"Yes; but night and day work would injure the horses, and I am strong."
"Do you have your Sundays free?" I asked.
"But no. Sundays and week days are all the same to us."
"Have you no holidays?"
"None, mademoiselle. I have been at this work driving now for nine years, ever since I was fifteen, but I have never had more than an hour or two to myself at a time. If I had time to study and raise myself," he continued wistfully, "I should seek some better métier than this.
"Well," said No. 3, "it is, at any rate, a very pleasant and healthy occupation; and a man who has grown accustomed to the open air would not be happy at sedentary work."
Antonio's white teeth gleamed as he smiled affirmatively. "It is the best occupation in the world for happiness," said he; "a man cannot quarrel or get into trouble by himself; and one feels always light-hearted in the open air. But one may have too much of anything."
Sagona, which we passed soon after, is a tiny village, boasting two or three eucalypti, and a little quay the size of a sixpence.
Near here, the river Liamone, one of the most considerable in Corsica, throws itself into the sea, after its many tortuous windings among the intricate maze of hills around Vico.
Leaving the sea border soon after passing Sagona, we struck inland through cystus-covered hill, bright poppy-sprinkled corn-field, and willows whispering and sighing among a sea of giant bracken fern; here and there, underneath a bit of grateful shade, where myrtle, laurestinus, and arbutus edged the hot wayside; then on, amongst wild and rugged hills, where lizards, green and black, with bright eyes and supple tails, glided rapidly up the face of yellow rocks, and where a long black serpent was sunning himself in the grass by the roadside. On—until suddenly the reins were flung down, and, with a quick leap, Antonio was off his box, and mutely pointing to a pretty fern-shaded fountain close beside us, a fountain boasting three spouts, under which three human heads were instantly bending, to emerge a minute afterwards, dripping and refreshed.