 | CHAPTER VII. The headsman, or, The Abbaye des Vignerons |  |
7. CHAPTER VII.
On and say nothing, lest a word, a breath,
Bring down a winter's snow, enough to whelm
The armed files that, night and day, were seen
Winding from cliff to cliff in loose array,
To conquer at Marengo.
Italy.
Pierre Dumont halted in the middle of the sterile
little plain, while he signed for those he conducted
to continue their ascent. As each mule
passed, it received a blow or a kick from the impatient
guide, who did not seem to think it necessary
to be very ceremonious with the poor beasts, and
had taken this simple method to give a general
and a brisker impulsion to the party. The expedient
was so natural, and so much in accordance
with the practice of the muleteers and others of
their class, that it excited no suspicion in most of
the travellers, who pursued their way, either meditating
on and enjoying the novel and profound
emotions that their present situation so naturally
awakened, or discoursing lightly, in the manner of
the thoughtless and unconcerned. The Signor
Grimaldi alone, whose watchfulness had already
been quickened by previous distrust, took heed of
the movement. When all had passed, the Genoese
turned in his saddle, and cast an apparently careless
look behind. But the glance in truth was anxious
and keen. Pierre stood looking steadily at
the heavens, one hand holding his hat, and the
other extended with an open palm. A glittering
particle descended to the latter, when the guide instantly
resumed his place in advance. As he passed
the Italian, however, meeting an inquiring look,
he permitted the other to see a snow-drop so thoroughly
the natural heat of his skin. The eye of Pierre
appeared to impose discretion on his confidant, and
the silent communion escaped the observation of
the rest of the travellers. Just at this moment,
too, the attention of the others was luckily called
to a different object, by a cry from one of the
muleteers, of whom there were three as assistants
to the guide. He pointed out a party which, like
themselves, was holding the direction of the Col.
There was a solitary individual mounted on a
mule, and a single pedestrian, without any guide,
or other traveller, in their company. Their movements
were swift, and they had not been more than
a minute in view, before they disappeared behind
an angle of the crags which nearly closed the valley
on the side of the convent, and which was the
precise spot already mentioned as being so dangerous
in the season of the melting snows.
“Dost thou know the quality and object of the
travellers before us?” demanded the Baron de
Willading of Pierre.
The latter mused. It was evident he did not
expect to meet with strangers in that particular
part of the passage.
“We can know little of those who come from
the convent, though few would be apt to leave so
safe a roof at this late hour,” he answered; “but,
until I saw yonder travellers with my own eyes, I
could have sworn there were none on this side of
the Col going the same way as ourselves? It is
time that all the others were already arrived.”
“They are villagers of St. Pierre, going up with
supplies;” observed one of the muleteers. “None
bound to Italy have passed Liddes since the party
of Pippo, and they by this time should be well
housed at the hospice. Didst not see a dog among
them?—'t was one of the Augustines' mastiffs.”
“'T was the dog I noted, and it was on account
of his appearance that I spoke;” returned the baron.
“The animal had the air of an old acquaintance,
Gaetano, for to me it seemed to resemble
our tried friend Nettuno; and he at whose heels it
kept so close wore much the air of our acquaintance
of the Leman, the bold and ready Maso.”
“Who has gone unrequited for his eminent
services!” answered the Genoese, thoughtfully.
“The extraordinary refusal of that man to receive
our money is quite as wonderful as any other
part of his unusual and inexplicable conduct. I
would he had been less obstinate or less proud, for
the unrequited obligation rests like a load upon
my spirits.”
“Thou art wrong. I employed our young friend
Sigismund secretly on this duty, while we were
receiving the greetings of Roger de Blonay and
the good bailiff, but thy countryman treated the
escape lightly, as the mariner is apt to consider
past danger, and he would listen to no offer of protection
or gold. I was, therefore more displeased
than surprised by what thou hast well enough
termed obstinacy.”
