Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/15

4 contadina that was like a study for Giorgone, or a tourist party whose mules were stumbling down some narrow gorge or dense arbutus thicket these were all the solitude was well-nigh unbroken. He knew Capri as well as he knew the oíl Scottish border at home; many a time, waiting week after week at Naples for despatches, he had explored every creek, rock, and islet in that marvellous bay, from sunlit Amalfi to nestling Procida, and he made his way straight onward to the Piccola Marina, though slowly, from the steepness and vagaries of the broken Roman roads, overgrown with luxuriant vegetation, that his horse, a sturdy mountain-trained chestnut from Ischia, climbed cautiously.

A late hour was sounding from some campanile as he rode into that beautiful nook that lies turned towards Sicily, with its line of fisher-boats and white-walled cottages fringing the coast, and hidden among olives, cistus groves, and orangeries. Here and there—where strangers had made their dwelling—lights were gleaming, but the Capriotes all lay sleeping under their low-rounded roofs; he almost despaired of finding any guide to tell him which Villa was hers in that leafy nest among the sea-girt rocks. At last he overtook a contadina heavily laden with wood, doing the work of pack-horses, as is the