The Revenge of the Mountain
"Contending with the fretful elements."
--SHAKESPEARE.
It is the early bird which gathers the worm, if the worm has
thoughtlessly got up early too; but it is also the bird which comes
flying from afar off, whatever his engagements elsewhere may be; the
bird which, having come, remains on the spot favoured by the worm,
singing sweet songs to charm it into a mood ripe for the gathering.
Such a bird was Paolo, and such--but perhaps it would be more gallant
not to carry the simile further, since even poetry could scarcely
license it.
It is enough to say, in proof of the proverb, that when the Boy and I
arrived at the villa in time for _déjeuner_, to which I had been
invited over night, we found Paolo with Gaetà, under the red umbrella,
unencumbered by any irrelevant Barons or Baronesses.
Gaetà was looking pale and a little frightened. Her dimples were in
abeyance, as if waiting to learn whether something had happened to
twinkle about, or something which would more likely extinguish them
forever. But the aëronaut might have invented an air-ship to take the
place of ordinary Channel traffic, so great with pride was he. He
appeared to have grown several inches in height, and to have
increased considerably in chest measurement, as he sprang from his
chair to welcome us, as if we had been long-lost brothers.
"Congratulate me," said he. "The Contessa has just consented to be my
wife."
Gaetà clutched the arm of her rustic seat with a tiny hand upon which
a new ring glittered, like a new star in the firmament. Her warm dark
eyes, eager, expectant, deliciously fearful, were on the Boy. If the
discarded favourite of yesterday had leaped to the throat of the
accepted lover of to-day (her "Whirlwind"), she would have screamed a
silvery little scream and implored him for _her_ sake to accept the
inevitable calmly; she would have given him a reproachful flash of the
eyes, to say, "Why didn't _you_ take me, instead of letting him carry
me away? What could I do, when you left me alone, at his mercy--I so
frail, he so big and strong?" Her glance would then have telegraphed
to Paolo, "You have won me and my love; you can afford to spare a
defeated rival who is desperate"; and perhaps she might even have
thrown me a crumb for auld flirtation's sake.
But the Boy did not, apparently, feel the least magnetic attraction
towards Paolo's throat, or any other vulnerable part of the aëronaut's
person. Nor did he stamp on the ground, crying upon earth to open and
swallow the master of the air. I, too, kept an unmoved front; but
then, being English, that might have been pardoned to my national
_sang-froid_. There was, however, no such excuse for the mercurial
young American, and flat disappointment struck out the spark in
Gaetà's eye. The second act of her little drama seemed doomed to
failure.
"_Mille congratulations_," said the Boy cordially, I basely echoing
him. We shook hands with Gaetà; we shook hands with Paolo, and
something was said about weddings and wedding-cake. Then the Baron and
Baronessa appeared so opportunely as to give rise to the base
suspicion that they had been eavesdropping. More polite things were
mumbled, and we went to luncheon, Gaetà on Paolo's arm, with a
disappointed droop of her pretty shoulders. We drank to the health and
happiness of the newly affianced pair, a habit which seemed to be
growing upon me of late, and might lead me down the fatal grade of
bachelordom. The Boy and I were unable to conceal, as we ought to have
done out of politeness, the fact that our appetites had sustained the
shock of our lady's engagement, and I saw in her eyes that she could
never wholly forgive us, no, not even if we made love to her after
marriage.
"Shall you take your wedding trip in a balloon?" asked the Boy
demurely; and this was the last straw. Gaetà did not make the faintest
protest when, soon after, it was announced that he and I thought of
leaving Aix on the morrow. I am not sure that she even heard my vague
apologies concerning a telegram from friends.
We all went to the opera at one of the Casinos that night. It was
"Rigoletto," and Gaetà and Paolo sat side by side, looking into each
other's eyes during the love scene in the first act. But the Boy was
adamant, and I did not turn a hair. He and I were much occupied in
wondering at the strange infatuation of the stage hero, but especially
the villain--quite a superior villain--for the heroine, who looked
like an elderly papoose: therefore we had no time to be jealous of
anything that went on under our noses. The party supped with me, _en
masse_, at my hotel; and afterwards I said good-bye to Gaetà.
She did not know that I had planned my journey with a thought of
seeing her at the end, and drowning my sorrows in flirtation; but the
Boy knew, and had not forgotten--the little wretch. I saw his thought
twinkling in his eyes, as I said debonairly that we might all meet on
the Riviera. If I had not sternly removed my gaze, I should probably
have burst out laughing, and precipitated a second duel in which I,
and not the Boy, would have been a principal.
