 | CHAPTER IX. The headsman, or, The Abbaye des Vignerons |  |
9. CHAPTER IX.
Side by side,
Within they lie, a mournful company.
Rogers.
The sleep of the weary is sweet. In after-life,
Adelheid, when dwelling in a palace, reposing on
down, and canopied by the rich stuffs of a more
generous climate, was often heard to say that she
had never taken rest grateful as that she found in
the Refuge of St. Bernard. So easy, natural, and
refreshing, had been her slumbers, unalloyed even
by those dreams of precipices and avalanches
which, long afterwards, haunted her slumbers,
that she was the first to open her eyes on the following
morning, awaking like an infant that had
enjoyed a quiet and healthful repose. Her movements
aroused Christine. They threw aside the
cloaks and coats that covered them, and sat gazing
about the place in the confusion that the novelty
of their situation would be likely to produce. All
the rest of the travellers still slumbered; and, arising
without noise, they passed the silent and insensible
sleepers, the quiet mules which had stretched
themselves near the entrance of the place, and
quitted the hut.
Without, the scene was wintry: but, as is usual
in the Alps let what may be the season, its features
of grand and imposing sublimity were prominent.
The day was among the peaks above them, while
the shades of night still lay upon the valleys, forming
a landscape like that exquisite and poetical picture
of the lower world, which Guido has given in
the celebrated al-fresco painting of Aurora. The
ravines and glens were covered with snow, but
eternal hue of ferruginous brown. The little knoll
on which the Refuge stood was also nearly naked,
the wind having driven the light particles of the
snow into the ravine of the path. The air of the
morning is keen at that great height even in midsummer,
and the shivering girls drew their mantles
about them, though they breathed the clear,
elastic, inspiring element with pleasure. The storm
was entirely past, and the pure sapphire-colored
sky was in lovely contrast with the shadows beneath,
raising their thoughts naturally to that heaven
which shone in a peace and glory so much in
harmony with the ordinary images we shadow
forth of the abode of the blessed. Adelheid pressed
the hand of Christine, and they knelt together,
bowing their heads to a rock. As fervent, pure,
and sincere orisons ascended to God, from these
pious and innocent spirits, as it belongs to poor
mortality to offer.
This general, and in their peculiar situation especial,
duty performed, the gentle girls felt more
assured. Relieved of a heavy and imperative obligation,
they ventured to look about them with
greater confidence. Another building, similar in
form and material to that in which their companions
were still sleeping, stood on the same swell of
rock, and their first inquiries naturally took that
direction. The entrance, or outlet to this hut, was
an orifice that resembled a window rather than a
door. They moved cautiously to the spot, looking
into the gloomy, cavern-like room, as timidly
as the hare throws his regards about him before
he ventures from his cover. Four human forms
were reposing deep in the vault, with their backs
sustained against the walls. They slept profoundly
too, for the curious but startled girls gazed at
awake.
“We have not been alone on the mountain in
this terrible night,” whispered Adelheid, gently
urging the trembling Christine away from the spot;
“thou seest that other travellers have been taking
their rest near us; most probably after perils and
fatigues like our own.”
Christine drew closer to the side of her more
experienced friend, like the young of the dove
hovering near the mother-bird when first venturing
from the nest, and they returned to the refuge
they had quitted, for the cold was still so intense
as to render its protection grateful. At the door
they were met by Pierre, the vigilant old man
having awakened as soon as the light crossed his
eyes.
“We are not alone here;” said Adelheid, pointing
to the other stone-covered roof—“there are
travellers sleeping in yonder building, too.”
“Their sleep will be long, lady;” answered the
guide, shaking his head solemnly. “With two of
them it has already lasted a twelvemonth, and the
third has slept where you saw him since the fall of
the avalanche in the last days of April.”
Adelheid recoiled a step, for his meaning was
too plain to be misunderstood. After looking at
her gentle companion, she demanded if those they
had seen were in truth the bodies of travellers who
had perished on the mountain.
