 | CHAPTER VI. The headsman, or, The Abbaye des Vignerons |  |
6. CHAPTER VI.
And winter oft, at eve, resumes the breeze,
Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets
Deform the day delightful:—
Thomson.
The horn of Pierre Dumont was blowing beneath
the windows of the inn of Martigny, with the
peep of dawn. Then followed the appearance of
drowsy domestics, the saddling of unwilling mules,
and the loading of baggage. A few minutes later,
the little caravan was assembled, for the cavalcade
were in motion for the summits of the Alps.
The travellers now left the valley of the Rhone
to bury themselves amid those piles of misty and
confused mountains, which formed the back-ground
of the picture they had studied from the castle of
Blonay and the sheet of the Leman. They soon
plunged into a glen, and, following the windings
of a brawling torrent, were led gradually, and by
many turnings, into a country of bleak upland pasturage,
where the inhabitants gained a scanty livelihood,
principally by means of their dairies.
A few leagues above Martigny, the paths again
separated, one inclining to the left towards the
elevated valley that has since become so celebrated
in the legends of this wild region, by the formation
of a little lake in its glacier, which, becoming
too heavy for its foundation, broke through
its barrier of ice, and descended in a mountain of
water to the Rhone, a distance of many leagues,
sweeping before it every vestige of civilization
that crossed its course, and even changing, in
many places, the face of nature itself. Here the
glittering peak of Vélan became visible, and, though
so much nearer to the eye than when viewed from
Vévey, it was still a distant shining pile, grand in
its solitude and mystery, on which the sight loved
to dwell, as it studies the pure and spotless edges
of some sleepy cloud.
It has already been said, that the ascent of the
great St. Bernard, with the exception of occasional
hills and hollows, is nowhere very precipitous but
at the point at which the last rampart of rock is
to be overcome. On the contrary, the path, for
leagues at a time, passes along tolerably even valleys,
though of necessity the general direction is
upward, and for most of the distance through a
country that admits of cultivation, though the meagreness
render but an indifferent return to the toil of
the husbandman. In this respect it differs from
most of the other Alpine passes; but if it wants
the variety, wildness, and sublimity of the Splugen,
the St. Gothard, the Gemmi, and the Simplon, it is
still an ascent on a magnificent scale, and he who
journeys on its path is raised, as it were, by insensible
degrees, to an elevation that gradually
changes all his customary associations with the
things of the lower world.
From the moment of quitting the inn to that of
the first halt, Melchior de Willading and the Signor
Grimaldi rode in company, as on the previous
day. These old friends had much to communicate
in confidential discourse which the presence of
Roger de Blonay, and the importunities of the
bailiff, had hitherto prevented them from freely
saying. Both had thought maturely, too, on the
situation of Adelheid, of her hopes, and of her
future fortunes, and both had reasoned much as
two old nobles of that day, who were not without
strong sympathies for their kind, while they were
too practised to overlook the world and its ties,
would be likely to reason on an affair of this delicate
nature.
“There came a feeling of regret, perhaps I
might fairly call it by its proper name, of envy,”
observed the Genoese, in the pursuance of the subject
which engrossed most of their time and
thoughts, as they rode slowly along, the bridles
dangling from the necks of their mules,—“there
came a feeling of regret, when I first saw the fair
creature that calls thee father, Melchior. God has
dealt mercifully by me, in respect to many things
that make men happy; but he rendered my marriage
accursed, not only in its bud, but in its fruit.
Thy child is dutiful and loving, all that a father
come to embarrass, if not to defeat, thy fair and
just hopes for her welfare! This is no common
affair, that a few threats of bolts and a change
of scene will cure, but a rooted affection that is
but too firmly based on esteem.—By San Francesco,
but I think, at times, thou wouldst do well to
permit the ceremony!”
“Should it be our fortune to meet with the absconding
Jacques Colis at Turin, he might give
us different counsel,” answered the old baron drily.
“That is a dreadful barrier to our wishes! Were
the boy anything but a headsman's child! I do
not think thou couldst object, Melchior, had he
merely come of a hind, or of some common follower
of thy family?”