When I had been in Aix-les-Bains before, I had made the excursion to
Mont Revard, as all the world makes it, by the funicular railway; and
after half an hour in the little train, I had arrived at the top for
lunch and the view, both being enjoyed in a conventional manner. Now,
all was to be changed. The Boy and I did not regard ourselves as
tourists, but as pilgrims.
Among other things that self-respecting pilgrims cannot do, is to
ascend a mountain by means of a funicular railway; better stay at the
bottom, and look up with reverence. Therefore, instead of strolling
out to the little station about twelve o'clock, with the view of
reaching the restaurant on the plateau in time for _déjeuner_, we met
on the balcony of the Bristol at seven in the morning. There we
fortified ourselves for a long walk, with eggs and _café au lait_,
while Innocentina and Joseph grouped the animals at the foot of the
steps.
The day was divinely young, and most divinely fair, when we set forth.
Only the soft fall of an occasional leaf, weary of keeping up
appearances on no visible means of support, told that autumn had
come. The weather put me in mind of a beautiful woman of forty, who
can still cheat the world into believing that she is in the full
summer of her prime, and is making the most of the few good years left
before the crash.
As we struck up the steep hill that leads out of Aix-les-Bains and
civilisation, passing with all our little procession into the oak
copses which fringe the lower slopes of Mont Revard, the Boy and I
agreed that nothing became the town so well as the leaving it behind.
At last little Aix unveiled her face to us, as we looked down upon it
from airy altitudes. We had space to see how pretty she was, how
charmingly she was dressed, and how gracefully she sat in her
mountain-backed chair, with her dainty white feet in the lake, which,
as Joseph said, we could now follow with our eyes _dans toute son
étendue_. A beautiful _étendue_ it was, the water keeping its
extraordinary brilliance of colour, even in the far distance; vivid in
changing blue-greens, flecked with gold, like the spread tail of a
peacock burnished by the sun.
Mont Revard is chiselled on the same pattern as all the other
mountains, big and little, of this part of Savoie; first, the long,
steep slope decently covered with a belt of wood, oak below, and pine
above; then a grey, precipitous wall, scarred and furrowed by the
frost and storm of a million years or more. This block-and-socket
arrangement of Nature is, generally speaking, one of the least
interesting of mountain forms, and its crudity was the more noticeable
as we were fresh from the soaring pinnacles and stupendous pyramids of
Switzerland. But Mont Revard is the perfection of its type; and as we
plodded in single file up the threadlike path wound round the
mountain (Joseph and Innocentina in front, driving the animals), my
respect for Revard increased with each steeply ascending step.
Aromatic-scented branches brushed our faces, and we had to part them
before we could pass on. Then they flew back into their accustomed
places, resenting our intrusion by shaking over us a shower of
fragrant dew. The path, which was always narrow, had fallen away a
little here and there, for it is no one's business to repair it now,
since the making of the railway has turned pilgrims into tourists.
There was just room for man or beast to walk without danger, but so
sheer were the descents below us, so great the drop, that a woman
might have been pardoned a few tremors. "It's a good thing you're not
a girl," said I to the Little Pal, across my shoulder, holding back a
particularly obstinate branch which would have liked to push us over
the precipice, with its lean black arm. "You would be screaming, and I
shouldn't know what to do for you."
"Not if I were an American girl," he replied, bristling with
patriotism.
"Is your sister plucky?"
"As plucky as I am; but perhaps that's not saying much. So you're glad
I'm not a girl?"
"I wouldn't metamorphose you, and lose my comrade. Still, if your
sister were like you, and not an heiress, I should----"
"You would--what?"
"Like to meet her. But she would probably detest me, and wonder how
her brother could have endured my society for weeks on end."
I was looking back, as I spoke, at the Boy, who was close behind, when
suddenly his smile seemed to freeze, and springing forward he caught
me by the coat sleeve.
"What's the matter?" I asked, for he was pale under the brown tan.
For an instant he did not answer. Then, with his lips trembling
slightly, he smiled again. "I thought you were going to be killed,
that's all," said he, "so I stopped you. You were looking back at me,
but I saw that--that you were just going to tread on a stone which
Fanny had loosened with her hoof as she passed. If you had stepped
there, before you could regain your balance, you--but there's no use
talking of it. Only do look where you're walking, won't you, when
we're on a path like this? Now we can go on."
