Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/57

 she took a stout staff in her hand, slung her wallet about her, with some bread in it and some goat's ham cured Savoy fashion, and went out towards the mountains.

She was a strong woman, though old, and she walked briskly. The pasture lands and marshes were desolate, and she met scarce anyone; here and there a furze cutter or a ploughman with his oxen, that was all. She soon quitted the sight of the sea, and bore inland by the course of the Albegna river, through solitary untracked thickets, and over rough rocky ground.

After some hours she came to cross roads, and there sat down on a stone, and waited for the public waggon running from Orbetello to Monte Murano to come by; when it jolted near her, its miserable horses straining at their rope harness, she stopped it, and got into it; it lumbered on under a volley of blows and oaths rained on the patient, sinking beasts.

At Monte Murano she descended, and was forced to sleep; with daybreak she left the place, and thence had to make her way as best she might up to what had been the brigand's favourite lair, although he had others in the fastnesses of the Ciminian