“Are there any outlaws harboured in these wild mountains?”
“Not now; they have been hunted out; all that is changed; but blood has been often spilt in this maquis. One terrible vendetta was taken not far from hence; but that was many years ago. I will show you the spot.”
Antoine strode rapidly onward; and we overtook the women, who had rode on. In ten minutes we were rounding the mass of rock crowning the pass.
“This was the spot,” said Antoine, taking a step towards me, the rest of the party having passed; and he added calmly, but with decision, and a slightly triumphant air, “I did it myself.” (“J'ai donné le coup moi-même.”)
It may be well supposed that I stood aghast. We had not then learnt with what little reserve such deeds of blood are avowed in Corsica; how thoroughly they are extenuated by the popular code of morals or honour. Such avowals were afterwards made to us with far less feeling than Antoine betrayed; indeed, with the utmost levity. “Je lui ai donné un coup,” mentioning the individual and giving the details, was the climax of a story of some sudden quarrel or long-harboured animosity. It was uttered with the sang froid with which an Englishman would say, “I knocked the fellow down;” and it might have been our impression that nothing more was meant, but for the circumstances related, which left no doubt on the subject. When a Corsican says that he has given his enemy a coup, the phrase is a decorous ellipse for coup-de-fusil. Occasionally, perhaps, it may mean a coup-de-poignard, which amounts to much the same thing; but since carrying the knife has been rigorously prohibited by the French Government, stabbing has not been much in vogue in Corsica. Now, it is to be hoped, the murderous fusil has equally disappeared.
There was no time for asking what led to the quarrel or encounter. Antoine coolly turned away, saying, “The descent is easy; we shall have a good road now down the hill to Olmeta;” and, most opportunely, the view which opened from the summit of the pass was calculated to divert my thoughts from what had just occurred.
It has been often remarked, that the Corsican villages are most commonly built on high ground. We now counted, by their cheerful lights, nine or ten of them dotting the hills in all directions; some perched on the heights beyond the Bevinco, which wound through the valley beneath, the moonlight flashing on patches of the stream and faintly revealing a dark chain of mountains beyond—the Serra di Stella, dividing the valley of the Bevinco from that of the Golo.
The descent was easy, according to Antoine's augury. We tear down the hill, pass the village church at a sharp angle, its white façade glistening in the moonbeams; and a straight avenue, shaded by trees, brings us into a labyrinth of narrow lanes, overhung by tall, gaunt houses of the roughest fabric and materials. Antoine bids us stop before one of these gloomy abodes; an old woman appears at the door of the first story with a feeble oil-lamp in her hand. The ground-floor of these houses, as usual in the South, are all stables or cellars. After a short conference, Antoine disappears, and we see him no more that night. We mount a flight of steep, unhewn stone steps, at the risk of breaking our necks, for there is no rail; the good dame welcomes us to all that she has, little though it be, and we land in a grim apartment containing the usual raised hearth for cooking, with a very limited apparatus of utensils—a few shallow kettles of copper and iron, a table, some chairs, and a very questionable bed in a corner.
There were two other apartments, en suite, the next being a salle, with a brick floor like the kitchen, tolerably clean. A few Scripture prints on the walls, a large table, some rickety chairs, and a settee, convertible, we found, into a very satisfactory shakedown, composed the furniture. The inner apartment, which contained a really good bed, seemed to be the widow's wardrobe and storeroom of all her most valuable effects; being crowded with chests, and tables covered with all sorts of things, helped out by pegs on the walls. These were ornamented with little coloured prints of the Virgin, and Saints, and there was a crucifix at the bed's head. After showing her apartments, the widow placed the lamp on the table in the salle, with the usual felice notte, and there was a running fire of questions and answers between her and the two hungry travellers about the qualche cosa per mangiare. The larder was of course empty, and the discussion resolved itself into some rashers of bacon, a loaf of very sweet bread, and a bottle of the light and excellent wine for which Capo Corso is famous, procured from a neighbour.
This was not accomplished without a great deal of bustle and screeching, and running to and fro of the widow and some female friends, withered old crones, who had come to her aid on so unexpected an emergency as our appearance on the scene. This continued after supper till the chests in the inner apartment had delivered up their stores of sheets, coverlets, and towels, all as white as the driven snow. How we ate, drank, and lodged during our rambles is not the most agreeable of our recollections, and can have little interest except as affording glimpses of the habits of the people. This first essay of Corsican hospitality was not amiss.