"Why, you little duffer, you're as white as a ghost!" I exclaimed. "If
the stone had slipped I should have jumped back. The path isn't really
so narrow. It only gives that effect because it's steep, and hangs
over the edge of a precipice. Still, many thanks for your solicitude."
"I believe, after all, I'll have to rest for a minute," the Boy said
apologetically. "I feel--a little queer. You needn't wait. I'm sorry
you should see me like this. You'll think that there's nothing to
choose between me and a girl. But I'm not always a coward."
"I know that well enough," I assured him. "You're not a coward now.
But come on. You shall rest when the path widens, where the others are
stopping."
I caught his hand to pull him along, since we could not walk abreast,
and it was icy cold. Yet it was not for himself that he had feared,
and my heart was very warm for the Little Pal, as I steered him
carefully past the loose, flat stone on the edge of the narrow path.
Joseph and Innocentina, who had been driving Finois and Souris,
allowing Fanny to follow at will, had called a halt with the three
animals, in a green dell where the way widened. The muleteer had a
handful of exquisite pink cyclamen, fragrant as violets, which he had
been gathering from hidden nooks among the rocks, and he was in the
act of presenting the flowers to Innocentina when we arrived, but she
waved them aside, exclaiming at her young master's pale face.
The Boy explained that there might have been an accident, owing to
Fanny, and the donkey girl broke into violent abuse of the brown
velvet creature who was her favourite.
"Daughter of a thrice-accursed mother, and of a despicable race!" she
cried in her odd patois, which it was often better not to understand
too well. "Blighted and bloodthirsty beast! But look at her now,
eating with an enormous appetite a branch as big as herself. Anaconda!
She would eat if the world burned. If she had, with a stroke of her
twenty times condemned hoof, hurled us all to death on the rocks
below, she would still eat, not even looking over the cliff to see
what had become of us."
"But you should not talk so," broke in Joseph, lover of animals. "It
was not the fault of the little _âne_ that the stone was loosened. How
could she know? It is you who are hard of heart, to turn upon her
thus. It is because you are Catholic, and believe that the beasts have
no souls."
"It is better to have none than to be a heretic, and the soul burn,"
retorted Innocentina. "I am not hard-hearted. I love my young
Monsieur, and would not see him injured, that is all; while you care
for nothing in the world so much as your old Finois. Ah, I would I had
the _insouciance_ of the _ânes_. It is after all that which keeps them
young."
At this we laughed, which annoyed Innocentina so much that she at once
fed to the maligned Fanny a bunch of charming yellow-pink mushrooms
which my prophetic soul told me had been originally intended for her
master's lunch.
Fortunately for us, Joseph--sadly wearing in his buttonhole the
despised cyclamen--discovered a few more of these agreeable little
vegetables, which he tested for our benefit by drawing his sturdy
thumbnail along the stem, showing how the fluted undersurface flushed
red at the touch, while the blood flowed carmine from the wound he
made.
A short rest brought the colour back to the Boy's lips, but we did not
go on again until we had eaten some of the chicken sandwiches which
had been put up for me at the hotel. Climbing had made us hungry,
although we had not been three hours on the way. And we had left the
summer behind, on lower levels; we did not need to remind ourselves
now that it was autumn. By noon we were _en route_ again, but the
brilliance of the day had gone. As we looked back at the world we were
leaving, serrated mountains were dark against flying silver clouds,
and when we neared the Col, a fierce north wind, which had been lying
in wait for us above, swooped down like a great bird of prey. We had
heard it shrieking from afar, but now we had penetrated into its very
eyrie; and as we crept, like flies upon a wall, along the tiny path
which merely roughened the sheer rock precipice, the wind caught and
clawed us with savage glee.
For a wonder, the much-travelled Joseph had never before made the
ascent of Mont Revard, therefore a certain pioneer instinct on which I
pride myself, and yesterday's research in the admirable map of the
Ministry of the Interior, alone gave us guidance. I did not see how we
could have come wrong, yet each moment it appeared that our neglected
path had reached its end, like an unwound tape-measure. Could it be
possible that this broken, ill-mended thread was the clue which would
eventually lead us to the Col de Pertuiset, and the châlet-hotel far
away upon the summit of the mountain?
