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We spent three days driving into the valley, staying at delightful inns over night, and stopping when we pleased, to pick flowers, for wonderful ones grow beside the road; Mariposa tulips with their spotted butterfly wings, fairy lanterns, all the shades of blue lupin, and on our detour to see the big trees I found a snow-plant, which looks like a blossom carved out of watermelon pink and luscious!
One of the most wretched inns that it was our lot to find in Montenegro received us and our baggage. The village of course turned out to inspect us, and watched us eat our meal with interest. It was of the usual kind, consisting of eggs, raw ham, eggs, and dessert of more hard-boiled eggs, washed down with a remarkably sour wine. After this repast we retired for a short nap into the room beyond.
It may be with something of a malicious chuckle that one notices that this four-wheeled tyrant is often empty; but the malice is of evanescent nature, born of narrow escape. There are some shops, respectable if not imposing, and a goodly supply of inns; a fine church and a notable old Cornish manor-house.
John Nepomuk, the history of Wallenstein, with Schiller's finest tragedy, all lend their interest to Prague. In the journey through Bohemia and southern Germany, dirty and uncomfortable inns were conspicuous. The Lake of Gemuenden much struck Mary with its poetic beauty, and she felt it was the place she should like to retreat to for a summer.
At the inns where they stopped, for meals and overnight, they were subjected to a protracted gazing on the part of all who saw them an inspection seemingly resentful or disapproving, but indeed only curious. It irritated Madge, who asked Ned what the cause might be. "Tut! Don't mind it," said he. "'Tis the way of the English, everywhere but in London.
The same habits of uproarious self-indulgence were in vogue with the benchers of the inns, and the Doctors of Doctors' Commons. Hale's austerity was the exceptional demeanor of a pious man protesting against the wickedness of an impious age.
'You will understand then. I dare say that I thought as you do at the time when the stupid Parisians were saying what a misalliance the widow of the famous General de Beauharnais was making by marrying the unknown Buonaparte. It was a beautiful dream! There are nine inns in a single day's journey between Milan and Mantua, and I wrote a letter to my wife from each of them.
For those who want a bed, the hush of the moonlit olives that shadow the terraced slopes gives sweeter sleep than the inns of the towns, and the crooning of the quiet sea is a gentler lullaby than the noises of streets, and the sweetness of the myrtle blossom is better to breathe than the warm air of rooms.
As a man of honor I can not deny them. They shall have every Jot and stiver of the property of John Law, even the million or so of good coin which he brought here to Paris with him. The coat on my back, the wheels beneath me, gold enough to pay for the charges of the inns through France that is all that John Law will take away with him." The arms of the old servant fell helpless at his side.
Above the doors, in the case of the better houses, were the painted escutcheons of the residents, and crests were also often blazoned on the window-panes. The shops, too, and more especially the inns, flaunted gaudy signboards with ingenious devices.
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