Part 28 (1/2)

”They have done me honor, Monsieur,” he said: ”it has been my good fortune to cross the Col with many brave gentlemen and fair ladies--and in two instances with princes.” (Though a st.u.r.dy republican, Pierre was not insensible to worldly rank.) ”The pious monks know me well; and they who enter the convent are not the worse received for being my companions. I shall be glad to lead so fair a party from our cold valley into the sunny glens of Italy, for, if the truth must be spoken, nature has placed us on the wrong side of the mountain for our comfort, though we have our advantage over those who live even in Turin and Milan, in matters of greater importance.”

”What can be the superiority of a Valaisan over the Lombard, or the Piedmontese?” demanded the Signor Grimaldi quickly, like a man who was curious to hear the reply. ”A traveller should seek all kind of knowledge, and I take this to be a newly-discovered fact.”

”Liberty, Signore! We are our own masters; we have been so since the day when our fathers sacked the castles of the barons, and compelled their tyrants to become their equals. I think of this each time I reach the warm plains of Italy, and return to my cottage a more contented man, for the reflection.”

”Spoken like a Swiss, though it is uttered by an ally of the cantons!”

cried Melchior de Willading, heartily. ”This is the spirit, Gaetano, which sustains our mountaineers, and renders them more happy amid their frosts and rocks, than thy Genoese on his warm and glowing bay.”

”The word liberty, Melchior, is more used than understood, and as much abused as used;” returned the Signor Grimaldi gravely. ”A country on which G.o.d hath laid his finger in displeasure as on this, needs have some such consolation as the phantom with which the honest Pierre appears to be so well satisfied.--But, Signor guide, have many travellers tried the pa.s.sage of late, and what dost thou think of our prospects in making the attempt?

We hear gloomy tales, sometimes, of thy alpine paths in that Italy thou hold'st so cheap.”

”Your pardon, n.o.ble Signore, if the frankness of a mountaineer has carried me too far. I do not undervalue your Piedmont, because I love our Valais more. A country may be excellent, even though another should be better. As for the travellers, none of note have gone up the Col of late, though there have been the usual number of vagabonds and adventurers. The savor of the convent kitchen will reach the noses of these knaves here in the valley, though we have a long twelve leagues to journey in getting from one to the other.”

The Signor Grimaldi waited until Adelheid and Christine, who were preparing to retire for the night, were out of hearing, and he resumed his questions.

”Thou hast not spoken of the weather?”

”We are in one of the most uncertain and treacherous months of the good season, Messieurs. The winter is gathering among the upper Alps, and in a month in which the frosts are flying about like uneasy birds that do not know where to alight, one can hardly say whether he hath need of his cloak or not.”

”San Francesco! Dost think I am dallying with thee, friend, about a thickness more or less of cloth! I am hinting at avalanches and falling rocks--at whirlwinds and tempests?”

Pierre laughed and shook his head, though he answered vaguely as became his business.

”These are Italian opinions of our hills, Signore,” he said; ”they savor of the imagination. Our pa.s.s is not as often troubled with the avalanche as some that are known, even in the melting snows. Had you looked at the peaks from the lake, you would have seen that, the h.o.a.ry glaciers excepted, they are still all brown and naked. The snow must fall from the heavens before it can fall in the avalanche, and we are yet, I think, a few days from the true winter.”

”Thy calculations are made with nicety, friend,” returned the Genoese, not sorry, however, to hear the guide speak with so much apparent confidence of the weather, ”and we are obliged to thee in proportion. What of the travellers thou hast named? Are there brigands on our path?”

”Such rogues have been known to infest the place, but, in general, there is too little to be gained for the risk. Your rich traveller is not an every-day sight among our rocks; and you well know Signore, that there may be too few, as well as too many, on a path, for your freebooter.”

The Italian was distrustful by habit on all such subjects, and he threw a quick suspicious glance at the guide. But the frank open countenance of Pierre removed all doubt of his honesty, to say nothing of the effect of a well-established reputation.

”But thou hast spoken of certain vagabonds who have preceded us?”

”In that particular, matters might be better;” answered the plain-minded mountaineer, dropping his head in an att.i.tude of meditation so naturally expressed as to give additional weight to his words. ”Many of bad appearance have certainly gone up to-day; such as a Neapolitan named Pippo, who is anything but a saint--a certain pilgrim, who will be nearer heaven at the convent than he will be at the death--St. Pierre pray for me if I do the man injustice!--and one or two more of the same brood. There is another that hath gone up also, post haste, and with good reason as they say, for he hath made himself the but of all the jokers in Vevey on account of some foolery in the games of the Abbaye--a certain Jacques Colis.”

The name was repeated by several near the speaker.

”The same, Messieurs. It would seem that the Sieur Colis would fain take a maiden to wife in the public sports, and, when her birth came to be be known, that his bride was no other than the child of Balthazar, the common headsman of Berne!”

A general silence betrayed the embarra.s.sment of most of the listeners.

”And that tale hath already reached this glen,” said Sigismund, in a tone so deep and firm as to cause Pierre to start, while the two old n.o.bles looked in another direction, feigning not to observe what was pa.s.sing.

”Rumor hath a nimbler foot than a mule, young officer;” answered the honest guide. ”The tale, as you call it, will have travelled across the mountains sooner than they who bore it--though I never knew how such a miracle could pa.s.s--but so it is; report goes faster than the tongue that spreads it, and if there be a little untruth to help it along, the wind itself is scarcely swifter. Honest Jacques Colis has bethought him to get the start of his story, but, my life on it, though he is active enough in getting away from his mockers, that he finds it, with all the additions, safely housed at the inn at Turin when he reaches that city himself.”

”These, then, are all?” interrupted the Signor Grimaldi, who saw, by the heaving bosom of Sigismund, that it was time in mercy to interpose.

”Not so, Signore--there is still another and one I like less than any. A countryman of your own, who, impudently enough, calls himself Il Maledetto.”