The Boy and I were ahead now, I sheltering him slightly from the cold
blast with my body, as I walked before him. Presently the way turned
abruptly, to zig-zag up a gap in the rock face, and I shouted a
warning to Joseph to look after Innocentina and the animals, so steep
and ruinous was the path. But I need not have been alarmed. A backward
glance showed me that Joseph had anticipated my instructions, so far
as Innocentina was concerned.
Not a word of complaint came from the Boy; indeed, it would have been
difficult for him to utter it, even if he would, with the wind rudely
pressing its seal upon his lips. But I held out a hand to him, and
though he rebelled at first, an instant's silent tussle made me master
of his, so that I could pull him up with little effort on his part.
In the deep gullies and hollows of this chasm below the Col, the wind
had us at its mercy, and forced our breath down our throats. We were
in deep shadow, though the sun should have been not far past the
zenith, and looking up to learn the reason, we saw that a huge bank of
woolly mist hung grey and heavy between us and the sky. Below--far,
far below--we had a glimpse of the world we had left still bathed in
September sunshine, warm and beautiful, with cloud-shadows flying over
low grass mountains and distant lakes. Then we seemed to knock our
heads against a dull grey ceiling, which noiselessly crumbled round
us, and we were in the mist.
No longer was it a ceiling, but a sea in which we swam; a sea so cold
that a shiver crept through our bones into our marrow. We had escaped
the clutches of the wind, to drown in fog, and in five minutes I had
beside me a small, ghostly form with frosted hair, and a white rime on
his jacket. The Boy was like a figure on a great iced cake, for the
ground was whitened too.
Luckily, the ascent was over, and we were on grassy, undulating land
where stunted trees stood here and there like pointing wraiths in the
misty gloom. Dimly I could see, now and then, a daub of paint, red as
a splash of blood, on a dark boulder, to guide travellers towards the
summit hotel. Had it not been for these, it would have been impossible
to find the way, or keep it if found.
We could walk side by side here, and looking down at the Boy, I could
see that he was shivering.
"Can it be that a few hours ago the mere exertion of walking made us
so hot that we had to mop our foreheads, and fan ourselves with our
hats?" I asked.
"Let's talk about it," said the Boy. "It may warm us, just to
remember."
"Are you very cold?"
"Not so ve-r-y."
"Your teeth are chattering in your head. Stop, we'll have our
overcoats out of the packs."
"I don't want mine."
"Nonsense; you must have it."
"To tell the truth, I haven't got it with me. I gave it to the
upstairs waiter at Chamounix. He told me a lot about himself, and he
was in trouble, poor fellow; he'd been discharged for some fault or
other, and was so poor that he was going to walk home, in the farthest
part of Switzerland. You see, I thought as I was on the way south, I
wouldn't need an overcoat. I'd hardly ever wanted it so far, and the
waiter was a small, slim chap, not much bigger than I am. Anyhow, we
shall soon be at the hotel now, and we can walk fast."
He looked so white and spirit-like in the mist, with his big bright
eyes made brighter by the tired shadows underneath, that I would not
discourage him with the truth. If I had said that I feared we were
lost in the mist, and perhaps might not reach the hotel for hours, he
would have realised all his weariness and suffering. I made him wait,
however, and when the ghostly procession of man, woman, and beasts had
trailed up to us, I ordered a stop for Finois to be unloaded, that my
overcoat might be unearthed.
In place of the workmanlike pack which the mule might have borne, had
I not insisted on fulfilling a rash vow, my luggage was contained in
twin brown hold-alls bought at Martigny, and covered with a waterproof
cloth which was the property of Joseph.
Both these abominable rolls had to be taken off Finois' back and laid
upon the whitened grass, as I had forgotten in which one was stuffed
the coat that I had not worn for many days. Now at this bitter
moment, could my valet but have known it, he had his full revenge. I
longed for him as a thirsty traveller in the desert longs for a spring
of water. Yet I knew, deep down in my desolate heart, that Locker
would not have been able to cope with this crisis. In cities, he was
more efficient than most of his kind, but the Unusual was a bugbear to
him; and, lost in a freezing mountain mist, he would have lain down to
die with my horrible hold-alls still strapped and bulging. It is a
strange thing that most servants would consider themselves deeply
injured if asked to bear half the hardships which their masters
cheerfully undergo for the sheer fun of the thing.