“Tell your employers, he said,” added Sigismund,
“that they may thank the saints, Our Lady,
or brother Luther, as best suits their habits, but
that they had better forget that such a man as
Maso lives. His acquaintance can bring them
neither honor nor advantage. Tell this especially
to the Signor Grimaldi, when you are on your
journey to Italy, and we have parted for ever, as
on my suggestion. This was said to me, in the
interview I held with the brave fellow after his liberation
from prison.”
“The answer was remarkable for a man of his
condition, and the especial message to myself of
singular exception. I observed that his eye was
passage of the lake, and to this hour I have not
been able to explain the motive!”
“Is the Signore of Genoa?”—asked the guide:
“or is he, by chance, in any way connected with
her authorities?”
“Of that republic and city, and certainly of
some little interest with the authorities;” answered
the Italian, a slight smile curling his lip, as he
glanced a look at his friend.
“It is not necessary to look farther for Maso's
acquaintance with your features,” returned Pierre,
laughing; “for of all who live in Italy, there is
not a man who has more frequent occasions to
know the authorities; but we linger, in this gossip.
Urge the beasts upwards, Etienne — presto! —
presto!”
The muleteers answered this appeal by one of
their long cries, which has a resemblance to the
rattling that is the well-known signal of the venomous
serpent of this country when he would admonish
the traveller to move quickly, and which
certainly produces the same startling effect on the
nerves of the mule as the signal of the snake is
very apt to excite in man. This interruption caused
the dialogue to be dropped, all riding onward,
musing in their several fashions on what had just
passed. In a few minutes the party turned the
crag in question, and, quitting the valley, or sterile
basin, in which they had been journeying for the
last half hour, they entered by a narrow gorge into
a scene that resembled a crude collection of the
materials of which the foundations of the world
had been originally formed. There was no longer
any vegetation at all, or, if here and there a blade
of grass had put forth under the shelter of some
stone, it was so meagre, and of so rare occurrence,
as to be unnoticed in that sublime scene of chaotic
cheerless rocks arose around them, and even that
snowy beacon, the glowing summit of Vélan, which
had so long lain bright and cheering on their path,
was now hid entirely from view. Pierre Dumont
soon after pointed out a place on the visible summit
of the mountain, where a gorge between the neighboring
peaks admitted a view of the heavens
beyond. This he informed those he guided was
the Col, through whose opening the pile of the Alps
was to be finally surmounted. The light that still
tranquilly reigned in this part of the heavens was
in sublime contrast to the gathering gloom of the
passes below, and all hailed this first glimpse of
the end of their day's toil as a harbinger of rest,
and we might add of security; for, although none
but the Signor Grimaldi had detected the secret
uneasiness of Pierre, it was not possible to be, at
that late hour, amid so wild and dreary a display
of desolation, and, as it were, cut off from communion
with their kind, without experiencing an
humbling sense of the dependence of man upon the
grand and ceaseless Providence of God.
The mules were again urged to increase their
pace, and images of the refreshment and repose
that were expected from the convent's hospitality,
became general and grateful among the travellers.
The day was fast disappearing from the glens and
ravines through which they rode, and all discourse
ceased in the desire to get on. The exceeding
purity of the atmosphere, which, at that great
elevation, resembled a medium of thought rather
than of matter, rendered objects defined, just, and
near; and none but the mountaineers and Sigismund,
who were used to the deception, (for in effect
truth obtains this character with those who have
been accustomed to the false) and who understood
the grandeur of the scale on which nature has displayed
calculate the distance which still separated them
from their goal. More than a league of painful
and stony ascent was to be surmounted, and yet
Adelheid and Christine had both permitted slight
exclamations of pleasure to escape them, when
Pierre pointed to the speck of blue sky between
the hoary pinnacles above, and first gave them to
understand that it denoted the position of the convent.
Here and there, too, small patches of the
last year's snow were discovered, lying under the
shadows of overhanging rocks, and which were
likely to resist the powers of the sun till winter
came again; another certain sign that they had
reached a height greatly exceeding that of the
usual habitations of men. The keenness of the
air was another proof of their situation, for all the
travellers had heard that the Augustines dwelt
among eternal frosts, a report which is nearly
literally true.
