gravel alternated with the dusk of tunnelled yew-walks; the company playing at bowls in the long alleys, or drinking chocolate in gazebos above the river; the boats darting hither and thither on the stream itself, the travelling-chaises, market-waggons and pannier-asses crowding the causeway along the bank—­all were unrolled before him with as little effect of reality as the episodes woven in some gaily-tinted tapestry.  Even the peasants in the vineyards seemed as merry and thoughtless as the quality in their gardens.  The vintage-time is the holiday of the rural year and the day’s work was interspersed with frequent intervals of relaxation.  At the villages where the burchiello touched for refreshments, handsome young women in scarlet bodices came on board with baskets of melons, grapes, figs and peaches; and under the trellises on the landings, lads and girls with flowers in their hair were dancing the monferrina to the rattle of tambourines or the chant of some wandering ballad-singer.  These scenes were so engaging to the comedians that they could not be restrained from going ashore and mingling in the village diversions; and the Marquess, though impatient to rejoin his divinity, was too volatile not to be drawn into the adventure.  The whole party accordingly disembarked, and were presently giving an exhibition of their talents to the assembled idlers, the Pantaloon, Harlequin and Doctor enacting a comical intermezzo which Cantapresto had that morning composed for them, while Scaramouch and Columbine joined the dancers, and the rest of the company, seizing on a train of donkeys laden with vegetables for the Venetian market, stripped these patient animals of their panniers, and mounting them bareback started a Corso around the village square amid the invectives of the drivers and the applause of the crowd.

Day was declining when the Marquess at last succeeded in driving his flock to their fold, and the moon sent a quiver of brightness across the water as the burchiello touched at the landing of a villa set amid close-massed foliage high above the river.  Gardens peopled with statues descended from the portico of the villa to the marble platform on the water’s edge, where a throng of boatmen in the Procuratore’s livery hurried forward to receive the Marquess and his companions.  The comedians, sobered by the magnificence of their surroundings, followed their leader like awe-struck children.  Light and music streamed from the long facade overhead, but the lower gardens lay hushed and dark, the air fragrant with unseen flowers, the late moon just burnishing the edges of the laurel-thickets from which, now and again, a nightingale’s song gushed in a fountain of sound.  Odo, spellbound, followed the others without a thought of his own share in the adventure.  Never before had beauty so ministered to every sense.  He felt himself lost in his surroundings, absorbed in the scent and murmur of the night.

3.3.