Joseph came to my rescue, but, with all the good will in the world, he
complicated matters. Finois, Fanny, and Souris pressed nearer, hoping
for something to eat, and the two donkeys, discouraged and
disheartened by the unexpected cold, were piteous, shivering objects,
with their velvet hair bristling on end, their little legs knocking
together. Even their faces seemed to have shrunk, and Fanny was all
eyes and grey spectacles.
I opened the hateful object which, by its tuberculous knobs, I
recognised as the one least often unpacked. It was there that I
expected to find the coat, wrapped democratically round goodness knew
how many spare boots, stockings, collars, and other small articles
which Locker would never have allowed to come within speaking distance
of each other. But, with the total depravity of inanimate things, the
coat had escaped from the hold-all. In my certainty that I must come
upon it sooner or later--at the bottom of everything, of course--I
scattered the other contents recklessly about; and when at last I gave
up the search in despair, the white ground was strewn with the most
intimate accessories of my toilet. Seized with a Berserker rage, I
tore open the second hold-all, and before the Boy could utter a cry of
protest, more collars, handkerchiefs, brushes, and little horrors of
every description peppered the earth. There were as many things there
as the inestimable mother of the Swiss Family Robinson contrived to
stow in her wonderful bag during the five minutes before the
shipwreck--things which fulfilled all the wants of the young Robinsons
for the period of seventeen years. But, naturally, the one thing I
needed was missing; and now that it was too late, I vaguely recalled
seeing that overcoat hanging limply on a peg in the wardrobe of some
hotel whose very name I had now forgotten.
If I had been a woman, I should inevitably have burst into tears, and
somebody would have comforted me, and everything would immediately
have been all right. As it was, I used several of Innocentina's most
lurid phrases, under my breath, and announced my intention of
abandoning my luggage on the mountain-side, rather than attempt the
impossible task of feeding it again to the monsters which had
disgorged it.
"Poor Man!" exclaimed the Boy. "Why didn't you confide to me before,
that you were physically and mentally incapable of packing? I've often
noticed that your hold-alls looked like overfed boa constrictors, but
I didn't dream things were as bad as this. You had better let
Innocentina and me do the work for you. We're what you call 'nailers'
at it, I assure you."
I made a snatch at a dressing-gown, which I rescued from the
conglomerate heap before he could push me away. Then, with the
garment hung over my arm, I stood by helplessly with Joseph, while
Innocentina and the Boy, with incredible swiftness and skill, set
about the business from which I had been dismissed. Somewhat after
this fashion must the work of Creation have been done, when there was
only Chaos to begin upon.
In five minutes all my scattered horrors had been sorted neatly,
according to their species, like the animals forming in procession for
the ark; collars after their kind; boots after their kind; and so on,
down to the humble shoestring and mean shirt-stud. Never had those
loathsome inventions of an evil mind, my hold-alls, so closely
resembled self-respecting members of the luggage fraternity as they
did when the Boy and Innocentina had finished with them.
With a sigh of relief the Little Pal jumped up from his grim task,
leaving Joseph to fasten the straps; and as he got to his feet, his
small hands purple with cold, I wrapped the dressing-gown round his
shoulders. Then, seeing his slight figure engulfed in it, like a very
small pea in a very big pod, I burst out laughing.
"Is _that_ what you wanted?" cried the Boy. "I won't have it. I won't!
I'd rather freeze than be a guy. Put it on yourself."
"I don't need it. It was for you. Don't be ungrateful, after all my
trouble."
"All _my_ trouble, you mean. Take off the horrid thing. I won't wear
it. Let me alone."
Unmoved by his complaints, I still held him prisoner, using the
dressing-gown as a strait-jacket, while he fought in my grasp. A
sudden suppressed giggle from Innocentina at this juncture seemed to
drive him to frenzy.
"If you don't let me go, I'll--I'll box your ears!" he stammered.
"Try it," I advised sternly.
He could not move his arms, so closely I held him, but his eyes were
blazing.
"You'll be sorry for this some day," he panted.
"Will you keep on the dressing-gown, if I let you go?".
"No."
"Then will you wear my coat?"
"What! And have you in your shirt-sleeves? Rather not. Let me----"
"I'll give you the coat and wear the dressing-gown myself. _I'm_ not
as vain as a girl."
Whether the thought of what my appearance would be in the gown, or the
taunt I flung at him, moved the Boy, I cannot say, but suddenly his
struggles ceased.