At no time during the day had the industry of
the party been as great as it now became. In this
respect, the ordinary traveller is apt to resemble
him who journeys on the great highway of life,
and who finds himself obliged, by a tardy and illrequited
diligence in age, to repair those omissions
and negligences of youth which would have rendered
the end of his toil easy and profitable. Improved
as their speed had become, it continued to
increase rather than to diminish, for Pierre Dumont
kept his eye riveted on the heavens, and each moment
of time seemed to bring new incentives to
exertion. The wearied beasts manifested less zeal
than the guide, and they who rode them were
beginning to murmur at the unreasonableness of
the rate at which they were compelled to proceed
on the narrow, uneven, stony path, where footing
for the animals was not always obtained with the
that cast by the shadows of the rocks fell upon
their track, and the air filled with snow, as suddenly
as if all its particles had been formed and
condensed by the application of some prompt
chemical process.
The change was so unexpected, and yet so complete,
that the whole party checked their mules,
and sat looking up at the millions of flakes that
were descending on their heads, with more wonder
and admiration than fear. A shout from Pierre
first aroused them from this trance, and recalled
them to a sense of the real state of things. He
was standing on a knoll, already separated from
the party by some fifty yards, white with snow,
and gesticulating violently for the travellers to
come on.
“For the sake of the Blessed Maria! quicken
the beasts,” he cried; for Pierre, like most who
dwell in Valais, was a Catholic, and one accustomed
to bethink him most of his heavenly mediator when
most oppressed with present dangers; “quicken
their speed, if ye value your lives! This is no moment
to gaze at the mountains, which are well
enough in their way, and no doubt both the finest
and largest known,” (no Swiss ever seriously
vituperates or loses his profound veneration for his
beloved nature,) “but which had better be the
humblest plain on earth for our occasions than
what they truly are. Quicken the mules then, for
the love of the Blessed Virgin!”
“Thou betrayest unnecessary, and, for one that
had needs be cool, indiscreet alarm, at the appearance
of a little snow, friend Pierre,” observed the
Signor Grimaldi, as the mules drew near the guide,
and speaking with a little of the irony of a soldier
who had steeled his nerves by familiarity with
danger. “Even we Italians, though less used to
much disturbed by the change, as thou, a trained
guide of St. Bernard!”
“Reproach me as you will, Signore,” said Pierre,
turning and pursuing his way with increased diligence,
though he did not entirely succeed in concealing
his resentment at an accusation which he
knew to be unmerited, “but quicken your pace;
until you are better acquainted with the country
in which you journey, your words pass for empty
breath in my ears. This is no trifle of a cloak
doubled about the person, or of balls rolled into
piles by the sport of children; but an affair of life
or death. You are a half league in the air, Signor
Genoese, in the region of storms, where the winds
work their will, at times, as if infernal devils were
rioting to cool themselves, and where the stoutest
limbs and the firmest hearts are brought but too
often to see and confess their feebleness!”
The old man had uncovered his blanched locks
in respect to the Italian, as he uttered this energetic
remonstrance, and when he ended, he walked
on with professional pride, as if disdaining to protect
a brow that had already weathered so many
tempests among the mountains.
“Cover thyself, good Pierre, I pray thee;” urged
the Genoese in a tone of repeatance. “I have
shown the intemperance of a boy, and intemperance
of a quality that little becomes my years.
Thou art the best judge of the circumstances in
which we are placed, and thou alone shalt lead us.”
Pierre accepted the apology with a manly but
respectful reverence, continuing always to ascend
with unremitted industry.
Ten gloomy and anxious minutes succeeded.
During this time, the falling snows came faster
and in finer flakes, while, occasionally, there were
fearful intimations that the winds were about to
found themselves, phenomena, that would ordinarily
be of little account, become the arbiters of
fate. The escape of the caloric from the human
system, at the height of six or seven thousand feet
above the sea, and in the latitude of forty-six, is,
under the most favorable circumstances, frequently
of itself the source of inconvenience; but here
were grave additional reasons to heighten the
danger. The absence of the sun's rays alone left
a sense of chilling cold, and a few hours of night
were certain to bring frost, even at midsummer.
