CHAPTER XVI.
THE LAST OF ANTONIO.
The breakfast next morning at Vivario was so deliciously and unwontedly clean and refined in appearance, as to tempt us to linger over its luxuries, and almost to forget the rain sweeping against the windows outside.
The loaf on a plate (instead of on a dirty, sticky, American-cloth table-cover), toast in a rack, sugar-tongs, honey, and, greatest of all delights, a tiny pat of goat's butter, just made, and laid upon a little green china leaf, like a large pearl!
After all our vicissitudes of food and lodging, these refinements, served up in the snug, well-furnished little sitting-room, quite intoxicated us, and we began to feel once more that we were civilized beings, and not barbaric nomads on the tramp.
At ten o'clock we bid a fond adieu to the six cats, Jeannette, Madame Dausoigne and her bright-faced daughter, and started for our short two hours' drive to Corte—the last of our expeditions in our snug little carriage behind the two immaculate bays, and our old friend Antonio.
There was an air of softness about our driver to-day, which denoted that he himself remembered this fact and was sorry for it. The three weeks' daily contact between Antonio and his fare had considerably strengthened the liking we all conceived for him at first sight, and had established a mutual respect and regard between us and the young Corsican. He was always careful of our comforts; but to-day he was more than usually solicitous, in his quiet taciturn way, over the arrangement of our cushions and wraps, and about the rain which, in defiance of his twice offered hint, we allowed to stream over us and the little carriage as we went along. Travelling in the open air all day long soon makes one hardy, and neither of us could bear to shut out what view was visible on this lovely road.
Gleams of sunshine, too, occasionally glinted through the trees, and lit them up with dewdrops, like a fairy garden of diamonds; and, for a moment, the heavy clouds would clear away above us, and the rocks hanging overhead would show steep, turret-shaped spires rising into little oases of blue sky, with snow mountains beckoning from the other side.
Not far from Vivario, we noticed coloured stakes driven into the ground to show where the projected railway across the island was to pass. This railway is to run from Bastia to Ajaccio, and will be a most expensive work, as there will be a great deal of tunnelling necessary, through the Foce Pass, and between Vivario and Corte. Some attempts have been made for its commencement at both the capitals, but it is now delayed, partly on account of the difficulty of obtaining funds. It will probably have to be undertaken by the French Government, and for some time, no doubt, will not pay. At Corte, two Corsican gentlemen were warmly discussing the point whether it would be most advisable to employ native or foreign labour.
"The people of Corsica are starving for want of employment," said one; "you would not deprive them of a piece of work that would employ thousands, and take some years?"
"Would they take the work if it were offered them, monsieur?" inquired No. 3.