Solomon's hut stood in that part of the island which, turning its back to
the capital, beholds afar the blue crests of Capri. Nothing could be
simpler or brighter. The brick walls were hung with ivy greener than
emeralds, and enamelled with white bell-flowers; on the ground floor was
a fairly spacious apartment, in which the men slept and the family took
their meals; on the floor above was Nisida's little maidenly room, full
of coolness, shadows, and mystery, and lighted by a single casement that
looked over the gulf; above this room was a terrace of the Italian kind,
the four pillars of which were wreathed with vine branches, while its
vine-clad arbour and wide parapet were overgrown with moss and wild
flowers. A little hedge of hawthorn, which had been respected for ages,
made a kind of rampart around the fisherman's premises, and defended his
house better than deep moats and castellated walls could have done. The
boldest roisterers of the place would have preferred to fight before the
parsonage and in the precincts of the church rather than in front of
Solomon's little enclosure. Otherwise, this was the meeting place of the
whole island. Every evening, precisely at the same hour, the good women
of the neighbourhood came to knit their woollen caps and tell the news.
Groups of little children, naked, brown, and as mischievous as little
imps, sported about, rolling on the grass and throwing handfuls of sand
into the other's eyes, heedless of the risk of blinding, while their
mothers were engrossed in that grave gossip which marks the dwellers in
villages. These gatherings occurred daily before the fisherman's house;
they formed a tacit and almost involuntary homage, consecrated by custom,
and of which no one had ever taken special account; the envy that rules
in small communities would soon have suppressed them. The influence
which old Solomon had over his equals had grown so simply and naturally,
that no one found any fault with it, and it had only attracted notice
when everyone was benefiting by it, like those fine trees whose growth is
only observed when we profit by their shade. If any dispute arose in the