Thus it is that storms of trifling import in themselves
gain power over the human frame, by its
reduced means of resistance, and when to this fact
is added the knowledge that the elements are far
fiercer in their workings in the upper than in the
nether regions of the earth, the motives of Pierre's
concern will be better understood by the reader
than they probably were by himself, though the
honest guide had a long and severe experience to
supply the place of theory.
Men are rerely loquacious in danger. The timid
recoil into themselves, yielding most of their faculties
to a tormenting imagination, that augments
the causes of alarm and diminishes the means of
security, while the firm of mind rally and condense
their powers to the point necessary to exertion.
Such were the effects in the present instance
on those who followed Pierre. A general and deep
silence pervaded the party, each one seeing their
situation in the colors most suited to his particular
habits and character. The men, without an exception,
were grave and earnest in their efforts to
force the mules forward; Adelheid became pale,
but she preserved her calmness by the sheer force
of character; Christine was trembling and dependent,
though cheered by the presence of, and
of the heiress of Willading covered their
heads, and followed their mistress with the blind
faith in their superiors that is apt to sustain people
of their class in serious emergencies.
Ten minutes sufficed entirely to change the aspect
of the view. The frozen element could not
adhere to the iron-like and perpendicular faces of
the mountains, but the glens, and ravines, and valleys
became as white as the peak of Vélan. Still
Pierre continued his silent and upward march, in
a way to keep alive a species of trembling hope
among those who depended so helplessly upon his
intelligence and faith. They wished to believe
that the snow was merely one of those common
occurrences that were to be expected on the summits
of the Alps at this late season of the year,
and which were no more than so many symptoms
of the known rigor of the approaching winter.
The guide himself was evidently disposed to lose
no time in explanation, and as the secret excitement
stole over all his followers, he no longer had
cause to complain of the tardiness of their movements.
Sigismund kept near his sister and Adelheid,
having a care that their mules did not lag;
while the other males performed the same necessary
office for the beasts ridden by the female domestics.
In this manner passed the few sombre
minutes which immediately preceded the disappearance
of day. The heavens were no longer
visible. In that direction the eye saw only an
endless succession of falling flakes, and it was getting
to be difficult to distinguish even the ramparts
of rock that bounded the irregular ravine in which
they rode. They were known to be, however, at
no great distance from the path, which indeed occasionally
brushed their sides. At other moments
they crossed rude, stony, mountain heaths, if such
or hope of vegetation. The traces of the beasts
that had preceded them, became less and less apparent,
though the trickling stream that came down
from the glaciers, and along which they had now
journeyed for hours, was occasionally seen, as it
was crossed in pursuing their winding way. Pierre,
though still confident that he held the true direction,
alone knew that this guide was not longer to
be relied on; for, as they drew nearer to the top
of the mountains, the torrent gradually lessened
both in its force and in the volume of its water,
separating into twenty small rills, which came rippling
from the vast bodies of snow that lay among
the different peaks above.
As yet, there had been no wind. The guide, as
minute after minute passed without bringing any
change in this respect, ventured at last to advert
to the fact, cheering his companions by giving
them reasons to hope that they should yet reach
the convent without any serious calamity. As if
in mockery of this opinion, the flakes of snow
began to whirl in the air, while the words were on
his lips, and a blast came through the ravine, that
set the protection of cloaks and mantles at defiance.
Notwithstanding his resolution and experience, the
stout-hearted Pierre suffered an exclamation of
despair to escape him, and he instantly stopped, in
the manner of a man who could no longer conceal
the dread that had been collecting in his bosom,
for the last interminable and weary hour. Sigismund,
as well as most of the men of the party, had
dismounted a little previously, with a view to excite
warmth by exercise. The youth had often
traversed the mountains, and the cry no sooner
reached his ear, than he was at the side of him who
uttered it.