“Of no other, lady,” returned Pierre. “This
hut is for the living—that for the dead. So near
are the two to each other, when men journey on
these wild rocks in winter! I have known him
who passed a short and troubled night here, begin
a sleep in the other before the turn of the day that
is not only deep enough, but which will last for
ever. One of the three that thou hast just seen
falling snow at the spot where the path leaves the
plain of Vélan below us. Another is a pilgrim
that perished in as clear a night as ever shone on
St. Bernard, and merely for having taking a cup
too much to cheer his way. The third is a poor
vine-dresser that was coming from Piedmont into
our Swiss valleys to follow his calling, when death
overtook him in an ili-advised slumber, in which
he was so unwise as to indulge at nightfall. I
found his body myself on that naked rock, the day
after we had drunk together in friendship at Aoste,
and with my own hands was he placed among
the others.”
“And such is the burial a Christian gets in this
inhospitable country!”
“What would you, lady!—'tis the chance of the
poor and the unknown. Those that have friends
are sought and found; but those that die without
leaving traces of their origin fare as you see. The
spade is useless among these rocks; and then it is
better that the body should remain where it may
be seen and claimed, than it should be put out of
sight. The good fathers, and all of note, are taken
down into the valleys, where there is earth, and
are decently buried; while the poor and the stranger
are housed in this vault, which is a better cover
than many of them knew while living. Ay, there
are three Christians there, who were all lately
walking the earth in the flesh, gay and active
as any.”
“The bodies are four in number!”
Pierre looked surprised; he mused a little, and
continued his employment.
“Then another has perished. The time may
come when my own blood shall freeze. This is a
fate the guide must ever keep in mind, for he is
not!”
Adelheid pursued the subject no farther. She
remembered to have heard that the pure atmosphere
of the mountain prevented that offensive
decay which is usually associated with the idea of
death, and the usage lost some of its horror in the
recollection.
In the mean time the remainder of the party
awoke, and were collecting before the refuge.
The mules were led forth and saddled, the baggage
was loaded, and Pierre was calling upon the travellers
to mount, when Uberto and Nettuno came
leaping down the path in company, running side
by side in excellent fellowship. The movements
of the dogs were of a nature to attract the attention
of Pierre and the muleteers, who predicted
that they should soon see some of the servants of
the hospice. The result showed the familiarity of
the guide with his duty, for he had scarce ventured
this opinion, when a party from the gorge on
the summit of the mountain was seen wading
through the snow, along the path that led towards
the Refuge, with Father Xavier at its head.
The explanations were brief and natural. After
conducting the travellers to the shelter, and passing
most of the night in their company, at the approach
of dawn Uberto had returned to the convent,
always attended by his friend Nettuno. Here he
communicated to the monks, by signs which they
who were accustomed to the habits of the animal
were not slow in interpreting, that travellers were
on the mountain. The good clavier knew that the
party of the Baron de Willading was about to
cross the Col, for he had hurried home to be in
readiness to receive them; and foreseeing the
probability that they had been overtaken by the
storm of the previous night, he was foremost in
The little flask of cordial, too, had been
removed from the collar of Uberto, leaving no
doubt of its contents having been used; and, as
nothing was more probable than that the traveller
should seek a cover, their steps were directed towards
the Refuge as a matter of course.
The worthy clavier made this explanation with
eyes that glistened with moisture, occasionally interrupting
himself to murmur a prayer of thanksgiving.
He passed from one of the party to the
other, not even neglecting the muleteers, examining
their limbs, and more especially their ears, to
see that they had quite escaped the influence of
the frost, and was only happy when assured by
his own observation that the terrible danger they
had run was not likely to be attended by any injurious
consequences.
“We are accustomed to see many accidents of
this nature,” he said, smilingly, when the examination
was satisfactorily ended, “and practice has
made us quick of sight in these matters. The
blessed Maria be praised, and adoration to her holy
Son, that you have all got through the night so
well! There is a warm breakfast in readiness in
the convent kitchen, and, one solemn duty performed,
we will go up the rocks to enjoy it. The little
building near us is the last earthly abode of those
who perish on this side the mountain, and whose
remains are unclaimed. None of our canons pass
the spot without offering a prayer in behalf of their
souls. Kneel with me, then, you that have so much
reason to be grateful to God, and join in the petition.”
Father Xavier knelt on the rocks, and all the
Catholics of the party united with him in the prayer
for the dead. The Baron de Willading, his daughter
and their attendants stood uncovered the while,
a mediation as useless, they deeply felt the solemnity
and holy character of the sacrifice. The
clavier arose with a countenance that was beaming
and bright as the morning sun which, just at that
moment, appeared above the summits of the Alps,
casting its genial and bland warmth on the group,
the brown huts, and the mountain side.
