Chapter Fourteen
Fordham Proves Accommodating
“Dear me – how very disagreeable (sniff-sniff) – how exceedingly unpleasant this smoking is?”
The afternoon train was crawling up the Rhone valley, wending its leisurely way over the flat and low-lying bottom as though to afford its passengers, mostly foreigners, every opportunity of admiring its native marsh. In the corner of a second-class smoking-carriage sat the typical British matron whom her feelings had moved to unburden herself as above. Beside her, half effaced by her imposing personality, sat her spouse, a mild country parson. A great number of bundles and a great number of wraps completed the outfit.
“I must say it is most disagreeable,” went on the lady, with renewed sniffs. “And how ill-mannered these foreigners are, smoking in the presence of ladies.” This with a dagger-glance at the other two occupants of the carriage, who each, with a knapsack on the rack above his head and clad in serviceable walking attire, were lounging back on the comfortable seats, placidly blowing clouds.
“Hush, my dear!” expostulated the parson. “It’s a smoking-carriage, you know. I told you so before we got in at Martigny. Why not go into the other compartment? It’s quite empty.”
It was. On the Swiss lines the carriages are generally built on American principles; you can walk the entire length of them, and indeed of the whole train. They are, however, divided into two compartments, the smaller being reserved for the convenience of non-smokers, the other way about, as with us.
“No, I shall certainly not take the trouble to move,” replied the offended matron. “Smoking-carriage or not, those two men are most unmannerly. Suppose, Augustus, you go over to them and ask them to put out their cigars? Remind them that it is not usual in England to smoke in the presence of ladies.”
But the Rev. Augustus was not quite such a fool as that.
“Not a bit of use, my dear,” he said wearily. “They’d certainly retort that we are not in England – probably request us to step into the non-smoking compartment.”
Fordham, who at the first remonstrance had rapidly signalled his friend not to talk and thus betray their nationality, was leaning back enjoying the situation thoroughly.
“Que diable allait elle faire dans cette galère?” he murmured, rightly judging the other travellers’ command of modern languages to be of the limited order. Phil for his part was obliged to put his head out of the window in order to laugh undetected. Meanwhile the aggrieved British matron in her corner continued to fume and sniff and inveigh against the abominable manners of those foreigners, and otherwise behave after the manner of her kind when, by virtue of honouring it with their presence, they have taken some continental country under their august wing. Then the crawl of the train settled down to an imperceptible creep as it drew nearer and nearer to the old-world and picturesque capital of the Valais.
There was whispering between the pair. Then, in obedience to a conjugal mandate, the mild parson diffidently approached our two friends.
“Pardong, mossoor. Ais-ker-say See-ong?”
The last word came out with a jerk of relief.
“Sion? I believe it is,” replied Fordham, blandly. “We shall have a quarter of an hour to wait, if not longer.”
If ever a man looked a thorough fool, it was the first speaker. The faultless and polished English of the reply! Here had they – his wife rather – been abusing these two men in their own tongue and in her usually loud key for upwards of half an hour. He turned red and began to stammer.
But the poor man’s confusion was by no means shared by his spouse. That imposing matron came bustling across the carriage as if nothing had happened.
“Perhaps you can tell us,” she said, “which is the best way of getting to Evolena? There is a diligence, is there not?”
Philip, who had all a young man’s aversion for a fussy and domineering matron, would have returned a very short and evasive reply. The woman had been abusing them like pickpockets all the way, and now had the cheek to come and ask for information. But to Fordham her sublime impudence was diverting in the extreme.
“There is a diligence,” he answered, “and I should say you’ll still be in time for it. But I should strongly recommend you to charter a private conveyance. Coach passengers are apt to beguile the tedium of the road with tobacco.”
This was said so equably and with such an utter absence of resentment that the lady with all her assertiveness was dumbfoundered. Then, glaring at the speaker, she flounced away without a word, though, amid the bustle and flurry attendant upon the collecting of wraps and bundles, the offenders could catch such jerked-out phrases as “Abominable rudeness?”
“Most insulting fellow!” and so forth.
“Great Scott! What do you think of that for a zoological specimen, Phil?” said Fordham, as the train steamed slowly away from the platform where their late fellow-passengers still stood bustling around a pile of boxes and bundles. “The harridan deliberately and of her own free will gets into a tobacco cart – out of sheer cussedness, in fact, for there stands the non-smoker stark empty – and then has the unparalleled face to try and boss us out of it. And there are idiots with whom she would have succeeded too.”