“At what distance, are we still from the convent?”
he demanded eagerly.
“There is more than a league of steep and stony
path to mount, Monsieur le Capitaine;” returned
the disconsolate Pierre, in a tone that perhaps said
more than his words.
“This is not a moment for indecision. Remember
that thou art not the leader of a party of carriers
with their beasts of burthen, but that there
are those with us, who are unused to exposure,
and are feeble of body. What is the distance from
the last hamlet we passed?”
“Double that to the convent!”
Sigismund turned, and with the eye he made a
silent appeal to the two old nobles, as if to ask for
advice or orders.
“It might indeed be better to return,” observed
the Signore Grimaldi, in the way one utters a half-formed
resolution. “This wind is getting to be
piercingly cutting, and the night is hard upon us.
What thinkest thou, Melchior; for, with Monsieur
Sigismund, I am of opinion that there is little time
to lose.”
“Signore, your pardon,” hastily interrupted the
guide. “I would not undertake to cross the plain
of the Vélan an hour later, for all the treasures of
Einsideln and Loretto! The wind will have an
infernal sweep in that basin, which will soon be
boiling like a pot, while here we shall get, from
time to time, the shelter of the rocks. The slightest
mishap on the open ground might lead us astray
a league or more, and it would need an hour to
regain the course. The beasts too mount faster
than they deseend, and with far more surety in the
dark; and even when at the village there is nothing
fit for nobles, while the brave monks have all that
a king can need.”
“Those who escape from these wild rocks need
fairly housed. Wilt thou answer for our arrival at
the convent unharmed, and in reasonable time?”
“Signore, we are in the hands of God. The
pious Augustines, I make no doubt, are praying
for all who are on the mountain at this moment; but
there is not a minute to lose. I ask no more than
that none lose sight of their companions, and that
each exert his force to the utmost. We are not
far from the House of Refuge, and should the
storm increase to a tempest, as, to conceal the
danger no longer, well may happen in this late
month, we will seek its shelter for a few hours.”
This intelligence was happily communicated, for
the certainty that there was a place of safety within
an attainable distance, had some such cheering
effect on the travellers as is produced on the mariner
who finds that the hazards of the gale are
lessened by the accidental position of a secure
harbor under his lee. Repeating his admonitions
for the party to keep as close together as possible,
and advising all who felt the sinister effects of the
cold on their limbs to dismount, and to endeavor
to restore the circulation by exercise, Pierre resumed
his route.
But even the time consumed in this short conference
had sensibly altered the condition of things
for the worse. The wind, which had no fixed direction,
being a furious current of the upper air
diverted from its true course by encountering the
ragged peaks and ravines of the Alps, was now
whirling around them in eddies, now aiding their
ascent by seeming to puch against their backs, and
then returning in their faces with a violence that
actually rendered advance impossible. The temperature
fell rapidly several degrees, and the most
vigorous of the party began to perceive the benumbing
influence of the chilling currents, at their lower
alarm. Every precaution was used to protect
the females that tenderness could suggest; but
though Adelheid, who alone retained sufficient
self-command to give an account of her feelings,
diminished the danger of their situation with the
wish not to alarm their companions uselessly, she
could not conceal from herself the horrible truth
that the vital heat was escaping from her own
body, with a rapidity that rendered it impossible
for her much longer to retain the use of her faculties.
Conscious of her own mental superiority
over that of all her female companions, a superiority
which in such moments is even of more
account than bodily force, after a few minutes of
silent endurance, she checked her mule, and called
upon Sigismund to examine the condition of his
sister and her maids, neither of whom had now
spoken for some time.
This startling request was made at a moment
when the storm appeared to gather new force, and
when it had become absolutely impossible to distinguish
even the whitened earth at twenty paces from
the spot where the party stood collected in a shivering
group. The young soldier threw open the cloaks
and mantles in which Christine was enveloped,
and the half-unconscious girl sank on his shoulder,
like a drowsy infant that was willing to seek its
slumbers in the arms of one it loved.
