Two days later, we were once more on the road, Frater, Belle Soeur
and I. We were going up over the Faulhorn to Lake Brienz on the other
side, and just because it was so easy to step out of our back door and
start up the slope and we had no prick of a train to catch, we lingered
around over last words and last preparations a good hour longer than
we should have done. And for some reason that day we did not walk with
our usual snap. So we reached the summit at tea-time instead of at
lunch-time.
It had been a very beautiful trip up, with the Grindelwald valley
sinking lower and lower, and the white peaks behind the Eiger and
Wetterhorn opening up more and more. The Schreckhörner are wonderfully
impressive from this view and the Finsteraarhorn attains nearly the
majesty that belongs to it. The early part of the way the prospect is
framed by the fir trees through which one looks. Above the tree belt
the foreground is still by no means lacking in picturesque incidents,
chief among which are the cold round little Bach lake and the jagged
Röthihorn and Simelihorn peaks.
On the summit, which is nearly nine thousand feet high, there is a very
solid little stone hotel constructed to withstand the terrible storms
which sweep over so exposed a spot. Toward Lake Brienz the drop is very
steep,—almost precipitate at first. One looks way over to Lake Lucerne,
Pilatus and Rigi. But when we came there that region was covered with
fleecy white clouds, which looked like a great churned-up foamy lake,
with little mountain-peak islands rising above it here and there. The
effect was singularly beautiful—much more so than any topographic
clearness could have been.
As we drank our tea and enjoyed the view, we made inquiries of the
proprietor as to our path downward to Giessbach on Lake Brienz. He
tried to dissuade us from attempting it, saying the path was long,
rough, and hard to find, and we could not possibly get there before
dark. He said that professional delicacy prevented his urging us to
remain where we were over-night, which would obviously be the most
sensible thing to do, so he would suggest our going to the Schynige
Platte, where we _could_ arrive before dark and have a fine path all
the way. The Schynige Platte is an excursion place on a lower spur
of the Faulhorn ridge, connected by rack and pinion railway with
Interlaken. We had resolutely kept away from it all summer and had no
notion of visiting it now. Neither did we want to stay all night at the
Faulhorn. So we resolved to try for Giessbach and trust to luck to get
_some_ shelter if we did not make our destination.
The proprietor disapprovingly pointed out our route as far as he could.
No one had been that way for some days, and in the meantime there had
been a heavy fall of snow, so the first part of our progress was not
rapid, as we sunk half-way to the knees at each step.
After passing a curious rocky pinnacle like an upward-pointing finger,
which had been our first land-mark, we got rid of the snow and were
able to descend quite rapidly across a rock-strewn plain. It was here
that we heard the Whistling Marmots and marked one more of our life
ambitions achieved.
I do not know why we had yearned so intensely all summer for whistling
marmots, but we had,—even more than for edelweiss, which is too
obvious. Baedeker has a way of mentioning them in very solitary
places like the Gries Pass or the Rawyl, but we had never met them as
scheduled. We had seen a marmot in captivity in Grindelwald, but he
was a very sad and depressed little furry beast who would never have
dreamed of whistling. But here, when we were least thinking of them,
we must have walked right into a marmot colony. We heard their little
voices calling to each other, whistling unmistakably, and saw them
scurrying to their holes among the rocks as we approached.
We lost our trail a dozen times, but having some abandoned cheese huts
just above the woods to direct ourselves to, it did not greatly matter.
Once among the trees, how dark it got all of a sudden! We took the
wrong path and found ourselves on the edge of nothing, retraced our
steps and started again. We were going just as fast as we could, racing
with the darkness, but we soon realized that, so far as Giessbach was
concerned, the race would be a losing one. It was so piercingly cold
that a night in the open air sounded painful, and we kept on in the
hope of finding _something_.
Just in the last moment of twilight we emerged from the thick woods
onto a grassy shoulder upon which was an empty cow-shed. Above it was
a loft full of hay. On the ground was a ladder. Nothing was locked.
Perhaps fifteen hundred feet below us we could see the roofs of a group
of huts, which appeared to be inhabited—about such a place as Nieder
Rawyl. It was very doubtful if we could find our way down to them
through the woods, so dark had it become, and we decided that a clean
hayloft to ourselves would be better than the hospitality they could
offer anyhow. So we decided to stay. Fortunately we had ample left from
our luncheon to serve us for supper, and by skimping a bit, we could
save something for breakfast.
We spent a long time trying to start a bonfire at which to warm
ourselves and dry our snow-wet shoes. It could have been done by
using loose boards which we saw lying around outside, but we had
conscientious scruples against making ourselves quite so much at home
(or _some_ of us had) and tried to construct the fire from brush
gathered in the woods, all of which appeared to be water-soaked.
At last, however, Frater’s bonfire skill triumphed, and we sat down
around a cheerful little blaze and steamed out our very chilly
water-logged shoes and dress skirts and watched the moon rise over the
mountain top. Then, when sufficiently warm, dry and sleepy, we climbed
up the ladder into the loft, buried ourselves deep in the hay, and were
soon lost to consciousness.
Anybody who has a lingering idea that there is something poetic in
sleeping among the fragrant hay of a loft, had better revise his views.