“Well, you know, it’s beastly awkward when a woman keeps on swearing she can’t stand smoke, even though you know she has no business there. What the deuce are you to do?”
“Politely ask her to step into the next compartment, whose door stands yearningly open to receive her. Even the parson had wit enough to see that.”
“Yes, that’s so. But, I say, what an infernally slow train this is?”
“This little incident,” went on Fordham, “which has served to break the monotony of our journey, reminds me of a somewhat similar joke which occurred last year on my way back to England. We fetched Pontarlier pretty late at night, and of course had to turn out and undergo the Customs ordeal. Well, I was sharp about the business, and got back into my carriage and old corner first. It was an ordinary compartment – five a side – not like this. Almost immediately after in comes a large and assertive female with an eighteen-year-old son, a weedy, unlicked cub as ever you saw in your life, and both calmly took the other end seats. Now I knew that one of these seats belonged to a Frenchman who was going through, so sat snug in my corner waiting to enjoy the fun. It came in the shape of the Frenchman. Would madame be so kind, but – the seat was his? No, madame would not be so kind – not if she knew it. Possibly if madame had been young and pretty the outraged Gaul might have subsided more gracefully, for subside he had to – but her aggressiveness about equalled her unattractiveness, which is saying much. So a wordy war ensued, in the course of which the door was banged and the deposed traveller shot with more vehemence than grace half-way across the compartment, and the train started. He was mad, I can tell you. Instead of his snug corner for the night, there the poor devil was, propped up on end, lurching over every time he began to nod.
“Well, we’d finished our feed – we’d got a chicken and some first-rate Burgundy on board – and were looking forward to a comfortable smoke. In fact, we’d each got a cigar in our teeth, and the chap who was with me – whom we’ll call Smith – was in the act of lighting up, when —
“‘I object to smoke. This isn’t a smoking-carriage, and I won’t have it.’
“We looked at the aggressive female, then at each other. Her right was unassailable. It was not a tobacco cart, but on French lines they are not generally too particular. Still, in the face of that protest we were floored.
“Smith was awfully mad. He cursed like a trooper under his breath – swore he’d be even with the harridan yet – and I believed him.
“Some twenty minutes went by in this way, Smith licking his unlit cigar and cursing roundly to himself. Presently she beckoned him over. He had half a mind not to go; however, he went.
“‘I don’t mind your smoking,’ says she – ‘out of the window.’
“‘Oh, thanks,’ he says. ‘It’s rather too cold to stand outside on the footboard. Besides, it’s risky.’
“‘Well, I mean I don’t mind if you have part of the window open. But I can’t stand the place full of smoke and no outlet. And’ – she hurries up to add – ‘I hope you won’t mind if I draw the curtain over the lamp so that my boy can go to sleep.’
“Smith was on the point of answering that he preferred not to smoke, but intended to read the night through, and could on no account consent to the lamp being veiled, when it occurred to him that it was of no use cutting off his nose to spite his face. He was just dying for a smoke. So the bargain was struck, and we were soon puffing away like traction engines.
“Now the Frenchman who had been turned out of his seat was no fool of a Gaul. Whether suggested by the settling of our little difference or originating with himself, the idea seemed to strike him that he too might just as well obtain terms from the enemy to his own advantage. The unlicked cub aforesaid was slumbering peacefully in his corner, his long legs straight across the compartment, for we were three on that side, and there was no room to put them on the seat. The first station we stop at, up gets the Frenchman, flings open the door, letting in a sort of young hurricane, and of course stumbling over the sleeper’s legs. Aggressive female looks daggers. But when this had happened several times – for the stoppages were pretty frequent, and even though but for a minute the Frenchman took good care to tumble out – she began to expostulate.
“‘It was cruel to disturb her poor boy’s slumbers continually like that. Surely there was no necessity to get out at every station.’
“That Frenchman’s grin was something to see. He was désolé; but enfin! What would madame? He had been turned out of his corner seat, and could not sleep sitting bolt upright. It was absolutely necessary for him to get a mouthful of fresh air and stretch his legs at every opportunity. But the remedy was in madame’s hands. Let monsieur change places with him. Monsieur was young, whereas he was – well, not so young as he used to be. Otherwise he was sorry to say it, but his restlessness would compel him to take exercise at every station they stopped at.
