Part 11 (1/2)
Suddenly we were in the midst of a great herd of cows, which blew out volumes of clover breath upon us, in mild surprise at our existence.
They rubbed against us, or ambled away, lowing to each other, and I was surprised to find that, instead of each neck being provided with a bell, as I had fancied from the mult.i.tudinous tinklings, one cow only was thus ornamented.
”How was the selection made?” I asked Joseph. ”Did they choose the most popular cow, a sort of stable-yard belle, voted by her companions a fit leader of her set; or was the choice guided by chance?” Joseph could not tell me, and I suppose that I shall never know.
The big, lumbering forms crowded so closely round us in the twilight shadows, that now and then, to force a pa.s.sage, Joseph was obliged to pull a slowly whisking tail, resembling almost exactly an old-fas.h.i.+oned bell-rope. Presently we had made our way past the herd, which was shut from our sight by the curtain of evening, though up on the mountain-tops it was still golden day.
”There,” said Joseph, pointing, ”is the Cantine de Proz.”
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER X
The Sc.r.a.ping of Acquaintance
”You shall be treated to ... ironical smiles and mockings.”
--WALT WHITMAN.
”Up the hillside yonder, through the morning.”
--ROBERT BROWNING.
I saw, standing desolate in the basin of mountains, an old house of grey stone, very square, very plain, very resolute and staunch of physiognomy. The windows were still unlighted, and it looked a gloomy home for months of winter cold and snow. Suddenly, as we approached, rather wearily now, a yellow gleam flashed out in an upper window.
”That is the spare room for strangers,” said Joseph, and I thought that there was a note of anxiety in his voice.
”Perhaps someone has arrived before us,” I remarked. ”I hadn't thought of that, as you said so few people ever stopped at the Cantine over night.”
”Had you noticed, Monsieur, that after all we never pa.s.sed the party with the donkeys?” asked my muleteer.
”I had forgotten them.”
”I had not, but it was Monsieur's pleasure to go slowly; to stop for the views, to look at the ruined torts, and to trace the old road. We gave them time to get far ahead. I was always watching, but never saw them. The _anes_ had more endurance than I thought, and as for that Innocentina, she is a daughter of Satan; she would know no fatigue.”
”It would be like that little brat to gobble up the one spare room of the Cantine as he did the one chicken of the 'Dejeuner,'” I muttered.
”But we shall see what we shall see.”
We went on more rapidly, and soon arrived at the bottom of a steep flight of stone steps which led up to the door of the Cantine. A man came forward to greet us--a fine fellow, with the frank and lofty bearing of one whose life is pa.s.sed in high alt.i.tudes.
”Can we have supper and accommodation for the night at your house?” I asked.
”Supper, most certainly, and with pleasure,” came the courteous answer, ”though we have only plain fare to offer. But the one spare room we have for our occasional guests, has just been taken by a young English or American gentleman. The woman who drives the two donkeys with which they travel, will have a bed in the room of my sister, and we could find sleeping place of a sort for your muleteer; but I fear we have no way of making Monsieur comfortable.”
I was filled with rage against the wretch who had robbed me of a decent meal, and would now filch from me a night's rest.
”We have walked a long way,” I said, ”and are tired. We might have stopped at St. Pierre, but preferred to come on to you. It is now too dark to go back, or go on. Surely there are two beds in your spare room, and as you keep an inn, and pretend to give bed and board to travellers, you are bound to arrange for my accommodation.”
”The young monsieur pays for the two beds in the spare room, in order to secure the whole for himself alone,” replied the landlord. ”Not expecting any other guests, we agreed to this; but the youth is perhaps a countryman of yours, and rather than you should go further, or spend a night of discomfort, he will probably consent to let you share the room.”
”He shall consent, or I will know the reason why,” I said to myself fiercely; but aloud I merely answered that I would be glad of a few minutes' conversation with the young gentleman.