Loitering in Pleasant Paths

by Marion Harland

Of course the plea dashed vainly against her smile.

“But,” a touch of disdain for my weakness mingling with it, as she saw the girls wrap me in dry blankets pulled from the bed, lay me upon the sofa, and chafe my feet—“Madame can have a cup of tea should she desire it.”

A very grand butler brought up the tea-equipage at eleven o’clock. Spread upon a broad platter were as many slices of pale, cold mutton as there were starving guests. A roll apiece was in the bread-tray. A canine hunger was upon us. Our teeth chattered with cold and nervousness. We chafed under the knowledge of being cheated, outwitted, outraged. Yet when the supper was set out upon the round table wheeled up to my couch, and we recognized in it the climax of our woes, we shouted with laughter until the waiter grinned in sympathy.

Then—we made a night of it—for two hours. We drained tea-pot and kettle, and would have chewed the tea-leaves had any strength remained in them; drank all the blue milk, and ate every lump of sugar; left not a crumb of roll or meat to tell the tale of the abuse of hotel and padrona with which we seasoned their dryness. We told stories; held discussions, historical, philosophical, and theological; laughed handsomely at each other’s bon-mots, and were secretly vain of our own,—wrapped, all the while, from head to heels in shawls, blankets, and bedspreads, the girls with pillows under their feet to avoid the chill of the flooring. The destined occupants of the small rooms kissed us “Good night,” at last. Prima—still fuming, poor child! and marveling audibly what report she should make to him whose latest words were an exhortation “upon no account to let Mamma take cold,”—tucked me up in one of the single beds, and pinned the flimsy curtains together. They swayed and billowed in the gusts rushing between the joints of the casements. The surf-roar was deafening; the wash of the waves so distinct and sibilant, I fancied sometimes I heard it gurgling over the floor. It was futile to think of sleep, but, after the fatigue and excitement of the day, I watched out the hours between our late bed-time and the dawn, not unhappily.

Castellamare is the ancient Stabiæ—or, more correctly speaking—it occupied the site of that ill-starred town destroyed by the earthquake that forced from Vesuvius ashes and boiling water-spouts upon Pompeii. Here perished the elder Pliny, suffocated by the mephitic vapors of the eruption. By morning the storm had exhausted itself. From my windows I looked down upon the spot where Pliny died, and over a sea of the matchless blue no one will believe in who sees the Bay of Naples in pictures only. Overhead, a sky whose serenity had in it no reminiscence of last night’s rage, bowed over the smiling earth.

We paid for our supper,—a franc for each bit of pallid mutton; half-a-franc for each roll, and as much for every cup of tea; for “service”—two francs each;—for lodgings, five francs for each hard bed, and at the like rate for the stale eggs, burnt toast, and thick chocolate that formed our breakfast. Then, heedless of Felina’s representations that “strangers were always cheated in the town,” we sent out an Italian-speaking committee of two, who hired a carriage and horses at half the sum for which she offered hers, and were off for Sorrento. The drive between the two towns is justly noted for its beauty and variety. The play of prismatic lights upon the sea was exquisitely lovely: Capri was a great amethyst; Ischia and Procida milk-opals in the softly-colored distance, while on, above and below the ridge along which ran the carriage-road, lay Fairy Land—the Delectable Mountains—Heaven come down to earth! Mulberry trees looped together for long miles by swaying vines laden with young grapes; orange and fig-orchards in full bearing; olive-groves, silvery-gray after the rain; all manner of flowering trees, shrubs, and plants; lordly castles upon the high hills; vine-draped cottages nestling in vales and hollows; ravines, dark with green shadows, that let us catch only stray glimpses of flashing torrents and cascades, spanned by bridges built by Augustus or Marcus Aurelius; under our wheels a road of firmest rock, without rut or pebble; between us and the steeps on the verge of which we drove—breast-high parapets adding to our enjoyment of the wonderful scene the quietness of perfect security against the chance of mishap—these were some of the features of the seven most beautiful miles in Southern Europe. The sea-breeze was fresh, not rude, the sky speckless, but the heat temperate.

If we had sought a thorough contrast to the experiences of the previous evening, we could not have attained our end more triumphantly than by pitching our moving tent during our stay in Sorrento at the Hotel Tramontana. It includes under its stretch of roofs the house of Tasso, where he dwelt with his widowed sister, from June, 1577, until the summer of the ensuing year,—retirement which purchased bodily health and peace of mind, that had not been his in court and palace. The situation of the hotel is picturesque, the balconies overhanging the beach, and the seaward outlook is enchanting. All the appointments—not excepting landlady and housekeeper—were admirable—and the terms less exorbitant than Felina’s lowest charges. It was while guests here, and in obedience to information rendered by the hospitable proprietor, that we made our memorable and only raid upon an orange-orchard. Italian oranges, let me say, en passant, are, in their perfection and at the most favorable season, inferior in richness and sweetness to our Havana and Florida fruit. The sourest I ever tasted were bought in Rome, and warranted “dolce.” Single oranges, and oranges in twos and threes, we had eaten from the trees in the garden of the Tramontana Hotel. Oranges by the quantity—as we had vowed to behold and pluck them—were to be had somewhere for the picking. In our character as independent Sorosis larks, we pined for these and liberty—to gather at our will. I have forgotten the name lettered upon the gate-posts at which our cocchière set us down. “Villa” Something or Somebody. We saw no buildings whatsoever, going no further into the estate than the orchard of orange and lemon-trees in luxuriant fruitage, and smaller, sturdier trees, that had borne, earlier in the season, the aromatic dwarf-orange, or mandarino.

“Tutti finiti!” said the gardener when we asked for these.

We consoled ourselves by filling our pockets with fruit when we had eaten all we could. “Could” signifies more than the uninitiated can believe to a group of American girls knee-deep in soft, lush grasses, orange-flower scent distilling into the warm air from a thousand tiny retorts, globes of red-gold hanging thick between them and the sky, and such exuberance of fun as only glad-hearted American girls can know, ruling the hour. We had made, in the hearing of our cocchière, a bargain with the proprietor of the Hesperides. We were to eat all we wanted, and carry away all we could without baskets, and pay him a franc and a half at the gate on our return. I dare not say how many we plucked, sucked dry and threw away empty, or how many more we carried off in the pockets of over-skirts, lower skirts and jackets. We were in the orchard for an hour, wading through the cool grass, making critical selections from the loaded boughs and leisurely regalement upon our spoils, and talking even more nonsense than we had done during the nocturnal revel over cold, white mutton and weak tea at the Hôtel Royale. The gardener followed us wherever we moved, eying us as sourly as if he had lived from childhood upon unripe lemons. At the gate he broke our contract by demanding two francs and a half for the damage done his orchard. With (Italian) tears in his eyes he protested that he had never imagined the possibility of ladies eating so many oranges, or pockets so enormous; that we had consumed the profits of his entire crop in one rapacious hour—and so much more to the like effect that we passed from compassion and repentance to skepticism and indignation, and called up the cocchière as witness and umpire. He scratched his head very hard, and listened very gravely to both sides, before rendering a verdict. Then he hinted gently that, being novices in the business of orchard-raids, we had possibly overacted our parts; that our appetites orange-ward had passed the bounds of the Sorrento imagination, and that American pockets were a trifle larger than those of his country-people. Naturally, since Americans had so much more to put into them. But honor was honor, and a bargain a bargain. What if we were to pay the unconscionable, injured husbandman—whose oranges were the whole living of himself and family—two francs to compensate for his losses and out of sheer charity.

We were willing, the husbandman mournfully resigned, and cocchière received buono mano for his amicable adjustment of the difficulty.