“Heavens! that old termagant looked sick. But she was thoroughly bested. If she refused the enemy would be as good as his word, and her whelp might make up his mind to stay awake all night. So she caved in, sulkily enough, and with much bland bowing and smiling the Frenchman got back his corner seat, or one as good, and the cub snored on his dam’s shoulder. Thus we all regained our rights again, and everybody was happy.”
“Devilish good yarn, Fordham,” said Phil. “But you be hanged with your Smith, old man. Why, that was you – you all over.”
“Was it? I said it was Smith. But the point is immaterial, especially at this time of day. And now, Phil, own up, as you contemplate this howling, hungry crowd of the alpenstock contingent, that you bless my foresight which coerced you into posting on every stick and stone you possess, bar your trusty knapsack. If you don’t now, you will when we get to Visp and tranquilly make our way through a frantic mob all shouting for its luggage at once. Here we are at Sierre. Sure to be a wait. I wonder if there’s a buffet. Hallo! What now?”
For his companion, whose head was half through the window, suddenly withdrew it with a wild ejaculation, then rushed from the carriage like a lunatic, vouchsafing no word of explanation as to the phenomenon – or apology for having stamped Fordham’s pet corn as flat as though a steam roller had passed over it. The latter, scowling, looked cautiously forth, and then the disturbing element became apparent. There, on the platform, in a state of more than all his former exuberance, stood Philip, talking – with all his eyes – to Alma Wyatt, and with all his might to her uncle and aunt, who had just stepped out of the train to join her. And at the sight Fordham dropped back into his seat with a saturnine guffaw.
But the next words uttered by his volatile friend caused him to sit up and attend.
“This is a most unexpected pleasure, General,” Philip was saying. “Why I thought you were a fixture at the Grindelwald for the rest of your time.”
“Couldn’t stand it. Far too much bustle and noise. No. Some one told us of a place called Zinal, and we are going there now.”
“What an extraordinary coincidence!” cried Phil, delightedly. “The fact is we are bound for that very place.”
“The devil we are!” growled Fordham to himself at this astounding piece of intelligence. “I have hitherto been under the impression, friend Phil, that we were bound for Visp —en route for Zermatt.”
“But – where’s Mr Fordham? Is he with you?” went on Mrs Wyatt.
“Rather. He’s – er – just kicking together our traps. I’ll go and see after him. Fordham, old chap, come along,” he cried, bursting into the carriage again.
“Eh?” was the provokingly cool reply.
“Don’t you see?” went on Phil, hurriedly. “Now be a good old chap, and tumble to my scheme. Let’s go to Zinal instead.”
“I don’t care. How about our traps though? They’re posted to t’other place.”
“Hang that. We can send for ’em. And er – I say, Fordham, don’t let on we weren’t going there all along. I sort of gave them to understand we were. You know?”
“I do. I overheard you imperil your immortal soul just now, Philip Orlebar. And you want me to abet you in the utter loss thereof? It is a scandalous proposal, but – Here, hurry up if you’re going to get out. The train is beginning to move on again.”
“Delighted to meet you again, Fordham,” said the old General, shaking the latter heartily by the hand. “What are your plans? They tell us we ought to sleep here, in Sierre, to-night and go on early in the morning.”
“That’s what we are going to do.”
“A good idea. We might all go on together. They tell me there’s a capital hotel here. Which is it,” he went on, glancing at the caps of two rival commissionaires.
“The ‘Belle Vue.’ But it’s only a step. Hardly worth while getting into the omnibus.”
Chapter Fifteen
In the Val d’Anniviers
There are few more beautiful and romantic scenes than the lower end of the Val d’Anniviers as, having after a long and tedious ascent by very abrupt zig-zags reached Niouc, you leave the Rhone Valley with its broad, snake-like river and numberless watch-towers, its villages and whitewashed churches, and Sion with its cathedral and dominated by its castled rock in the distance – you leave all this behind and turn your face mountainwards.
