Romances (Volume 45) (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1894. Excerpt: ... THE CORSICAN BROTHERS. CHAPTER I. In the early part of March, 1841, I was travelling in Corsica. Nothing could be more picturesque, or more agreeable, than a trip to that island. You embark at Toulon; in twenty hours you are at Ajaccio, or in twenty-four, at Bastia, as you choose. There you should hire, or purchase, a horse; if the former, you pay but five francs a day, while one can be bought for a hundred and fifty francs in cash. You need not smile in derision either, at the paltry price; for the beast you hire or buy, as the case may be, will, like the Gascon's famous charger, which leaped from the Pont Neuf into the Seine, do things which neither Prospero nor Nautilus, those heroes of the Chantilly and Champ du Mars races, could ever accomplish. He will pick his way over roads where Ealmat himself would have needed grappling-irons, and over bridges which Auriol would not have crossed without a balancing pole. The traveller has simply to close his eyes, and give the beast his head; the danger of the journey is no concern of his. We may say further, with respect to this horse, which finds no place impassable, that he will do his fifteen leagues every day without once asking for food or water. From time to time, as you stop to visit an old chateau built by some great lord, or military hero, or feudal chieftain, or to sketch some old tower erected by the Genoese, he will nibble a tuft of grass, chew the bark of a tree, or lick a moss-covered rock, and all is said. When we come to the matter of quarters for the night, the solution is even more simple: the traveller reaches a village, rides through the principal street from end to end, selects the house which strikes his fancy, and knocks at the door. In a moment the master or mistress appears upon the threshold, invites the stranger...