapes and kerchiefs, and a hundred other small articles of merchandise, packed in the wooden or leathern case upon his back; and when he did come, there was much gossip but few pence for him, for every one was poor in the forlorn forgotten town, which would have been no more than a village had it not been for its coastguard and its church.

By June, when the harvest was reaped, the labourers fled; a few fisher-folk remained, sallow and lean with weakness, or swollen with the dropsy common to the coast. Its very priests were sent to Santa Tarsilla as a penitence; and its military were stationed as a chastisement; of late years, even the little garrison of soldiers had been withdrawn by the Government, and there were none nearer than Orbetello. The little fort was falling to decay, and even the coastguards-