As we came up, our driver advanced to us, with the pole and part of the carriage in his hand, saying curtly, with the first smile we had yet seen upon his countenance, "The carriage is broken."
To use a slang expression, we both felt a little "floored." "Yes," we replied to this incontrovertible fact; "but don't you think you had better catch the pony?"
Jehu acquiesced silently, and proceeded in a leisurely manner up the road, where, assisted by another man, he managed to capture the recalcitrant pony in an incredibly short space of time.
"Well," we inquired when he returned; "and how are we to continue our journey?"
It was impossible to be angry with such a piece of placid indifference as this man, however much one might wish it; one might as well have been angry with a sack of wheat.
So we left him, humming softly to himself, to mend up the carriage as best he could, whilst we walked on towards the Cap for a two or three hours' stroll.
The sun now lay hot upon the shadeless road, which began to mount gently, keeping, however, close above the seashore, and always bastioned on its other side by rocky walls, which after a while gave place to massive lordly hills, green and steep, more than one surmounted by ruined tower or long deserted cloister, braving in solitary grandeur the eastern gales that sweep each crag-topped eminence.
It was a beautiful walk; only a little bit marred by the unpleasant attentions of two men in a mule cart. They passed once, stopping the conveyance to offer us a seat, which we declined; and afterwards shouting and calling after us from a wayside inn, where they had stopped.
On returning homeward, we were not overpleased to see our persecutors again coming after us in their blue blouses and black wide-awakes.
Apparently their journey had been no further than to the inn; and it was probably not the first inn they had visited, for they were more pressing and less agreeable than ever. One man went so far as to jump down from his seat, insisting upon the advantages of a drive in the cart; and it was only by walking on rapidly, with the damping remark that we did not understand a word they said (which, as they spoke a harsh Italian patois, was nearly true), that we at length managed to get rid of them. This, I must remark, was the sole occasion on which any one of us experienced any rudeness or unpleasantness from the behaviour of any grown up Corsican man or woman. One could scarcely say as much for many more frequented countries, after incessant travelling for several weeks in their loneliest and wildest regions.