The next morning J. was much better, and we decided to ride. Sandrino arrived at half-past seven and breakfasted with us. In the uniform of the Speedvell Cloob, its monogram in silver on his cap, he was even more English than he had been the day before. Our last experience at the Albergo was characteristic. The waiter, overcome by Sandrino's appearance, became incapable of action. We called for our coffee and rolls in vain. Finally we all, our guest included, made a descent upon the kitchen and forced him to bestir himself.
It was Sunday morning, and the news of our going had been noised abroad. The aristocracy as well as the people turned out to see us off. Many of Sandrino's friends lingered in the barber-shop across the street; others waited just without the city gate with his mother and sister. When Sandrino saw the crowd here, he sprang upon his Speecial Cloob, worked with one foot and waved the other in the air, rode to the little park beyond and back, and then jumped off, hat in hand, at his mother's side, with the complacent smile of a champion. Indeed, the whole ride that day savored of the circus. He went down hills with his legs stretched straight out on either side. On level places he made circles and fancy figures in the road. Whenever we passed peasants,—and there were many going to church,—he shrieked a warning shrill as a steam-engine whistle. No wonder he said he had no use for a bell! He spoke to all the women, calling them his "beautiful cousins." And in villages the noise he made was so great that frightened people, staring at him, could not look behind, so that several times we all but rode over men and women who walked backward right into our wheels. And all the while J., like the ring-master, kept calling and shrieking, and no one paid the least attention to him.
Our way was through the beautiful Val di Chiana, no longer pestilential and full of stenches as in Dante's day, but fresh and fair, and in places sweet with clematis. There were no fences or hedges, and it stretched from mountains to mountains, one wide lovely park. About half-way to Castiglione we came to the boundary line between Tuscany and Umbria,—a canal with tall poplars on its banks, throwing long reflections into the water below, where a boat lay by the reeds. We stopped there some little time. Sandrino was polite, but I could see he did not approve. What would the Speedvell Cloob have thought? Farther on, when we waited again near a low farm-house under the oaks, he wheeled quickly on. But presently he came back. "Oh," he said, "I thought you must have had an accident!"
There could be no lovelier lake town than Castiglione del Lago. The high hill on which it stands projects far into Lake Thrasymene. The olives which grow from its walls down the hillside into the very water are larger and finer, with more strangely twisted trunks, than any I have ever seen. As we came near the town we rode between them, looking beneath their silvery-gray branches out to the pale blue lake beyond. A woman came from under their shade with a bundle of long reeds on her head; a priest passed us on a donkey.
We left our machines in a stable at the foot of the hill and walked through the streets. Here Sandrino's invitation came to nought; his friends were away. Whatever leetle thing we had must be found elsewhere. So we went to a trattoria, where another of his friends, a serious, polite young man who, we learned afterwards, owns the town and all the country thereabout, sat and talked with us while we ate our lunch. Poor Sandrino! He had to pay for his English clothes and foreign friends! The padrona, backed by her husband from the kitchen below, asked him no less than five francs for our macaroni and wine. A dispute, loud because of the distance between the disputants, followed; but in the end Sandrino paid four francs, though half that sum would have been enough. It was some consolation for us to know that, forestieri as we were, we had never been cheated so outrageously, not even in San Quirico.
It was pleasant wandering through the town, with the grave young man as guide, to the Palazzo Communale, where the red and white flag of the Duke of Cornia waving outside was the same as that painted in the old frescos within, and where councilmen holding council bowed to us as we passed; and then to the old deserted castle which, with its gray battlemented walls and towers, was not unlike an English ruin. But it was pleasanter when, Sandrino having kissed his friend, we were on the road again, riding between yellow mulberries by the side of the lake. Sheep were grazing on the grassy banks; donkeys and oxen were at rest in the meadows. But the peasants, Mass heard, were at work again. Women on ladders were stripping the mulberries of their leaves; men on their knees were digging in the fields.
At the villa, Sandrino's friends were at home. At the gate the gay bicycler gave his war-cry. A young lady ran out between the roses and chrysanthemums in the garden and by the red wall where yellow pumpkins were sunning, to welcome him. Then her mother and sister came and also gave him greeting. They received us with courtesy. We were led into the drawing-room, a bare, barn-like place with cold brick floor, where there were three or four chairs, a table, an old piano, faded cretonne curtains hung on rough sticks at the windows, and small drawings pinned on the walls. A man in blue coat and trousers, such as the peasants wear, followed us in and sat down by the young ladies. He was one of her men, the Signora explained. Then we had the wine Sandrino promised, and we became very friendly. One of the daughters knew a little English, but when we spoke to her she hid her face in her hands and laughed and blushed. She never, never would dare to say a word before us, she declared. She was very arch and girlish. One minute she played a waltz on the piano; the next she teased Sandrino, and there was much pleasantry between them. The mother spoke French after a fashion, but when she had anything to say she relapsed into Italian. She lived in Rome, she said. We must come and see her there. But would we not now stay at her villa all night, instead of in Cortona? Then she squeezed my hand. "Vous êtes bien sympathique," she said, and I think she meant to compliment me. Her husband, it seems, was a banker in Rome, and would be pleased, so she told us through Sandrino's interpretation, to do anything and everything for us.
Mother and daughters, men and maids, all walking amiably together, came to the garden gate with us. The Signora here squeezed my hand a second time. The skittish young lady said "good-by" and then hid behind a bush, and her sister gave us each some roses. It was here too we were to part with Sandrino. He must be back in Montepulciano by six; more friends were coming. Would we write him postal cards to tell him of the distance and time we made? And that map of Tuscany we said we would give him, would we not remember it? He was going to take some great rides, and it would help him. Then we turned one way, and he, riding his best for the young ladies, the other, to be seen by us no more.
It was roses all the way to Cortona. They grew in villa gardens and along the road up the mountain; there were a few even among the olives, on the terraces whose stone embankments make the city from below look as if it were surrounded by many walls instead of one only. Near the town we met two young lovers, their arms around each other's waists, and a group of men who directed us in our search for the inn up a short steep hill leading away from the main road. Above, inside the city gate, several other citizens told us we must go down again, for the road we had left led right by the door. Clearly the Albergo della Stella—for that was its name—was not well known in Cortona. After a climb of three miles it was provoking to go even a foot out of our way, and we turned back in no cheerful mood. It was more disheartening when, having finally come to the Albergo, we found the lower floor, by which we entered, the home of pigs and donkeys and oxen. The major was right, I thought; Cortona was a rough place. The contrast when on the third floor of this establishment we were shown into a large, clean, really well-furnished room with window overlooking the valley, made us neglect to drive a close bargain with the padrona,—a neglect for which we suffered later.