“Thou art a heretic,” he said affectionately
to Adelheid, in whom he felt the interest, to which
her youth and beauty, and the great danger they
had so lately run in company, very naturally gave
birth. “Thou art an impenitent heretic, but we
will not cast thee off; notwithstanding thy obstinacy
and crimes, thou seest that the saints can interest
themselves in the behalf of obstinate sinners, or thou
and all with thee would have surely been lost.”
This was said in a way to draw a smile from
Adelheid, who received his accusations as so many
friendly and playful reproaches. As a token of
peace between them, she offered her hand to the
monk, with a request that he would aid her in
getting into the saddle.
“Dost thou remark the brutes!” said the Signor
Grimaldi, pointing to the animals, who were gravely
seated before the window of the bone-house, with
relaxed jaws, keeping their eyes riveted on its
entrance, or window. “Thy St. Bernard dogs,
father, seem trained to serve a Christian in all ways,
whether living or dead.”
“Their quiet attitude and decent attention might
indeed justify such a remark! Didst thou ever note
such conduct in Uberto before?” returned the
Augustine, addressing the servants of the convent,
for the actions of the animals were a study and a
subject of great interest to all of St. Bernard.
“They tell me that another fresh body has been
put into the house, since I last came down the
of a mule in a manner more favorable for
Adelheid to mount: “the mastiff scents the dead.
It was this that brought him to the Refuge last
night. Heaven be praised for the mercy!”
This was said with the indifference that habit is
apt to create, for the usage of leaving bodies uninterred
had no influence on the feelings of the
guide, but it did not the less strike those who had
descended from the convent.
“Thou art the last that came down thyself,” said
one of the servants; “nor have any come up, but
those who are now safe in the convent, taking their
rest after last night's tempest.”
“How canst utter this idle nonsense, Henri, when
a fresh body is in the house! This lady counted
them but now, and there are four; three was the
number that I showed the Piedmontese noble whom
I led from Aoste, the day thou meanest!”
“Look to this;” said the clavier, turning abruptly
away from Adelheid, whom he was on the point
of helping into the saddle.
The men entered the gloomy vault, whence they
soon returned bearing a body, which they placed
with its back against the wall of the building, in
the open air. A cloak was over the head and face,
as if the garment had been thus arranged to exclude
the cold.
“He hath perished the past night, mistaking the
bone-house for the Refuge!” exclaimed the clavier:
“Maria and her Son intercede for his soul!”
“Is the unfortunate man truly dead?” asked the
Genoese with more of worldly care, and with
greater practice in the investigation of facts. “The
frozen sleep long before the currents of life cease
entirely to run.”
The Augustine commanded his followers to remove
the cloak, though with little hope that the
the cloth was raised, the collapsed and pallid features
of one in whom life was unequivocally extinct
were exposed to view. Unlike most of those that
perish of cold, who usually sink into the long sleep
of eternity by a gradual numbness and a slowly
increasing unconsciousness, there was an expression
of pain in the countenance of the stranger
which seemed to announce that his parting struggles
had been severe, and that he had resigned his hold
of that mysterious principle which connects the
soul to the body, with anguish. A shrick from
Christine interrupted the awful gaze of the travellers,
and drew their looks in another direction. She
was clinging to the neck of Adelheid, her arms
appearing to writhe with the effort to incorporate
their two bodies into one.
It is he! It is he!” muttered the frightened
and half frantic girl, burying her pale face in the
bosom of her friend. “Oh! God!—it is he!”
“Of whom art thou speaking, dear?” demanded
the wondering, but not the less awe-struck. Adelheid,
believing that the weakened nerves of the
poor girl were unstrung by the horror of the spectacle—“it
is a traveller like ourselves, that has unhappily
perished in the very storm from which, by
the kindness of Providence, we have been permitted
to escape. Thou shouldst not tremble thus; for,
fearful as it is, he is in a condition to which we all
must come.”
“So soon! so soon! so suddenly—oh! it is he!”
