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As Raoul gave this point a good berth, and his own progress was noiseless, this was bringing himself and companions, after their recent dangers, into comparative security. More than an hour of steady rowing followed, daring which time the yawl was making swift way toward the Marina Grande of Sorrento.
Never the winter came with its weary round of rain and fog and snow that his heart and mind did not fly over the tideless southern sea to the land of his birth if not of his blood. Sorrento, that jewel of the ruddy clifts! There was fog outside his window, and yet how easy it was to picture the turquoise bay of Naples shimmering in the morning light!
At the very moment, however, of all these legislative and diplomatic arrangements, Margaret of Parma was in possession of secret letters from Philip, which she was charged to deliver to the Archbishop of Sorrento, papal nuncio at the imperial court, then on a special visit to Brussels.
The next traveler who goes that way will no doubt be hailed by the quick-witted natives with this salutation; and, if he is of a philological turn, he will probably benefit his mind by running the phrase back to its ultimate Greek roots. For three years, once upon a time, it did not rain in Sorrento. Not a drop out of the clouds for three years, an Italian lady here, born in Ireland, assures me.
The poor people of Sorrento, when the public wells and fountains had gone dry, used to come and draw at the Tramontano; but they were not allowed to go to the well of the convent, the gates were closed. Why the government shut them I cannot see: perhaps it knew nothing of it, and some stupid official took the pompous responsibility.
She now proposes spending the summer at Sorrento, or thereabouts; and if mere delight of landscape and climate were enough, Adam and Eve, had their courier taken them to that region, might have done well enough without Paradise, and not been tempted, either, by any Tree of Knowledge; a kind that does not flourish in the Two Sicilies.
There is very little to do in Sorrento at night; no theaters, no bands, no well-lighted cafés, nothing save wandering companies who dance the tarantella in the lobbies of the hotels, the men clumsy in their native costumes and the girls with as much grace and figure as so many heifers. It is only in Sicily that the Latin has learned to dance.
As the steamer coasted the Italian shore, we saw dimly through the mist the bay and town of Salerno, then picturesque Sorrento perched among the rocks, and, in the distance, fog-crowned Mount Vesuvius with a thin column of smoke ascending from the crater, and many towns and villages at its base. Directly ahead of us were the bay of Naples and the city, partially hidden from our sight by a fog.
For there lay the sea, and the plain of Sorrento, with its darkening groves and hundreds of twinkling lights. As we went down the last descent, the bells of the town were all ringing, for it was the eve of the fete of St. Antonino. "CAP, signor? Good day for Grott." Thus spoke a mariner, touching his Phrygian cap. The people here abbreviate all names.
She could not have been forced to such labor, or she never would have had the time to work that wonderful coverlet. Giuseppe was an honest and rather handsome young fellow of Sorrento, industrious and good-natured, who did not bother his head much about learning.
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