Far below, glimpsed like a thread from the road, the churning waters of the Navigenze course through their rocky channel with a sullen roar, their hoarse raving, now loud, now deadened, as a bend of the steep mountain-side opens or shuts out the view beneath, and with it the sound. From the river the slopes shoot skyward in one grand sweep – abrupt, unbroken, well-nigh precipitous. Pine forests, their dark-green featheriness looking at that height like a different growth of grass upon the lighter hue of the pastures – huge rocks and boulders lying in heaped-up profusion even as when first hurled from the mountain-side above, seeming mere pebble heaps —châlets, too, in brown groups like toy chocolate houses or standing alone perched on some dizzy eyrie among their tiny patches of yellow cornland – all testify to the stupendous vastness of Nature’s scale. And at the head of the valley the forking cone of the Besso, and beyond it, rising from its amphitheatre of snow, the white crest of the Rothhorn soaring as it were to the very heavens in its far-away altitude. And the air! It is impossible to exaggerate its clear exhilaration. It is like drinking in the glow of sunshine even as golden wine – it is like bathing in the entrancing blue of the firmament above.
“Alma, you have treated me shockingly,” Philip was saying, while they two were seated by the roadside to rest and await the arrival of the others, who might be seen toiling up the zig-zags aforesaid, but yet a little way off. “Shockingly, do you hear. You never wrote me a line, as you promised, and but that by great good luck we happened to be in the same train I should never have known you were coming here at all.”
“That’s odd. Is the place we are going to of such enormous extent that we could both be in it without knowing of each other’s proximity?” she said innocently, but with a mischievous gleam lurking in her eyes.
“No – er – why?”
Alma laughed – long and merrily. “You are a very poor schemer, Phil. Your friend would have had his answer ready – but you have regularly – er – ‘given yourself away’ – isn’t that the expression? Confess now – and remember that it is only a full and unreserved confession that gains forgiveness. You were not going to Zinal at all – and you have hoodwinked my uncle shamefully?”
“What a magician you are!” was the somewhat vexed answer. And then he joined in her laugh.
“Am I? Well I thought at first that the coincidence was too striking to be a coincidence. Where were you going?”
“To Zermatt. But what a blessed piece of luck it was that I happened to put my head out of the window at that poky little station. But for that only think what we should have missed. Heavens! It’s enough to make a fellow drop over the cliff there to think of it.”
“Is it! But only think what an unqualified – er – misstatement you have committed yourself to. Doesn’t that weigh on your conscience like lead?”
“No,” replied the sinner, unabashed. “It’s a clear case of the end justifying the means. And then – all’s fair in love and war,” he added, with a gleeful laugh.
“You dear Phil. You are very frivolous, you know,” she answered, abandoning her inquisitorial tone for one that was very soft and winsome. “Well, as we are here – thanks to your disgraceful stratagem – I suppose we must make the best of it.”
“Darling!” was the rapturous response – “Oh, hang it!”
The latter interpolation was evoked by the sudden appearance of the others around a bend of the road, necessitating an equally sudden change in the speaker’s attitude and intentions. But the sting of the whole thing lay in the fact that during that alteration he had caught Fordham’s glance, and the jeering satire which he read therein inspired him with a wildly insane longing to knock that estimable misogynist over the cliff then and there.
“Well, young people. You’ve got the start of us and kept it,” said the General, as they came up. His wife was mounted on a mule, which quadruped was towed along by the bridle by a ragged and unshaven Valaisan.
“Alma dear, why didn’t you wait for us at that last place – Niouc, isn’t it, Mr Fordham?” said the old lady, reproachfully. “We had some coffee there.”
“Which was so abominably muddy we couldn’t drink it – ha – ha!” put in the General. “But it’s a long way on to the next place – isn’t it, Fordham?”
“Never mind, auntie. I don’t want anything, really,” replied Alma. “I never felt so fit in my life. Oh!” she broke off, in an ecstatic tone. “What a grand bit of scenery!”
“Rather too grand to be safe just here?” returned Mrs Wyatt, “I’m afraid. I shall get down and walk.”
The road – known at this point as “Les Pontis” – here formed a mere ledge as it wound round a lateral ravine – lying at right angles to the gorge – a mere shelf scooped along the face of the rock. On the inner side the cliff shot up to a great height overhead on the outer side – space. Looking out over the somewhat rickety rail the tops of the highest trees seemed a long way beneath. Twelve feet of roadway and the mule persisting in walking near the edge. No wonder the old lady preferred her feet to the saddle.
Mere pigmies they looked, wending their way along the soaring face of the huge cliffs. Now and then the road would dive into a gallery or short tunnel, lighted here and there by a rough loophole – by putting one’s head out of which a glance at the unbroken sweep of the cliff above and below conveyed some idea as to the magnitude of the undertaking.