Adelheid, alarmed at the violence of Christine's
feelings, was quite at a loss to account for them,
when the relapsed grasp and the dying voice showed
that her friend had fainted. Sigismund was one
of the first to come to the assistance of his sister,
who was soon restored to consciousness by the
ordinary applications. In order to effect the cure,
from the rest of the party, where none of the other
sex presumed to come, with the exception of her
brother. The latter staid but a moment, for a stir
in the little party at the bone-house induced him
to go thither. His return was slow, thoughtful,
and sad.
“The feelings of our poor Christine have been
unhinged, and she is too easily excited to undergo
the vicissitudes of a journey,” observed Adelheid,
after having announced the restoration of the sufferer
to her senses; “have you seen her thus before?”
“No angel could be more tranquil and happy
than my cruelly treated sister was until this last
disgrace;—you appear ignorant yourself of the
melancholy truth?”
Adelheid looked her surprise.
“The dead man is he who was so lately intended
to be the master of my sister's happiness, and the
wounds on his body leave little doubt that he has
been murdered.”
The emotion of Christine needed no further
explanation.
“Murdered!” repeated Adelheid, in a whisper.
“Of that frightful truth there can be no question.
Your father and our friends are now employed in
making the examinations which may hereafter be
useful in discovering the authors of the deed.”
“Sigismund?”
“What wouldst thou, Adelheid?”
“Thou hast felt resentment against this unfortunate
man?”
“I deny it not: could a brother feel otherwise?”
“But now—now that God hath so fearfully visited
him?”
“From my soul I forgive him. Had we met
foolish.”
“Worse than that, Sigismund.”
“From my inmost soul I pardon him. I never
thought him worthy of her whose simple affections
were won by the first signs of his pretended interest;
but I could not wish him so cruel and sudden
an end. May God have mercy on him, as he
is pardoned by me!”
Adelheid received the silent pressure of the hand
which followed with pious satisfaction. They then
separated, he to join the group that was collected
around the body, and she to take her station again
near Christine. The former, however, was met by
the Signor Grimaldi, who urged his immediate departure
with the females for the convent, promising
that the rest of the travellers should follow as soon
as the present melancholy duty was ended. As Sigismund
had no wish to be a party in what was
going on, and there was reason to think his sister
would be spared much pain by quitting the spot,
he gladly acquiesced in the proposal. Immediate
steps were taken for its accomplishment.
Christine mounted her mule, in obedience to her
brother's desire, quietly, and without remonstrance;
but her death-like countenance and fixed eye
betrayed the violence of the shock she had received.
During the whole of the ride to the convent she
spoke not, and, as those around her felt for, and
understood, her distress, the little cavalcade could
not have been more melancholy and silent had it
borne with it the body of the slain. In an hour
they reached the long sought for and so anxiously
desired place of rest.
While this disposition of the feebler portion of
the party was making, a different scene had taken
place near what have been already so well called
the houses of the living and the dead. As there existed
abode of the Augustines on either side of the mountain,
and as the paths were much frequented in the
summer, the monks exercised a species of civil jurisdiction
in such cases as required a prompt exercise
of justice, or a necessary respect for those forms that
might be important in its administration hereafter before
the more regular authorities. It was no sooner
known, therefore, that there was reason to suspect
an act of violence had been committed, than the
good clavier set seriously about taking the necessary
steps to authenticate all those circumstances
that could be accurately ascertained.
The identity of the body as that of Jacques Colis,
a small but substantial proprietor of the country
of Vaud, was quickly established. To this fact
not only several of the travellers could testify, but
he was also known to one of the muleteers, of
whom he had engaged a beast to be left at Aoste;
and, it will also be remembered, he had been seen by
Pierre at Martigny, while making his arrangements
to pass the mountain. Of the mule there were no
other traces than a few natural signs around the
building, but which might equally be attributed to
the beasts that still awaited the leisure of the travellers.
The manner in which the unhappy man
had come by his death admitted of no dispute.
There were several wounds in the body, and a
knife, of the sort then much used by travellers of
an ordinary class, was left sticking in his back in
a position to render it impossible to attribute the
end of the sufferer to suicide. The clothes, too,
exhibited proofs of a struggle, for they were torn
and soiled, but nothing had been taken away. A
little gold was found in the pockets, and though in
no great plenty still enough to weaken the first impression
that there had also been a robbery.
“This is wonderful!” observed the good clavier,
as he noted the last circumstance; “the dross
which leads so many souls to damnation has been
neglected, while Christina blood has been shed!