“It were far better that he should have come
of one like ourselves, Gaetano. I reason but little
on the dogmas of this or that sect in politics; but
I feel and think, in this affair, as the parent of an
only child. All those usages and opinions in which
we are trained, my friend, are so many ingredients
in our happiness, let them be silly or wise, just or
oppressive; and though I would fain do that which
is right to the rest of mankind, I could wish to
begin to practise innovation with any other than
my own daughter. Let them who like philosophy
and justice, and natural rights, so well, commence
by setting us the example.”
“Thou hast hit the stumbling-block that causes
a thousand well-digested plans for the improvement
of the world to fail, honest Melchior. Could we
toil with others' limbs, sacrifice with others' groans,
and pay with others' means, there would be no end
to our industry, our disinterestedness, or our liberality—and
yet it were a thousand pities that so
sweet a girl and so noble a youth should not yoke!”
“'Twould be a yoke indeed, for a daughter of
father, with emphasis. “I have looked at this
matter in every face that becomes me, Gaetano,
and though I would not rudely repulse one that
hath saved my life, by driving him from my company,
at a moment when even strangers consort
for mutual aid and protection, at Turin we must
part for ever!”
“I know not how to approve, nor yet how to
blame thee, poor Melchior! 'Twas a sad scene,
that of the refusal to wed Balthazar's daughter, in
the presence of so many thousands!”
“I take it as a happy and kind warning of the
precipice to which a foolish tenderness was leading
us both, my friend.”
“Thou may'st have reason; and yet I wish thou
wert more in error than ever Christian was! These
are rugged mountains, Melchior, and, fairly passed,
it might be so arranged that the boy should forget
Switzerland for ever. He might become a Genoese,
in which event, dost thou not see the means
of overcoming some of the present difficulty?”
“Is the heiress of my house a vagrant, Signor
Grimaldi, to forget her country and birth?”
“I am childless, in effect, if not in fact; and
where there are the will and the means, the end
should not be wanting. We will speak of this
under the warmer sun of Italy, which they say is
apt to render hearts tender.”
“The hearts of the young and amorous, good
Gaetano, but, unless much changed of late, it is as
apt to harden those of the old, as any sun I know
of;” returned the baron, shaking his head, though
it much exceeded his power to smile at his own
pleasantry when speaking on this painful subject.
“Thou knowest that in this matter I act only for
the welfare of Adelheid, without thought of myself;
and it would little comport with the honor of a
of children who come of a race of executioners.”
The Signor Grimaldi succeeded better than his
friend in raising a smile, for, more accustomed to
dive into the depths of human feeling, he was not
slow in detecting the mixture of motives that were
silently exercising their long-established influence
over the heart of his really well-intentioned companion.
“So long as thou speakest of the wisdom of
respecting men's opinions, and the danger of
wrecking thy daughter's happiness by running
counter to their current, I agree with thee to the
letter; but, to me, it seems possible so to place the
affair, that the world shall imagine all is in rule.
and, by consequence, all proper. If we can overcome
ourselves, Melchior, I apprehend no great
difficulty in blinding others.”
The head of the Bernois dropped upon his
breast, and he rode a long distance in that attitude,
reflecting on the course it most became him to
pursue, and struggling with the conflicting sentiments
which troubled his upright but prejudiced
mind. As his friend understood the nature of this
inward strife, he ceased to speak, and a long silence
succeeded the discourse.
It was different with those who followed. Though
long accustomed to gaze at their native mountains
from a distance, this was the first occasion on which
Adelheid and her companion had ever actually
penetrated into their glens, or journeyed on their
broken and changing faces. The path of St.
Bernard, therefore, had all the charm of novelty,
and their youthful and ardent minds were soon
won from meditating on their own causes of unhappiness,
to admiration of the sublime works of
nature. The cultivated taste of Adelheid, in particular,
was quick in detecting those beauties of a
to overlook, and she found additional pleasure in
pointing them out to the ingenuous and wondering
Christine, who received these, her first, lessons in
that grand communion with nature which is pregnant
with so much unalloyed delight, with gratitude,
and a readiness of comprehension, that amply repaid
her instructress. Sigismund was an attentive
and pleased listener to what was passing, though
one who had so often passed the mountains, and
who had seen them familiarly on their warmer and
more sunny side, had little to learn, himself, even
from so skilful and alluring a teacher.