“Christine!—my sister!—my poor, my much-abused,
angelic sister!” murmured Sigismund,
happily for his secret in a voice that only reached
the ears of Adelheid. “Awake! Christine; for the
love of our excellent and affectionate mother, exert
thyself. Awake! Christine, in the name of God,
awake!”
“Awake, dearest Christine!” exclaimed Adelheid,
throwing herself from the saddle, and folding
protect me from the pang of feeling that thy loss
should be owing to my wish to lead thee amid
these cruel and inhospitable rocks! Christine, if
thou hast love or pity for me, awake!”
“Look to the maids!” hurriedly said Pierre,
who found that he was fast touching on one of
those mountain catastrophes, of which, in the
course of his life, he had been the witness of a few
of fearful consequences. “Look to all the females,
for he who now sleeps, dies!”
The muleteers soon stripped the two domestics
of their outer coverings, and it was immediately
proclaimed that both were in imminent danger,
one having already lost all consciousness. A timely
application of the flask of Pierre, and the efforts
of the muleteers, succeeded so far in restoring life
as to remove the grounds of immediate apprehension;
though it was apparent to the least instructed
of them all, that half an hour more of exposure
would probably complete the fatal work that had
so actively and vigorously commenced. To add
to the horror of this conviction, each member of
the party, not excepting the muleteers, was painfully
conscious of the escape of that vital warmth
whose total flight was death.
In this strait all dismounted. They felt that the
occasion was one of extreme jeopardy, that nothing
could save them but resolution, and that every
minute of time was getting to be of the last importance.
Each female, Adelheid included, was
placed between two of the other sex, and, supported
in this manner, Pierre called loudly and in a manful
voice for the whole to proceed. The beasts
were driven after them by one of the muleteers.
The progress of travellers, feeble as Adelheid
and her companions, on a stony path of very uneven
surface, and of a steep ascent, the snow covering
was necessarily slow, and to the last degree toilsome.
Still, the exertion increased the quickness
of the blood, and, for a short time, there was an
appearance of recalling those who most suffered
to life. Pierre, who still kept his post with the
hardihood of a mountaineer, and the fidelity of a
Swiss, cheered them on with his voice, continuing
to raise the hope that the place of refuge was at
hand.
At this instant, when exertion was most needed,
and when, apparently, all were sensible of its importance
and most disposed to make it, the muleteer
charged with the duty of urging on the line of
beasts deserted his trust, preferring to take his
chance of regaining the village by descending the
mountain, to struggle uselessly, and at a pace so
slow, to reach the convent. The man was a
stranger in the country, who had been adventitiously
employed for this expedition, and was unconnected
with Pierre by any of those ties which
are the best pledges of unconquerable faith, when
the interests of self press hard upon our weaknesses.
The wearied beasts, no longer driven,
and indisposed to toil, first stopped, then turned
aside to avoid the cutting air and the ascent, and
were soon wandering from the path it was so
vitally necessary to keep.
As soon as Pierre was informed of the circumstance,
he eagerly issued an order to collect the
stragglers without delay, and at every hazard.
Benumbed, bewildered, and unable to see beyond
a few yards, this embarrassing duty was not easily
performed. One after another of the party joined
in the pursuit, for all the effects of the travellers
were on the beasts; and after some ten minutes of
delay, blended with an excitement which helped
to quicken the blood and to awaken the faculties
regained. They were secured to each other,
head and tail, in the manner so usual in the droves
of these animals, and Pierre turned to resume the
order of the march. But on seeking the path, it
was not to be found! Search was made on every
side, and yet none could meet with the smallest of
its traces. Broken, rough fragments of rock,
were all that rewarded the most anxious investigation;
and after a few precious minutes uselessly
wasted, they all assembled around the guide, as if
by common consent, to seek his counsel. The
truth was no longer to be concealed—the party
was lost!
| CHAPTER VII. The headsman, or, The Abbaye des Vignerons | |