This seems an act of vengeance rather than of
cupidity. Let us now examine if any proofs are
to be found of the scene of this tragedy.”
The search was unsuccessful. The whole of
the surrounding region being composed of ferruginous
rocks and their débris, it would not, indeed,
have been an easy matter to trace the march of
an army by their footsteps. The stain of blood,
however, was nowhere discoverable, except on
the spot where the body had been found. The
house itself furnished no particular evidence of the
bloody scene of which it had been a witness. The
bones of those who had died long before were lying
on the stones, it is true, broken and scattered;
but, as the curious were wont to stop, and sometimes
to enter among and handle these remains of
mortality, there was nothing new or peculiar in
their present condition.
The interior of the dead-house was obscure, and
suited, in this particular at least, to its solemn office.
While making the latter part of their examination,
the monk and the two nobles, who began to feel a
lively interest in the late event, stood before the
window, gazing in at the gloomy but instructive
scene. One body was so placed as to receive a
few of the direct rays of the morning light, and it
was consequently much more conspicuous than the
rest, though even this was a dark and withered
mummy that presented scarcely a vestige of the
being it had been. Like all the others whose parts
still clung together, it had been placed against the
wall, in the attitude of one that is seated, with the
head fallen forward. The latter circumstnace had
brought the blackened and shrivelled face into the
features being distorted by the process of evaporation,
and was altogether a revolting but salutary
monitor of the common lot.
“'Tis the body of the poor vine-dresser;” remarked
the monk, more accustomed to the spectacle
than his companions, who had shrunk from the
sight; “he unwisely slept on yonder naked rock,
and it proved to him the sleep of death. There
have been many masses for his soul, but what is
left of his material remains still lie unclaimed.
But—how is this! Pierre, thou hast lately passed
this place; what was the number of the bodies, at
thy last visit?”
“Three, reverend clavier; and yet the ladies
spoke of four. I looked for the fourth when in the
building, but there appeared none fresh, except this
of poor Jacques Colis.”
“Come hither, and say if there do not appear
to be two in the far corner—here, where the body
of thy old comrade the guide was placed, from
respect for his calling; surely, there at least is a
change in its position!”
Pierre approached, and taking off his cap in
reverence, he leaned forward in the building, so
as to exclude the external light from his eyes.
“Father!” he said, drawing back in surprise,
“there is truly another; though I overlooked it
when we entered the place.”
“This must be examined into! The crime may
be greater than we had believed!”
The servants of the convent and Pierre, whose
long services rendered him a familiar of the brotherhood,
now re-entered the building, while those
without impatiently awaited the result. A cry from
the interior prepared the latter for some fresh subject
of horror, when Pierre and his companion
quickly reappeared, dragging a living man into the
knew him recognized the mild demeanor, the subdued
look, and the uneasy, distrustful glance of
Balthazar.
The first sensation of the spectators was that
of open amazement; but dark suspicion followed.
The baron, the two Genoese, and the monk, had
all been witnesses of the scene in the great square
of Vévey. The person of the headman had become
so well known to them by the passage on
the lake and the event just alluded to, that there
was not a moment of doubt touching his identity,
and, coupled with the circumstances of that morning,
there remained little more that the clue was
now found to the cause of the murder.
We shall not stop to relate the particulars of
the examination. It was short, reserved, and had
the character of an investigation instituted more
for the sake of form, than from any incertitude
there could exist on the subject of the facts. When
the necessary inquiries were ended, the two nobles
mounted. Father Xavier led the way, and the
whole party proceeded towards the summit of the
pass, leading Balthazar a prisoner, and leaving
the body of Jacques Colis to its final rest, in that
place where so many human forms had evaporated
into air before him, unless those who had
felt an interest in him in life should see fit to claim
his remains.
The ascent between the Refuge and the summit
of St. Bernard is much more severe than on any
other part of the road. The end of the convent,
overhanging the northern brow of the gorge, and
looking like a mass of that ferruginous and melancholy
rock which gave the whole region so wild
and so unearthly an aspect, soon became visible,
carved and moulded into the shape of a rude
human habitation. The last pitch was so steep as
the groaning mules toiled with difficulty. This
labor overcome, the party stood on the highest
point of the pass. Another minute brought them
to the door of the convent.
| CHAPTER IX. The headsman, or, The Abbaye des Vignerons | |