As they ascended, the air became purer and less
impregnated with the humidity of its lower currents;
changing, by a process as fine as that
wrought by a chemical application, the hues and
aspect of every object in the view. A vast hill-side
lay basking in the sun, which illuminated on
its rounded swells a hundred long stripes of grain in
every stage of verdure, resembling so much delicate
velvet that was thrown in a variety of accidental
faces to the light, while the shadows ran away, to
speak technically, from this foyer de lumière of the
picture, in gradations of dusky russet and brown,
until the colonne de vigueur was obtained in the deep
black cast from the overhanging branches of a wood
of larch in the depths of some ravine, into which the
sight with difficulty penetrated. These were the
beauties on which Adelheid most loved to dwell, for
they are always the charms that soonest strike the
true admirer of nature, when he finds himself raised
above the lower and less purified strata of the
atmosphere, into the regions of more radiant light
and brightness. It is thus that the physical, no less
than the moral, vision becomes elevated above the
impurities that cling to this nether world, attaining
a portion of that spotless and sublime perception,
to the truths of creation; a poetical type of the
greater and purer enjoyment we feel, as morally
receding from earth we draw nearer to heaven.
The party rested for several hours, as usual, at
the little mountain hamlet of Liddes. At the present
time, it is not uncommon for the traveller, favored
by a wheel-track along this portion of the
route, to ascend the mountain and to return to
Martigny in the same day. The descent in particular,
after reaching the village just named, is
soon made; but at the period of our tale, such an
exploit, if ever made, was of very rare occurrence.
The fatigue of being in the saddle so many hours
compelled our party to remain at the inn much
longer than is now practised, and their utmost
hope was to be able to reach the convent before
the last rays of the sun had ceased to light the glittering
peak of Vélan.
There occurred here, too, some unexpected detention
on the part of Christine, who had retired
with Sigismund soon after reaching the inn, and
who did not rejoin the party until the impatience
of the guide had more than once manifested itself
in such complaints as one in his situation is apt to
hazard. Adelheid saw with pain, when her friend
did at length rejoin them, that she had been weeping
bitterly; but, too delicate to press her for an
explanation on a subject in which it was evident
the brother and sister did not desire to bestow
their confidence, she communicated her readiness
to depart to the domestics, without the slightest
allusion to the change in Christine's appearance,
or to the unexpected delay of which she had been
the cause.
Pierre muttered an ave in thankfulness that the
long halt was ended. He then crossed himself with
one hand, while with the other he flourished his
crétins, to clear the way for those he guided.
His followers were, in the main of a different
mood. If the traveller too often reaches the inn
hungry and disposed to find fault, he usually quits
it good-humored and happy. The restoration, as
it is well called in France, effected by means of
the larder and the resting of wearied limbs, is
usually communicated to the spirits; and it must
be a crusty humor indeed, or singularly bad fare,
that prevents a return to a placid state of mind.
The party, under the direction of Pierre, formed
no exception to the general rule. The two old
nobles had so far forgotten the subject of their
morning dialogue, as to be facetious; and, ere long,
even their gentle companions were disposed to
laugh at some of their sallies, in spite of the load
of care that weighed so constantly and so heavily
on both. In short, such is the waywardness of
our feelings, and so difficult is it to be always sorrowful
as well as always happy, that the well-satisfied
landlady, who had, in truth, received the full
value of a very indifferent fare, was ready to
affirm, as she curtsied her thanks on the dirty
threshold, that a merrier party had never left her
door.
“We shall take our revenge out of the casks of
the good Augustines to-night for the sour liquor of
this inn; is it not so, honest Pierre?” demanded
the Signor Grimaldi, adjusting himself in the saddle,
as they got clear of the stones, sinuosities, projecting
roofs, and filth of the village, into the more
agreeable windings of the ordinary path, again.
“Our friend, the clavier, is apprized of the visit,
and as we have already gone through fair and foul
in company, I look to his fellowship for some compensation
for the frugal meal of which we have
just partaken.”
“Father Xavier is a hospitable and a happy-minded
priest, Signore; and that the saints will
long leave him keeper of the convent-keys, is the
prayer of every muleteer, guide, or pilgrim, who
crosses the col. I wish we were going up the
rough steps, by which we are to climb the last
rock of the mountain, at this very moment, Messieurs,
and that all the rest of the way were as
fairly done as this we have so happily passed.”
