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My bed was placed on a bancard; my servants followed in chaises; and in this equipage I set out. I bore the first day's journey of fifteen miles without any visible alteration. The doctor said, as I was not worse, I was certainly better; and the next day proceeded twenty miles to Iséo, which is at the head of this lake. I lay each night at noblemen's houses, which were empty.
The recent change in the character of the Mella a river anciently so remarkable for the gentleness of its current that it was specially noticed by Catullus as flowing molli flumine deserves more than a passing remark. This river rises in the mountain-chain east of Lake Iseo, and traversing the district of Brescia, empties into the Oglio after a course of about seventy miles.
And between these extreme points what varied lovelinesses lie in broad Maggiore, winding Como, Varese with the laughing face upturned to heaven, Lugano overshadowed by the crested crags of Monte Generoso, and Iseo far withdrawn among the rocky Alps!
Then while this modern Paris is yet doubting, perhaps a thought may cross his mind of sterner, solitary Lake Iseo the Pallas of the three. She offers her own attractions. The sublimity of Monte Adamello, dominating Lovere and all the lowland like Hesiod's hill of Virtue reared aloft above the plain of common life, has charms to tempt heroic lovers. Nor can Varese be neglected.
At that moment we heard the stroke of oars across the quiet water and saw the Count's boat touch the landing-steps. Four strong oarsmen from Monte Isola were to row him down to Iseo, to take horse for Milan, and his servant, knapsack on shoulder, knocked warningly at the terrace window. "No time to lose, excellency!" he cried. Roberto turned and gripped my hand.
The priest stepped back as one whose curiosity was entirely satisfied. "Ah! I thought so. And the price they paid you, knave?" "Forty silver ducats, Excellency," "Ho, ho! so that is the price of a friar in Venice." The bravo sought to join in the jest. "Had they known it was the Prince of Iseo, it had been a hundred thousand, Excellency."
He knew what he was talking about when he said that there were no other roads in the world like the old Roman roads of the plain and no other highways exhibited such engineering skill and perfection as those of the mountains, north from Brescia along Lake Iseo to Tonale Pass, with its tunnels, curves and gradual ascents.
They are like the show pictures that some nobleman hangs in his public gallery; but our Iseo is the treasure that he hides in his inner chamber. You tell me you saw it in summer, when it looks up like a saint's eye, reflecting the whole of heaven. It was then too that I first saw it.
It chanced that I had used one of my short European holidays to explore afoot the romantic passes connecting the Valtelline with the lake of Iseo; and my remembrance of that enchanting region made it seem impossible that Don Egidio should ever look without a reminiscent pang on the grimy perspective of his parochial streets.
The villa on Iseo had been closed since the end of August. Roberto had no great liking for his gloomy palace in Milan, and it had been his habit to spend nine months of the year at Siviano; but he was now too much engrossed in his work to remain away from Milan, and his wife and sister had joined him there as soon as the midsummer heat was over.
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