45. CHAPTER XLV.
The lamentable change is from the best;
The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then,
Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace.
— Lear.
The Honorable Charles Augustus Murray, recreating himself
with a hunting tour among the Pawnees, killed a buffalo;
and being, as he assures us, ravenously hungry, proceeded to
regale himself on his game, without asking the aid of the
cook. Morton, in his wandering, had the good luck to kill a
straggling sheep; and being twice as hungry as the Honorable
Charles Augustus Murray, it may be set down largely to
his credit, if he did not follow that gentleman's example.
At all events, the sheep was a windfall of the first magnitude.
Morton had woodcraft enough to turn the fleece into a receptacle
for carrying such parts of the flesh as best answered
his purposes; and thus he was well provisioned for several
days.
After various roamings, by night and by day, he came
upon a broad road, clearly one of the great alpine passes.
Which of them he could not tell. He would have given the
world to learn; for he knew nothing of his whereabouts,
and thought himself still in Tyrol, or, at the best, in Bormio.
His attempts to gain information from the peasants had
always failed, and, in one or two instances, had seemed to
threaten serious consequences. Though brave enough in the
front of an open danger, the secret toils which had been
about him so long had taught him to shrink from the face of
man. Moreover, he could not speak the prevalent language
of the district, and his Italian, which might sometimes have
served him, was none of the best. A little local knowledge
could have saved him a world of suffering; but, in the lack
of it, he pushed blindly on, resolved to die on the mountains
rather than risk another prison.
The sky for some days had been overclouded. He had
lost the points of the compass; and when he saw the great
highway stretching before him, dim and lonely in the gray
of the morning, he thought, or hoped, that it would lead
him into the heart of Switzerland. It was the pass of the
Splugen, where it leaves the Rheinwald. Turning his back
on safety, he began to plod on towards the lion's jaws.
Seeing a small cottage, in a recess of the forest, he reconnoitred
it, with the laudable view of robbing a henroost.
While thus employed, he saw two men leave the house, and
betake themselves to their work in some remote part of the
mountain. After a long reconnaissance, he could see no one
about the place but a young woman, about six feet high,
who, fork in hand, was busying herself in a field with labors
much less elegant than useful. Morton watched her for a
time, then, taking heart of grace, walked towards her from
his lurking-place, holding between his fingers, as a talisman,
a piece of silver, part of the scanty trust which Max had
left him.
When he beheld her lusty proportions, her white teeth,
grinning between perplexity at his appearance and pleasure
at sight of the coin, and her broad cheeks, ruddy with
health, good-nature, and stupidity, his apprehensions vanished.
She seemed not at all afraid of him. In truth, she
and her pitchfork might between them have put two common
men to flight. He spoke to her in bad Italian, and asked for
food, proffering the money in exchange. She answered in a
patois which was Greek to him, mixed with a few words of
Italian, worse than his own. She seemed, however, to catch
his meaning very clearly; for, running to the house, she
presently emerged with a loaf of barley bread and a formidable
piece of bacon. These she gave him, and, taking the
silver, tied it up with much care in a corner of her apron.
Thus far successful, Morton next tried to learn something
touching the country and the routes; but here his failure
was signal. Where food and drink were the topics in hand,
and especially when her wits were quickened by the sight of
silver, she had contrived to understand him; but with matters
more abstruse her faculties had never been trained to
grapple. She showed, however, no lack of good-will, nodding,
laughing, and answering, “Si, si!” to all his questions
indiscriminately. With this he had to content himself. He
bade her “addio,” received a friendly nod and grin in return,
and went on his way, much less bitter against mankind than
he had been ten minutes before.
