Our mild boy waited a decent moment, as if to let me do better, and then
led down to the casino, round through a wooded valley where there were
some men with fowling-pieces, whom I objected to in tones, if not in
terms. "What are they shooting?" "They are shooting larks, signore."
"What a pity!" "But the larks are leaving Italy, now, and going north."
It was a reason, like many another that humanity is put to it in giving,
and I do not know that I missed any larks, later, from an English meadow
where I saw them spiring up in song, and glad as if none of their
friends had been shot at the Villa Falconieri. In fact, I did not see
those fowlers actually killing any; and I can still hope they were not
very good shots.
The workmen who were putting the place in repair were lunching near the
casino, in a litter of lumber and other structural material, but the
casino itself seemed as yet unprofaned by their touch. At any rate, we
had it quite to ourselves, let wander at will through its cool, bare,
still spaces.
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