“A marvellous piece of engineering,” pronounced the General, looking about him critically. “Bless my soul! this bit of road alone is worth coming any distance to see.”
Philip and Alma had managed to get on ahead again.
“Oh, look!” cried the latter, excitedly. “Look – look! There’s a bunch of edelweiss, I declare!”
He followed her glance. Some twelve feet overhead grew a few mud-coloured blossoms. The rock sloped here, and the plant had found root in a cranny filled up with dust.
“No; don’t try it! It’s too risky, you may hurt yourself,” went on Alma, in a disappointed tone. “We must give them up, I suppose.”
But this was not Philip’s idea. He went at the steep rock bank as though storming a breach. There was nothing to hold on to; but the impetus of his spring and the height of his stature combined carried him within reach of the edelweiss. Then he slid back amid a cloud of dust and shale, barking his shins excruciatingly, but grasping in his fist four of the mud-coloured blossoms.
“Are you hurt?” cried Alma, her eyes dilating. “You should not have tried it. I told you not to try it.”
“Hurt? Not a bit! Here are the edelweiss flowers though.” And in the delighted look which came into Alma’s eyes as she took them, he felt that he would have been amply rewarded for a dozen similar troubles. But just then a whimsical association of ideas brought back to his mind the absurd postscript to that letter which had so sorely perturbed him. “Be sure you send me a big bunch of ‘adleweis’ from the top of the Matterhorn”; and the recollection jarred horribly as he contrasted the writer of that execrable epistle, and the glorious refined beauty of this girl who stood here alone with him, so appropriately framed in this entrancing scene of Nature’s grandeur.
“That is delightful,” said Alma, gleefully, as she arranged the blossoms in her dress. “Now I have got some edelweiss at last. When we get to Zinal I shall be the envied of all beholders, except that every one there will have hats full of it, I suppose.”
“I don’t know about that Fordham says it’s getting mighty scarce everywhere. But it’s poor looking stuff. As far as I can make out, its beauty, like that of a show bulldog, lies in its ugliness.”
“Shall I ever forget this sweet walk!” she said, gazing around as though to photograph upon her mind every detail of the surroundings. “You think me of a gushing disposition. In a minute you will think me of a complaining and discontented one. But just contrast this with a commonplace, and wholly uninteresting cockneyfied suburb such as that wherein my delectable lot is cast, and then think of the difference.”
“Dearest, you know I don’t think you – er – discontented or anything of the sort,” he rejoined, fervently. “But – I thought Surbiton was rather a pretty place. The river – and all that – ”
“A mere romping ground for ’Arry and ’Arriet to indulge their horseplay. Philip, I – hate the place. There!”
“Then, darling, why go back to it? or anyhow, only to get ready to leave it as soon as possible,” he answered quickly.
“Phil, you are breaking our compact, and I won’t answer that question. No. What I mean is that it is lamentable to think how soon I shall be back in that flat, stale, and unprofitable place. Why this will seem like a different state of existence, looked back upon then – indeed, it is hard to believe that the same world can comprise the two.”
The road had now left its rocky windings and here entered the cool shade of feathery pine woods, the latter in no wise unwelcome, for the sun was now high enough to make himself felt. It might be that neither of them were destined to forget that walk in the early morning through an enchanted land. The soaring symmetry of the mighty peaks; the great slopes and the jagged cliffs; the fragrance of the pine needles and moist, moss-covered rocks; the golden network of sunlight through the trees, and the groups of picturesque châlets perched here and there upon the spurs; the sweet and exhilarating air, and the hoarse thunder of the torrent far below in its rocky prison – sights and sounds of fairyland all. And to these two wandering side by side there was nothing lacking to complete the spell. It was such a day as might well remain stamped upon their memory – such a day as in the time to come they might often and often recall. But – would it be with joy, or would it be with pain?
Meanwhile, the first half of the journey was over, for the picturesque grouping of châlets clustering around a massive church which suddenly came into sight announced that they had reached Vissoye, the most considerable place in the valley. Here a long halt was to be made; and the old people indeed were glad of a rest, for it had grown more than warm. So after breakfast in the cheerful and well-ordered hotel, the General lit his pipe and strolled forth to find a shady corner of the garden where he could smoke and doze, while his wife, spying a convenient couch in the empty salon, was soon immersed in the shadowland attained through the medium of “forty winks.”
