THE PIZ LANGREV
Past the waterfall and over the bridge--our bridge--ran the path. As I
turned my face to the mountain, there was a strange constricted feeling
about one corner of my mouth, to which I put up a mittened hand. A small
icicle fell tinkling down. My feet were now beginning to get a little
warm, but I felt uncertain whether my ears were hot or cold. There was a
strange unattached feeling about them. Had I not been reading somewhere
of a mountaineer who had some such feeling? He put his hand to his ear
and broke off a piece as one breaks a bit of biscuit. A horrid thought,
but one which assuredly stimulates attention.
Then I took off one glove and rubbed the ear vigorously with the warm
palm of my hand. There was a tingling glow, as though some one were
striking lucifer matches all along the rim; soon there was no doubt that
the circulation was effectually restored. _En avant!_ Ears are useless
things at the best.
I kept my head down, climbing steadily. But with the tail of my eye I
could see that the hills had a sprinkling of snow--the legacy of the
Thal wind which last night brought the moisture up the valley. Only the
crags of the Piz Langrev were black above me, with a few white streaks
in the crevices where the snow lies all the year. The cliffs were too
steep for the snow to lie upon them, the season too far advanced for it
to remain on the lower slopes.
The moon was lying over on her back, and the stars tingled through the
frosty air. The lake lay black beneath on a grey world, plain as a blot
of ink on a boy's copybook.
Yet I had only been climbing among the rocks a very few moments when
every nerve was thrilling with warmth and all the arteries of the body
were filled with a rushing tide of jubilant life. "This is noble!" I
said to myself, as if I had never had a thought of retreat. A glow of
heat came through my woollen gloves from the black rocks up which I
climbed.
But I had gradually been getting out of the clear path on the face of
the rocks into a kind of gully. I did not like the look of the place.
There was a ground and polished look about the rocks at the sides which
did not please me. I have seen the like among the Clints of Minnigaff,
where the spouts of shingle make their way over the cliff. In the cleft
was a kind of curious snow, dry like sand, creaking and binding together
under foot--amazingly like pounded ice.
In the twinkling of an eye I had proof that I was right. There was a
kind of slushy roaring above, a sharp crack or two as of some monster
whip, and a sudden gust filled the gully. There was just time for me to
throw myself sideways into a convenient cleft, and to draw feet up as
close to chin as possible, when that hollow which had seemed my path,
and high up the ravine on either side, was filled with tumbling, hissing
snow, while the rocks on either side echoed with the musketry spatter of
stones and ice-pellets.
I felt something cold on my temple. As the glove came down from touching
it, there was a stain on the wool. A button of ice, no larger than a
shilling, spinning on its edge, had neatly clipped a farthing's-worth
out of the skin--as neatly as the house-surgeon of an hospital could do
it.
At this point the story of a good Highland minister came up in my mind
inopportunely, as these things will. He was endeavouring to steer a
boat-load of city young ladies to a landing-place. A squall was
bursting; the harbour was difficult. One of the girls annoyed him by
jumping up and calling anxiously, "O, where are we going to? Where are
we going to?" "If you do not sit down and keep still, my young leddy,"
said the minister-pilot succinctly, "that will verra greatly depend on
how you was brocht up!"
The place at which I remembered this might have been a fine place for an
observatory. It was not so convenient for reminiscence. Here the path
ended. I was as far as Turn Back. I therefore tried more round to the
right. The rocks were so slippery with the melted snow of yesterday that
the nails in my boots refused to grip. But presently there, remained
only a snow-slope, and a final pull up a great white-fringed bastion of
rock. Here was the summit; and even as I reached it, over the Bernina
the morning was breaking clear.
I took from my back the pine-branch which had been such a difficulty to
me in the narrow places of the ascent; and with the first ray of the
morning sun, from the summit of Langrev the pennon of the Countess Lucia
streamed out. I thought of Manager Gutwein down there on the look-out,
and I rejoiced that I had pledged him to secrecy.
_Gutwein_--there was a sound as of cakes and ale in the very name.
A little way beneath the summit, where the Thal wind does not vex, I sat
me down on the sunny eastern side to consult with the Gutwein breakfast.
A bottle of cold tea--"Hum," said I; "that may keep till I get farther
down. It will be useful in case of emergency--there is nothing like cold
tea in an emergency. _Imprimis_, half a bottle of Forzato--our old Straw
wine. How thoughtless of Gutwein! He ought to have remembered that that
particular sort does not keep. We had better take it now!" There was
also half a chicken, some clove-scented Graubündenfleisch, four large
white rolls, crisp as an Engadine cook can make them, half a pound of
butter in each--O excellent Gutwein--O great and judicious Gutwein!
But no more--for the sun was climbing the sky, and I must go down with a
rush to be in time for the late breakfast of the hotel.
The rocks came first--no easy matter with the sun on them for half an
hour; but they at last were successfully negotiated. Then came the long
snow-slope. This we went down all sails set. I hear that the process is
named glissading in this country. It is called hunker-sliding in
Scotland among the Galloway hills--a favourite occupation of
politicians. It added to the flavour that we might very probably finish
all standing in a crevasse. Snow rushed past, flew up one's nose and
froze there. It did not behave itself thus when we slid down Craig
Ronald and whizzed out upon the smooth breast of Loch Grannoch. I was
reflecting on this unwarrantable behaviour of the snow, when there came
a bump, a somersault, a slide, a scramble. "Dear me!" I say; "how did
this happen?" Ears, eyes, mouth, nose were full of fine powdered
snow--also, there were tons down one's back. Cold as charity, but no
great harm done.
The table was set for the _déjeuner_ in the dining-room of the hotel.
The Count was standing rubbing his hands. Henry, who had been shooting
at a mark, came in smelling of gun-oil; and after a little pause of
waiting came the Countess.
"Where," said the Count, "is our Alpinist?" Henry had not seen him that
day. He was no doubt somewhere about. But Herr Gutwein smiled, and also
the waiter. They knew something. There was a crying at the door. The
porter, full of noisy admiration, rang the great bell as for an arrival.
Gutwein disappeared. The Count followed, then came Lucia and Henry. At
that moment I arrived, outwardly calm, with my clothes carefully dusted
from travel-stains, all the equipment of the ascent left in the wayside
châlet by the bridge. I gave an easy good-morning to the group, taking
off my hat to Madame. The Count cried disdainfully that I was a
slug-a-bed. Henry asked with obvious sarcasm if I had not been up the
Piz Langrev. The Countess held out her hand in an uncertain way.
Certainly I must have been very young, for all this gave me intense
pleasure. Especially did my heart leap when I took the Countess to the
window a little to the right, and, pointing with one hand upwards, put
the Count's binocular into her hands. The sun of the mid-noon was
shining on a black speck floating from the topmost cliff of the Piz
Langrev. As she looked she flung out her hand to me, still continuing to
gaze with the glass held in the other. She saw her own scarlet favour
flying from the pine-branch. That cry of wonder and delight was better
to me than the Victoria Cross. I was young then. It is so good to be
young, and better to be in love.