Part 9 (2/2)

”That is like you rich people,” she says. ”We are only too happy if the good G.o.d sends us _one_.” And she relapses into a wondering silence.

”Does madame travel far?” we venture presently.

”Ah, yes.” And she shakes her head slowly. Words cannot express the distance, it is so great.

”But she has been this way before?” we go on.

”No, never before.” And again the round, blue eyes seek heaven, and again a deep sigh follows the words. She has finished her lunch, and, diving under our feet, emerges after a time with a box, which, opened, discloses a small store of peppermints. This she offers with some hesitation, and we each hasten to accept one, her countenance beaming more and more as they disappear. ”Given to hospitality,” the little old woman has been, we know.

When the box is with difficulty replaced, the string of the bag drawn, the basket arranged to her satisfaction, the umbrella placed at a pleasing angle, she balances herself upon the edge of the seat, and glances fearfully from side to side as we swing along the smooth road.

Once, when the wheel pa.s.ses over a stone, she seems to murmur a prayer.

”Madame is not afraid?” we say.

”O, very much. These diligences are most dangerous.” And now she is glancing over her shoulder at a rocky wall of mountains which follows the road at a distance. ”They might fall.” And she shudders with the thought. We a.s.sure her that it is impossible; but she has heard of a rock falling upon a diligence, and thinks it was upon this road. And all the horror of the fearful catastrophe is depicted upon her face.

Gradually we learn that the little old woman has never travelled in a diligence before; that she has never before made any journey, in fact.

For forty years she has kept the house of the _cure_ in her native village. Now, she tells us with a sigh, and uplifted eyes, he has ”become dead,” and she is obliged to seek a home elsewhere among strangers. Here she turns away her eyes, which grow dim as her smile, and for a moment forgets her fears.

We are approaching a village. She hastily searches her basket and brings out the crumpled letter which had been thrown into her lap. As we dart through the narrow street and across an open square, she leans out, utters a word in a sharp, excited tone, and, to our surprise, throws the letter far out into the dust of the street. An idle lounger in the square starts at her voice, runs heavily across the street, and picks it up. She sinks back, all cheerful smiles again. She has chanced upon the very man to whom the letter was addressed.

The dust rolls up from the great wheels. She exchanges the hat upon her head for the one over her arm, covering the former carefully with a corner of her ap.r.o.n. This, she tells us, as she arranges the second upon her head, she was accustomed to wear when she picked vegetables of a morning in the garden of the good _cure_. And the sighs return with the recollection of her master.

The day wears on with heat and sifting dust. By and by, at another village, a filthy, dull-faced peasant clambers up the ladder and stumbles into a vacant place. We shrink away from him in disgust. Our little old woman only furtively draws aside her neat petticoats. Soon she engages him in conversation. We see her lean far forward with intense, questioning gaze upon the distance where he points with dirt-begrimed finger. Then with a sigh which seems to come from the baggage compartment beneath us, so very deep and long-drawn it is, she turns to us. She, too, points to a range of hills, very dark and gloomy now, for they are covered with woods, and the shadow of a cloud lies upon them.

”It is there, beyond the mountains, I am going;” and the shadow of the cloud has fallen upon her face. All the suns.h.i.+ne has faded out of it.

Then, with something warmer, brighter than any suns.h.i.+ne gleaming in her eyes, she adds, ”But the good G.o.d takes care of us wherever we go.”

We have reached a fork in the road. There is no village, no house even, in sight. Why, then, do we pause? The ladder is raised.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Evidently the little old woman is going a journey.” Page 195.]

”It must be for me!” gasps the little old woman, casting one bewildered glance over to where the shadows are creeping, and then calmly gathering together her possessions. We grasp the hands she extends, we pour out confused, unintelligible blessings. Is it the dust which blinds our eyes? Even the clownish peasant stumbles down the ladder, and lifts out her box. The driver remounts. The whip cracks. We lean far out. We wave our hands. Again the dust fills our eyes so that our sight for a moment is dim, as we dash away, leaving her sitting there alone upon her box, where the two roads meet. But beyond the hills where the shadows rested, we know that the sun still s.h.i.+nes for our little old woman whose master ”became dead.”

CHAPTER XV.

LAST DAYS IN SWITZERLAND.

Geneva.--Calvin and jewelry.--Up Lake Leman.--Ouchy and Lausanne.--”Sweet Clarens.”--Chillon.--Freyburg.--Sight-seers.--The Last Judgment.--Berne and its bears.--The town like a story.--The Lake of Thun.--Interlaken.--Over the Wengern Alp.--The Falls of Giessbach.--The Brunig Pa.s.s.--Lucerne again.

WE dashed up to the hotel upon one of the fine quays at Geneva, and descended from the open diligence with all the appearance of travellers who had crossed a sandy desert. There is an air of experienced travel which only dust can impart.

The most charming sight in the city, to us, was our own names upon the waiting letters here. In truth, there are no sights in Geneva. Tourists visit the city because they have been or are going elsewhere, beyond. If they pause, it is to rest or buy the jewelry so far-famed. To be sure the view from almost any window opening upon the blue Rhone is pleasing, crossed by various bridges as it is, one of which touches Rousseau's Island. But our heads by this time were as full of views as that of a Boston woman.

Calvinists and Arminians alike visit the Cathedral, and sit for a moment in the old reformer's chair, or at least look upon the canopy of carved wood from beneath which he used to preach. There are few monuments here.

The interior is bare, and boarded into the stiff pews, which belong by right and the fitness of things, not to these grand, Gothic cathedrals, but to the Puritan meeting-houses, where we gather less to breathe a prayer than to sit solemnly apart and listen to a denunciation of each other's sins.

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