Left to themselves, Alma and Philip strolled out into the village, gazing interestedly upon the quaint architecture and devices which ornamented the great brown châlets. Then they wandered into the church – a massive parallelogram, with a green ash-tree springing from its belfry. Alma was delighted with the wealth of symbolism and rich colouring displayed alike upon wall and in window, roof and shrine; but Philip voted it crude and tawdry.
“There speaks the true John Bull abroad,” she whispered. “As it happens, the very crudeness of it constitutes its artistic merit, for it is thoroughly in keeping. And the heavy gilding of the vine device, creeping around the scarlet ground-colour of those pillars, is anything but tawdry. It is quaint, bizarre, if you will, but striking and thoroughly effective. I suppose you want nothing but that desolate grey stone and the frightful wall tablets which give to our English cathedrals the look of so many deserted railway stations.”
“Oh, I don’t care either way. That sort of thing isn’t in my line. But look, Alma, what are they putting up those trestles for? I suppose they are going to bury somebody.”
“Where? Oh, very likely,” as she perceived a little old man, who, aided by a boy, was beginning to clear a space in front of the choir steps, with a view to arranging a pile of trestles which they had brought in. “We may as well go outside now.”
They went out on to the terrace-like front of the graveyard, and sat down upon the low wall overhanging the deep green valley, which fell abruptly to the brawling Navigenze beneath. Gazing upon the blue arching heavens, and the emerald slopes sleeping in the golden sunshine, Alma heaved a deep sigh of happy, contented enjoyment.
“Ah, the contrasts of life!” she remarked. “At this moment I am trying to imagine that I am in the same world as that hateful suburb, with its prim villas and stucco gentility – its dull, flat, mediocre pretensions to ‘prettiness.’ Yes, indeed, life contains some marvellous contrasts.”
“Here comes one of them, for instance,” said Philip. “This must be the funeral they were getting ready for.”
A sound of chanting – full, deep-throated, and melodious – mingled with the subdued crunch of many feet upon the gravelled walk as the head of a procession appeared, wending round the corner of the massive building. First came a little group of surpliced priests and acolytes, preceded by a tall silver crucifix and two burning tapers; then the coffin, borne by four men. Following on behind came a score of mourners – men, women, and children, hard-featured villagers all, but showing something very real, very subdued, in the aspect of their grief.
“Requiem aeternam dona et, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat et.” The massive plain-song chant wailed melodiously forth, swelling upon the sunlit air in a wave of sound. The two seated there had been discussing the contrasts of life. Here was a greater contrast still – the contrast of Death.
“Exultabunt Domino ossa humiliata” arose the chant again, as the cortège defiled within the church. And through the open door the spectators could see the flash of the silver cross and the starry glitter of the carried lights moving up the centre above the heads of the mourners.
“So even in this paradise-like spot we are invaded by – death,” said Alma, in a subdued voice, as having waited a moment or two they rose to leave. “Still, even death is rendered as bright as the living know how,” she went on, with a glance around upon the flower-decked graves between which they were threading their way. “Confess now, you British Philistine, isn’t all that more impressive than the black horses and plumes and hearses of our inimitable England?”
“I daresay it might be if one understood it,” answered Philip, judiciously. “But I say, Alma, it isn’t cheerful whatever way you take it!”
Mrs Wyatt was already on her mule as they regained the hotel, and the General, leaning on his alpenstock, stood giving directions – with the aid of Fordham – to the men in charge of the pack mules bearing their luggage.
“Alma, child,” he said reprovingly, while Philip had dived indoors to get his knapsack, “you’re doing a very foolish thing, walking about all the time instead of resting. You’ll be tired to death before you get there.”
“No, no I won’t, uncle dear!” she answered, with a bright smile. “You forget this isn’t – Surbiton. Why I could walk for ever in this air. I feel as fresh now as when we left Sierre this morning.”
Certainly she gave no reason to imagine the contrary as they pursued their way in the glowing afternoon – on past little clusters of châlets, through pine woods and rocky landslips, crossing by shaky log bridges the rolling, milky torrent, which had roared at such a dizzy depth beneath their road earlier in the day. The snow peaks in front drew nearer and nearer, the bright glow of the setting sun spread in horizontal rays over the now broadening out valley, and there on the outskirts of a straggling village, surrounded by green meadows wherein the peasants were busy tossing their hay crops, stood the hotel – a large oblong house, partly of brick, partly of wood, burnt brown by exposure to the sun, like the residue of the châlets around.