“Dost thou anticipate difficulty, friend?” demanded
the Italian, leaning forward on his saddle-bow,
for his quick observation had caught the examining
glance that the guide threw around at the
heavens.
“Difficulty is a meaning not easily admitted by
a mountaineer, Signore; and I am one of the last
to think of it, or to feel its dread. Still, we are
near the end of the season, and these hills are high
and bleak, and those that follow are delicate flowers
for a stormy heath. Toil is always sweeter
in the remembrance than in the expectation.—I
mean no more, if I mean that.”
Pierre stopped his march as he ceased speaking.
He stood on a little eminence of the path, whence,
by looking back, he commanded a view of the
opening among the mountains which indicates the
site of the valley of the Rhone. The look was
long and understanding; but, when it was ended,
he turned and resumed his march with the business-like
air of one more disposed to act than to
speculate on the future. But for the few words
which had just escaped him, this natural movement
would have attracted no attention; and, as
it was, it was observed by none but the Signor
Grimaldi, who would himself have attached little
importance to the whole, had the guide maintained
his usual pace.
As is common in the Alps, the conductor of
at such a gait as he thought most expedient for
man and beast. Hitherto, Pierre had proceeded
with sufficient leisure, rendering it necessary for
those who followed to observe the same moderation;
but he now walked sensibly faster, and frequently
so fast as to make it necessary for the
mules to break into easy trots, in order to maintain
their proper stations. All this, however, was
ascribed by most of the party to the formation of
the ground, for, after leaving Liddes, there is a long
reach of what, among the upper valleys of the
Alps, may by comparison be called a level road.
This industry, too, was thought to be doubly necessary,
in order to repair the time lost at the inn,
for the sun was already dipping towards the western
boundary of their narrow view of the heavens,
and the temperature announced, if not a sudden
change in the weather, at least the near approach
of the periodical turn of the day.
“We travel by a very ancient path;” observed
the Signore Grimaldi, when his thoughts had reverted
from their reflections on the movements of
the guide to the circumstance of their present situation.
“A very reverend path, it might be termed
in compliment to the worthy monks who do so
much to lessen its dangers, and to its great antiquity.
History speaks often of its use by different
leaders of armies, for it has long been a thoroughfare
for those who journey between the north and
the south, whether it be in strife, or in amity. In
the time of Augustus it was the route commonly
used by the Roman legions in their passages to
and from Helvetia and Gaul; the followers of
Cæcinna went by these gorges to their attack upon
Otho; and the Lombards made the same use of it, five
hundred years later. It was often trod by armed
bands, in the wars of Charles of Burgundy, those of
a tale, in which it is said that a horde of infidel
Corsairs from the Mediterranean penetrated by
this road, and seized upon the bridge of St. Maurice
with a view to plunder. As we are not the first,
so it is probable that we are not to be the last, who
have trusted themselves in these regions of the
upper air, bent on our objects, whether of love or
of strife.”
“Signore,” observed Pierre respectfully, when
the Genoese ceased speaking, “if your eccellenza
would make your discourse less learned, and more
in those familiar words which can be said under
a brisk movement, it might better suit the time and
the great necessity there is to be diligent.”
“Dost thou apprehend danger? Are we behind
our time?—Speak; for I dislike concealment.”
“Danger has a strong meaning in the mouth of
a mountaineer, Signore; for what is security on
this path, might be thought alarming lower down
in the valleys; I say it not. But the sun is touching
the rocks, as you see, and we are drawing
near to places where a miss-step of a mule in the
dark might cost us dear. I would that all diligently
improve the daylight, while they can.”
The Genoese did not answer, but he urged his
mule again to a gait that was more in accordance
with the wishes of Pierre. The movement was
followed, as a matter of course, by the rest; and the
whole party was once more in a gentle trot, which
was scarcely sufficient, however, to keep even pace
with the long, impatient, and rapid strides of Pierre,
who, notwithstanding his years, appeared to get over
the ground with a facility that cost him no effort.
