I took my bunch and pinned it on my
hat as I rode, hailing the omen--
"For you alone I ride the ring,
For you I wear the blue . . ."
And--how went the chorus?
"Then tell me how to woo thee, love;
O tell me how to woo thee;
For thy dear sake nae care I'll take--"
The only care taken by Marc'antonio was to follow the bridle-tracks
winding among the foothills, and give a wide berth to the highroad
running north and south through Corte, especially to the bridges
crossing the Golo River, at each of which, he assured me, we should
find a guard posted of Paoli's militia. Luckily, he knew all the
fords, and in the hill-villages off the road the inhabitants showed
no suspicion of us, but took it for granted that we were the good
Paolists we passed for. Marc'antonio answered all their guileless
questions by giving out that we were two roving commissioners
travelling northward to delimit certain _pievi_ in the Nebbio, at the
foot of Cape Corso--an explanation which secured for us the best of
victuals as well as the highest respect.
For awhile our course, bending roughly parallel with the Golo, led us
almost due east, and at length brought us out upon the flat shore of
the Tuscan Sea.
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