Part 35 (1/2)
”That, and something more.”
”Good imp! The thermometer is rising. But I feel a beast to have got you into this sc.r.a.pe. If it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't have known that a mule-path existed on Mont Revard.”
”I'm not sorry we came. This will be something to remember always.
It's a real adventure. Afterwards we shall get the point of view.”
”I wish we could get one now,” said I. ”But the prospect isn't cheerful. Molly Winston's prophecy is being fulfilled. She was certain that sooner or later I should be lost on a mountain; and her sketch of me, curled up in sleeping-sack and tent, toasting my toes before a fire of twigs, and eating tinned soup, steaming hot, made me long to lose myself immediately. But, alas! a peasant child near Piedimulera is basking at this moment in my woolly sack, and battening on my Instantaneous Breakfasts.”
”Don't think of them,” said the Boy. ”That way madness lies. A chapter in my book shall be called, 'How to be Happy though Freezing.'”
”What would be your definition of the state, precisely?”
”Being with Somebody you--like.”
My temperature bounded up several degrees, thanks to these amends, but our sole comfort was in each other, since Joseph had no hope to give.
At this moment he parted the mist-curtain to remark that he could find no traces of a path or landmark of any kind.
Hours dragged on, and we were still wandering aimlessly, as one wanders in a troubled dream. We were chilled to the bone, and as it was by this time late in the afternoon, I began to fear that we should have to spend the night on the mountain-side. Revard was wreaking vengeance upon us for taking his name in vain. We had made naught of him as a mountain; now he was showing us that, were he sixteen thousand feet high instead of four, he could scarcely put us to more serious inconvenience.
I was growing gravely anxious about the Boy, though the bitter cold and great fatigue had not quenched his spirit, when the smell of cattle and the m.u.f.fled sound of human voices put life into the chill, dead body of the mist. A house loomed before us, and I sprang to the comforting conclusion that we had stumbled upon one of the outlying offices of the hotel, but an instant showed me my mistake. The low building was a rough stone chalet with two or three cowherds outside the door, and these men stared in surprise and curiosity at our ghostly party.
”Are we far from the hotel?” I asked in French, but no gleam of understanding lightened their faces; and it was not until Joseph had addressed them in the most extraordinary patois I had ever heard, that they showed signs of intelligence. ”Hoo-a-long, hoo-a-long, walla-ha?”
he remarked, or words to that effect.
”Squall-a-doo, soo-a-lone, bolla-hang,” returned one of the men, suddenly wound up to gesticulate with violence.
”He says that the hotel is about half an hour's walk from here,”
Joseph explained to me, looking wistful. And my own feelings gave me the clue to that look's significance.
”Thank goodness!” I exclaimed heartily. ”But it would be tempting Providence to pa.s.s this house, which is at least a human habitation, without resting and warming the blood in our veins. Perhaps we can get something to eat for ourselves and the donkeys--to say nothing of something to drink.”
Another exchange of words like brickbats afforded us the information, when translated, that we could obtain black bread, cheese, and brandy; also that we were welcome to sit before the fire.
I pushed the Boy in ahead of me, but he fell back. The stench which struck us in the face as the door opened was like an evil-smelling pillow, thrown with good aim by an unseen hand. Mankind, dog-kind, cow-kind, chicken-kind, and cheese-kind, together with many ingredients unknown to science, combined in the making of this composite odour, and its strength sent the Boy reeling into my arms.
”No, I can't stand it,” he gasped. ”I shall faint. Better freeze than suffocate.”
But I forced him in; and in five minutes, to our own self-loathing, we had become almost inured to the smell. Eat we could not, but we drank probably the worst brandy in all Europe or Asia, and slowly our blood began once more to take its normal course. A spurious animation soon enabled the Boy to start on again; one of the cowherds pointed out the path, and for a time all went well with our little band, even f.a.n.n.y and Souris having revived on black crusts of mediaeval bread. But the half-hour in which we had been told we might cover the distance between chalet and hotel lengthened into an hour. The mist grew greyer, and thicker, and darker, misleading us almost as cleverly as its sophisticated English cousin, a London fog. Again and again we lost our way. Owing to the fatigue of the Boy and Innocentina, and the utter dejection of the unfortunate little donkeys, we could not walk fast enough to keep our blood warm, and my tweeds, in which I was b.u.t.toned to the chin, seemed to afford no more protection than newspaper.
When I remarked this to the Boy he replied with a faint chuckle that he felt like a newspaper himself--”a newspaper,” he repeated, s.h.i.+vering, ”with the smallest circulation in the world. And if it weren't for your dressing-gown there wouldn't be any circulation left at all.”
The day, which had begun in summer and ended in winter, was darkening to night when Joseph, who was in advance, cried out that he had flattened his nose against something solid, which was probably the wall of the hotel. No blur of yellow light penetrated the gloom, but a few minutes of anxious groping brought us to a door--rather an elaborate, pretentious door, which instantly dispelled all fear that we had come upon another chalet, or perchance a barn.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER XXV
The Americans