Hitherto, the heat had not been small, and, in that
pure atmosphere, all its powers were felt during
the time the sun's rays fell into the valley; but, the
peak of the mountains, their genial influence
was succeeded by a chill that sufficiently proved
how necessary was the presence of the luminary
to the comfort of those who dwelt at that great
elevation. The females sought their mantles the
moment the bright light was followed by the usual
shadow; nor was it long before even the more
aged of the gentlemen were seen unstrapping their
cloaks, and taking the customary precautions
against the effects of the evening air.
The reader is not to suppose, however, that all
these little incidents of the way occurred in a time
as brief as that which has been consumed in the
narration. A long line of path was travelled over
before the Signor Grimaldi and his friend were
cloaked, and divers hamlets and cabins were successively
passed. The alteration from the warmth of
day to the chill of evening also was accompanied
by a corresponding change in the appearance of
the objects they passed. St. Pierre, a cluster of
stone-roofed cottages, which bore all the characteristics
of the inhospitable region for which they
had been constructed, was the last village; though
there was a hamlet, at the bridge of Hudri, composed
of a few dreary abodes, which, by their
aspect, seemed the connecting link between the
dwellings of man and the caverns of beasts. Vegetation
had long been growing more and more
meagre, and it was now fast melting away into still
deeper and irretrievable traces of sterility, like the
shadows of a picture passing through their several
transitions of color to the depth of the background.
The larches and cedars diminished gradually
in size and numbers, until the straggling and
stinted tree became a bush, and the latter finally
disappeared in the shape of a tuft of pale green,
that adhered to some crevice in the rocks like so
which Switzerland is so justly celebrated, grew
thin and wiry; and by the time the travellers
reached the circular basin at the foot of the peak
of Vélan, which is called La Plaine de Prou, there
only remained, in the most genial season of the
year, and that in isolated spots between the rocks,
a sufficiency of nourishment for the support of a
small flock of adventurous, nibbling, and hungry
goats.
The basin just alluded to is an opening among
high pinnacles, and is nearly surrounded by naked
and ragged rocks. The path led through its centre,
always ascending on an inclined plane, and
disappeared through a narrow gorge around the
brow of a beetling cliff. Pierre pointed out the
latter as the pass by far the most dangerous on
this side the Col, in the season of the melting snows,
avalanches frequently rolling from its crags.
There was no cause for apprehending this well-known
Alpine danger, however, in the present
moment; for, with the exception of Mont-Vélan,
all above and around them lay in the same dreary
dress of sterility. Indeed, it would not be easy for
the imagination to conceive a more eloquent picture
of desolation than that which met the eyes of
the travellers, as, following the course of the run
of water that trickled through the middle of the
inhospitable valley, the certain indication of the
general direction of their course, they reached its
centre.
The time was getting to be that of early twilight,
but the sombre color of the rocks, streaked
and venerable by the ferruginous hue with which
time had coated their sides, and the depth of the
basin, gave to their situation a melancholy gloom
passing the duskiness of the hour. On the other
hand, the light rested bright and gloriously on the
above them, though in plain, and apparently, in
near view; while rich touches of the setting sun
were gleaming on several of the brown, natural
battlements of the Alps, which, worn with eternal
exposure to the storms, still lay in sublime confusion
at a most painful elevation in their front.
The azure vault that canopied all, had that look of
distant glory and of grand repose, which so often
meets the eye, and so forcibly strikes the mind, of
him who travels in the deep valleys and embedded
lakes of Switzerland. The glacier of Valsorey
descended from the upper region nearly to the
edge of the valley, bright and shining, its lower
margin streaked and dirty with the débris of the
overhanging rocks, as if doomed to the fate of all
that came upon the earth, that of sharing its impurities.
There no longer existed any human habitation
between the point which the travellers had now
attained and the convent, though more modern
speculation, in this age of curiosity and restlessness,
has been induced to rear a substitute for an
inn in the spot just described, with the hope of
gleaning a scanty tribute from those who fail of
arriving in season to share the hospitality of the
monks. The chilliness of the air increased faster
even than the natural change of the hour would
seem to justify, and there were moments when the
dull sound of the wind descended to their ears,
though not a breath was stirring a withered and
nearly solitary blade of grass at their feet. Once
or twice, large black clouds drove across the opening
above them, resembling heavy-winged vultures
sailing in the void, preparatory to a swoop upon
their prey.
| CHAPTER VI. The headsman, or, The Abbaye des Vignerons | |