"I'll wear anything you like," said he with a sudden accession of
meekness, so unexpected that I was alarmed for his health, and gazed
at him closely to see if he were on the verge of a collapse. Instead
of looking ill, however, he was no longer pinched and pallid, but
radiant with colour. Rage had produced a beneficial effect upon his
circulation.
On his promise, I released him, nor did I insist when he waved me
aside, and hurriedly girded up the dressing-gown himself. The garment
reached almost to his feet, and the quaintness of the little figure
shrouded in its dark folds and hatted with Panama straw, in the midst
of a mountain snow-cloud, was a sight to make Fanny laugh; but I kept
a grave face, and so did Joseph and Innocentina, though the
donkey-girl's eyes were bright.
We marched on again when Finois had been reloaded, the party keeping
well together, lest we should lose each other in this mist which was
snow, this snow which was mist. The Boy and I walked ahead at first; I
silent lest I should laugh, he silent--probably--lest he should cry.
The woolly cloud wrapped its folds round us thicker and closer, so
that objects a dozen feet away were blotted out of sight, and for all
practical purposes ceased to exist. The silvery rime, freezing as it
fell, covered stones and boulders so that it was no longer possible to
see the red splashes which marked the way. Soon, we were hopelessly
lost, plunging down into grassy hollows, where our feet slipped
between rough stones into muddy ruts concealed under a treacherous
film of white, or plodding up to the top of knolls which proved to
have no connection with anything else, when we had toilsomely attained
them.
By-and-bye I knew how a man feels in a treadmill, and I was anxious
for the Boy's sake, seeing the queer little figure in the panama and
dressing-gown gradually droop, despite the brave spirit with which it
was animated. Losing confidence in my boasted ability as a pioneer, I
called Joseph to the rescue, and bade him take the lead.
Having intruded upon him suddenly, behind the screen of snow-cloud, I
found him engaged in the Samaritan act--no doubt carried out on purely
humanitarian principles--of warming one of Innocentina's hands in his.
I simulated blindness with such histrionic skill that honest Joseph
was deceived thereby; but not so Innocentina. She tossed her head, and
folded her arms in her cape as if it had been the toga of a Roman
senator unjustly accused of treason. She had been, so she assured me,
at that instant on the point of coming forward to entreat her young
monsieur to mount Fanny, since he must be deadly tired; but the Boy,
joining us at the moment, denied excessive fatigue and said that he
would freeze if he rode. Besides, he added, it would be cruel to
burden Fanny, in her present state of depression. The most likely
thing was that we should have to carry her; and if she continued to
shrink at her present rate per minute, soon we could slip her into one
of our pockets.
Joseph, promoted to the post of honour, forged ahead; and either Fanny
and Souris insisted upon following Finois, or else Innocentina felt
called upon to continue the process of conversion even in adverse
circumstances; at all events, the Boy and I almost immediately found
ourselves in the background, all that we could see of our companions
being a tassel-like grey tail quivering above a moving blur of little
legs, scarcely thicker than toothpicks.
The Boy, who was still sulking in the dressing-gown, suddenly broke by
a spasmodic chuckle the silence which had blended chillingly with the
weather.
"What's up?" I enquired, thawing joyously in the brief gleam of moral
sunshine.
"I was only thinking that if Innocentina wants to convert Joseph from
heresy she'd better not lecture him to-day about eternal fire. The
idea is too inviting. I never envied anyone so much as my namesake,
St. Laurence, on his gridiron. It would be a luxury to grill."
"Perhaps the gridiron was to him what my dressing-gown is to you,"
said I.
"I'm getting resigned to it. That's the reason I'm talking to you. I
hated you for five minutes; but--you never like people so much as
when you've just finished hating them."
"Which means that I'm forgiven?"
"That, and something more."
"Good imp! The thermometer is rising. But I feel a beast to have got
you into this scrape. If it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't have
known that a mule-path existed on Mont Revard."
"I'm not sorry we came. This will be something to remember always.
It's a real adventure. Afterwards we shall get the point of view."
"I wish we could get one now," said I. "But the prospect isn't
cheerful. Molly Winston's prophecy is being fulfilled. She was certain
that sooner or later I should be lost on a mountain; and her sketch of
me, curled up in sleeping-sack and tent, toasting my toes before a
fire of twigs, and eating tinned soup, steaming hot, made me long to
lose myself immediately. But, alas! a peasant child near Piedimulera
is basking at this moment in my woolly sack, and battening on my
Instantaneous Breakfasts."