It is distinctly tickly and scratchy and full of dust. And the rats run
in and out. However, it is clean and warm, and if you’re tired enough,
it will serve.
In the early gloaming we were awakened by voices outside. Two men were
circumnavigating our hut engaged in earnest discussion. Probably they
belonged in the huts below, had seen our bonfire the night before and
had come up to find out what damage had been done. Being satisfied on
this point, they departed. The ladder was standing against the side of
the barn where the loft door was and Belle Soeur’s alpenstock was lying
on the ground below, so they must have known we were still there, but
they did nothing to disturb us. Meanwhile we, having nothing to gain
by an interview, lay low and held our peace. Each of us thought that
the other two were asleep and he or she was the only moral coward,
but we found later that we were three of a kind! Really, though, the
consciousness of being a trespasser _does_ put one at a disadvantage,
and the inability to communicate freely with a patois-speaking
peasantry increases the handicap.
After our involuntary hosts had taken themselves away, we emerged from
our several nests and picked the wisps of hay from each other. It was
very cold and gray at that hour, and the inadequate fragments of stale
sandwiches left from the day before were not the most cheering sort
of breakfast. When we had consumed the last crumb and performed scanty
ablutions in an ice-water brook near by and left everything snug and
tight at our late lodgings, we started downward. Our muscles were
painfully stiff at first, but gradually limbered up.
About nine o’clock we reached an outlying refreshment house overhanging
the Giessbach, whose course we had been following for some time, and
here we stopped for a belated, but much appreciated, _café-au-lait_.
The rest of the day was, from the point of view of a trio of tramps
who had spent the night in a hayloft after forgathering with whistling
marmots, distinctly civilized and commonplace. We reached the level
of Lake Brienz and skirted it to the upper end where the Aar flows in
from the Meiringen Valley. We cut across to the Brünig Pass road and
followed the gentle grade upward, lunching late (in view of the nine
o’clock breakfast) at a roadside restaurant.
[Illustration: _Brienz Village and Lake_]
Not only railroad and carriages, but even automobiles go over the
Brünig, so it can be imagined that it is not strenuous climbing, nor
are its views, though attractive, grandiose.
After leaving the summit, we fairly annihilated space, and by
dinner-time had reached the village rejoicing in the euphonious name
of Giswil. We put up at a rather comfortable inn where we seemed to be
the only guests, but the proprietor’s children appeared so incredibly
numerous that we decided he had gone into the hotel business to get
their groceries at trade rates.
I asked the maid waiting on us at dinner what time the train left for
Lucerne in the morning. She said she wasn’t sure, and would I come down
and examine the time-table in the lower hall? It was a very large and
complex sheet, some three feet by six, but I thought I could master a
time-table—_any_ time-table. We all have our little vanities. I took
plenty of time at it and at last found the column and the correct
direction and emerged triumphant with the information that the train
left at 7.15, and accordingly gave careful directions that our coffee
was to be ready at 6.30 and we were to be called at 6.
Things were just a trifle late next morning, and as we were not sure
of the distance to the station, we bolted our breakfast and hurried
about the paying of our bill and walked at an uncomfortably rapid gait,
arriving with just the desirable five minutes to spare, according to
our watches. To our surprise the ticket office was closed. So were the
baggage office and the freight office. There was not an employee in
sight. Were our watches wrong? Had the train already left? Even so, it
seemed incredible that the premises could have been completely deserted
so quickly. At last, having nothing else to do, I began to study the
time-tables on the walls. And then I made a discovery. The train we
were trying to take ran only on Sundays and the 12th of May, and it
wasn’t either! The regular week-day train wasn’t due for an hour.
I wish to say that the conduct of my companions at this juncture was
truly magnanimous. The laugh was very distinctly on me, but they didn’t
laugh it. They expended all their risibility on the 12th of May. That
annual date on which our train ran seemed to tickle their funny-bones
exquisitely. They never once reproached me for the too-hastily
swallowed coffee and the precious minutes of sleep that might have
been, but wandered off to visit the cemetery or some such cheerful
spot, while I read Baedeker and kept guard over the knapsacks in the
waiting-room.
If there _had_ been a train when we thought and we had only five
minutes before it was due, we certainly should have missed it, for I
think it took the station-master a good twenty minutes to make out our
tickets. They involved a whole ten miles of railroad travel from Giswil
to Alpnachstad, and a boat trip from there to Lucerne. The tickets
were long folding affairs in many sections, as for a trip across the
continent, filled in at many places with writing (there was also a book
in which the poor man had to write an extraordinary amount), and I
think they cost us eighteen cents apiece!
The approach to Lucerne by boat instead of by train must be a very
pleasant one in any respectable sort of weather, but our day had turned
into a gray drizzle with a gale of freezing wind. Mists and clouds shut
out all the mountains, and the face of the lake was lashed into a
sort of impotent baby fury. It was this kind of a day, I am sure, when
Gesler had Tell unbound to take charge of the imperiled row-boat. It
was not perilous on a modern lake passenger boat, but neither was it
joyous.
[Illustration: _Lucerne, Old Covered Bridge and Water Tower_]