That night Mitsos slept at Nemea, and all next day travelled across the great inland plain where lie the lakes. Through the length and breadth of that delectable country the spirit of spring was abroad--crocuses and the early anemones burned in the thickets, and the dim purple iris cradled bees in a chalice of gold. Brimming streams crossed the path, and the sunlight lay on their pebbly beds in a diaper of amber and stencilled shadow, and Mitsos' pony at the mid-day halt ate his fill of the young, juicy grass. But in the lad's heart the spring woke no echo; he went heavily, and the glorious adventure to which he had sacrificed his new-found manhood, fully indeed and without a murmur, seemed to him a thing of little profit. And if he had known what hard days were waiting for him, and the blank agonies and bitterness through which he was to fulfil his destiny, he would, it is to be feared, have turned his pony's head round and said that an impossible thing was asked of him. But he knew nothing beyond this two-week task now set him, and to this he was committed, not only by his promise to Nicholas--and, to do him justice, his own self-respect--but by the oath of the clan, which rather than fail in he would have sooner died.
The second evening a little before sunset he saw Goura close before him, standing free and roomily on a breezy hill-side, and ringed with vineyards. Behind lay the great giants of the mountain range--Helmos cowled in snow, and Cyllene all sunset-flushed. Yanko's house proved to be at the top of the village, and there he found Maria with a face all smiles for his welcoming. Yanko was still in the fields, and Mitsos and Maria talked themselves up to date with each other till he came home.
Oh yes, he was a good husband, said Maria, and he earned a fine wage. He was as strong as a horse, and when he let the wine-shop alone he did the work of two men. "And I am strong too," said she, "and when he doesn't come home by ten in the evening it will be no rare thing for me to bring him back with a clout over the head for his foolishness. And why are you here, Mitsos?"
"Business," he said; "business for Nicholas. It is Yanko who can do it for us. I may tell you about it, Maria, for so Nicholas said. He is wanted to take a message to the monastery. Four days' horse-hire, if he wishes, will be paid, and he will be doing a good work for many."