"Don't think of them," said the Boy. "That way madness lies. A chapter
in my book shall be called, 'How to be Happy though Freezing.'"
"What would be your definition of the state, precisely?"
"Being with Somebody you--like."
My temperature bounded up several degrees, thanks to these amends, but
our sole comfort was in each other, since Joseph had no hope to give.
At this moment he parted the mist-curtain to remark that he could find
no traces of a path or landmark of any kind.
Hours dragged on, and we were still wandering aimlessly, as one
wanders in a troubled dream. We were chilled to the bone, and as it
was by this time late in the afternoon, I began to fear that we should
have to spend the night on the mountain-side. Revard was wreaking
vengeance upon us for taking his name in vain. We had made naught of
him as a mountain; now he was showing us that, were he sixteen
thousand feet high instead of four, he could scarcely put us to more
serious inconvenience.
I was growing gravely anxious about the Boy, though the bitter cold
and great fatigue had not quenched his spirit, when the smell of
cattle and the muffled sound of human voices put life into the chill,
dead body of the mist. A house loomed before us, and I sprang to the
comforting conclusion that we had stumbled upon one of the outlying
offices of the hotel, but an instant showed me my mistake. The low
building was a rough stone châlet with two or three cowherds outside
the door, and these men stared in surprise and curiosity at our
ghostly party.
"Are we far from the hotel?" I asked in French, but no gleam of
understanding lightened their faces; and it was not until Joseph had
addressed them in the most extraordinary patois I had ever heard, that
they showed signs of intelligence. "Hoo-a-long, hoo-a-long, walla-ha?"
he remarked, or words to that effect.
"Squall-a-doo, soo-a-lone, bolla-hang," returned one of the men,
suddenly wound up to gesticulate with violence.
"He says that the hotel is about half an hour's walk from here,"
Joseph explained to me, looking wistful. And my own feelings gave me
the clue to that look's significance.
"Thank goodness!" I exclaimed heartily. "But it would be tempting
Providence to pass this house, which is at least a human habitation,
without resting and warming the blood in our veins. Perhaps we can get
something to eat for ourselves and the donkeys--to say nothing of
something to drink."
Another exchange of words like brickbats afforded us the information,
when translated, that we could obtain black bread, cheese, and brandy;
also that we were welcome to sit before the fire.
I pushed the Boy in ahead of me, but he fell back. The stench which
struck us in the face as the door opened was like an evil-smelling
pillow, thrown with good aim by an unseen hand. Mankind, dog-kind,
cow-kind, chicken-kind, and cheese-kind, together with many
ingredients unknown to science, combined in the making of this
composite odour, and its strength sent the Boy reeling into my arms.
"No, I can't stand it," he gasped. "I shall faint. Better freeze than
suffocate."
But I forced him in; and in five minutes, to our own self-loathing, we
had become almost inured to the smell. Eat we could not, but we drank
probably the worst brandy in all Europe or Asia, and slowly our blood
began once more to take its normal course. A spurious animation soon
enabled the Boy to start on again; one of the cowherds pointed out the
path, and for a time all went well with our little band, even Fanny
and Souris having revived on black crusts of mediæval bread. But the
half-hour in which we had been told we might cover the distance
between châlet and hotel lengthened into an hour. The mist grew
greyer, and thicker, and darker, misleading us almost as cleverly as
its sophisticated English cousin, a London fog. Again and again we
lost our way. Owing to the fatigue of the Boy and Innocentina, and the
utter dejection of the unfortunate little donkeys, we could not walk
fast enough to keep our blood warm, and my tweeds, in which I was
buttoned to the chin, seemed to afford no more protection than
newspaper.
When I remarked this to the Boy he replied with a faint chuckle that
he felt like a newspaper himself--"a newspaper," he repeated,
shivering, "with the smallest circulation in the world. And if it
weren't for your dressing-gown there wouldn't be any circulation left
at all."
The day, which had begun in summer and ended in winter, was darkening
to night when Joseph, who was in advance, cried out that he had
flattened his nose against something solid, which was probably the
wall of the hotel. No blur of yellow light penetrated the gloom, but a
few minutes of anxious groping brought us to a door--rather an
elaborate, pretentious door, which instantly dispelled all fear that
we had come upon another châlet, or perchance a barn.
[Illustration]