“Pe far la to vendetta,
Sta sigur’, vasta anche ella.”
--Vocero du Niolo.
Early in the month of October, 181-, Colonel Sir Thomas Nevil, a
distinguished Irish officer of the English army, alighted with his
daughter at the Hotel Beauveau, Marseilles, on their return from a
tour in Italy. The perpetual and universal admiration of enthusiastic
travellers has produced a sort of reaction, and many tourists, in their
desire to appear singular, now take the _nil admirari_ of Horace for
their motto. To this dissatisfied class the colonel’s only daughter,
Miss Lydia, belonged. “The Transfiguration” has seemed to her mediocre,
and Vesuvius in eruption an effect not greatly superior to that produced
by the Birmingham factory chimneys. Her great objection to Italy, on
the whole, was its lack of local colour and character. My readers must
discover the sense of these expressions as best they may. A few years
ago I understood them very well myself, but at the present time I can
make nothing of them. At first, Miss Lydia had flattered herself she had
found things on the other side of the Alps which nobody had ever before
seen, about which she could converse _avec les honnetes gens_, as M.
Jourdain calls them. But soon, anticipated in every direction by her
countrymen, she despaired of making any fresh discoveries, and went over
to the party of the opposition. It is really very tiresome not to be
able to talk abut the wonders of Italy without hearing somebody say “Of
course you know the Raphael in the Palazzo---- at ----? It is the finest
thing in Italy!” and just the thing _you_ happen to have overlooked!
As it would take too long to see everything, the simplest course is to
resort to deliberate and universal censure.
At the Hotel Beauveau Miss Lydia met with a bitter disappointment. She
had brought back a pretty sketch of the Pelasgic or Cyclopean Gate
at Segni, which, as she believed, all other artists had completely
overlooked. Now, at Marseilles, she met Lady Frances Fenwick, who showed
her her album, in which appeared, between a sonnet and a dried flower,
the very gate in question, brilliantly touched in with sienna. Miss
Lydia gave her drawing to her maid--and lost all admiration for Pelasgic
structures.
This unhappy frame of mind was shared by Colonel Nevil, who, since the
death of his wife, looked at everything through his daughter’s eyes. In
his estimation, Italy had committed the unpardonable sin of boring his
child, and was, in consequence, the most wearisome country on the face
of the earth. He had no fault to find, indeed, with the pictures and
statues, but he was in a position to assert that Italian sport was
utterly wretched, and that he had been obliged to tramp ten leagues
over the Roman Campagna, under a burning sun, to kill a few worthless
red-legged partridges.
The morning after his arrival at Marseilles he invited Captain
Ellis--his former adjutant, who had just been spending six weeks in
Corsica--to dine with him. The captain told Miss Lydia a story about
bandits, which had the advantage of bearing no resemblance to the robber
tales with which she had been so frequently regaled, on the road between
Naples and Rome, and he told it well. At dessert, the two men, left
alone over their claret, talked of hunting--and the colonel learned that
nowhere is there more excellent sport, or game more varied and abundant,
than in Corsica. “There are plenty of wild boars,” said Captain Ellis.
“And you have to learn to distinguish them from the domestic pigs, which
are astonishingly like them. For if you kill a pig, you find yourself in
difficulties with the swine-herds. They rush out of the thickets (which
they call _maquis_) armed to the teeth, make you pay for their beasts,
and laugh at you besides. Then there is the mouflon, a strange animal,
which you will not find anywhere else--splendid game, but hard to
get--and stags, deer, pheasants, and partridges--it would be impossible
to enumerate all the kinds with which Corsica swarms. If you want
shooting, colonel, go to Corsica! There, as one of my entertainers
said to me, you can get a shot at every imaginable kind of game, from a
thrush to a man!”
At tea, the captain once more delighted Lydia with the tale of a
_vendetta transversale_ (A vendetta in which vengeance falls on a more
or less distant relation of the author of the original offence.),
even more strange than his first story, and he thoroughly stirred
her enthusiasm by his descriptions of the strange wild beauty of the
country, the peculiarities of its inhabitants, and their primitive
hospitality and customs. Finally, he offered her a pretty little
stiletto, less remarkable for its shape and copper mounting than for its
origin. A famous bandit had given it to Captain Ellis, and had assured
him it had been buried in four human bodies. Miss Lydia thrust it
through her girdle, laid it on the table beside her bed, and unsheathed
it twice over before she fell asleep. Her father meanwhile was dreaming
he had slain a mouflon, and that its owner insisted on his paying for
it, a demand to which he gladly acceded, seeing it was a most curious
creature, like a boar, with stag’s horns and a pheasant’s tail.
“Ellis tells me there’s splendid shooting in Corsica,” said the colonel,
as he sat at breakfast, alone with his daughter. “If it hadn’t been for
the distance, I should like to spend a fortnight there.”
“Well,” replied Miss Lydia, “why shouldn’t we go to Corsica? While you
are hunting I can sketch--I should love to have that grotto Captain
Ellis talked about, where Napoleon used to go and study when he was a
child, in my album.”
It was the first time, probably, that any wish expressed by the
colonel had won his daughter’s approbation. Delighted as he was by the
unexpected harmony on their opinions, he was nevertheless wise enough
to put forward various objections, calculated to sharpen Miss Lydia’s
welcome whim. In vain did he dwell on the wildness of the country, and
the difficulties of travel there for a lady. Nothing frightened her; she
liked travelling on horseback of all things; she delighted in the idea
of bivouacking in the open; she even threatened to go as far as Asia
Minor--in short, she found an answer to everything. No Englishwoman had
ever been to Corsica; therefore she must go. What a pleasure it would
be, when she got back to St. James’s Place, to exhibit her album! “But,
my dear creature, why do you pass over that delightful drawing?” “That’s
only a trifle--just a sketch I made of a famous Corsican bandit who was
our guide.” “What! you don’t mean to say you have been to Corsica?”
As there were no steamboats between France and Corsica, in those days,
inquiries were made for some ship about to sail for the island Miss
Lydia proposed to discover. That very day the colonel wrote to Paris,
to countermand his order for the suite of apartments in which he was
to have made some stay, and bargained with the skipper of a Corsican
schooner, just about to set sail for Ajaccio, for two poor cabins, but
the best that could be had. Provisions were sent on board, the skipper
swore that one of his sailors was an excellent cook, and had not
his equal for _bouilleabaisse_; he promised mademoiselle should be
comfortable, and have a fair wind and a calm sea.
The colonel further stipulated, in obedience to his daughter’s wishes,
that no other passenger should be taken on board, and that the captain
should skirt the coast of the island, so that Miss Lydia might enjoy the
view of the mountains.