Part 6

There is no charge whatever made for meals and lodging at the Hospice, and the offering one puts into the almsbox is entirely voluntary. We had to ask where this box was, and I do not think it would have been brought to our attention in any way had we failed to do so. I imagine many fail, or unduly consult economy in their offerings, for we noticed that our hosts, who had been most kind throughout, became positively effusive after we had deposited in the box—no princely sum at all, but just about what we calculated we would have expended at the hotel. I must say most of our fellow guests looked as if they deserved Frater’s characterization of “dead beats,” and yet the brothers told us that travelers often found fault with their accommodations! Probably the less they paid, the more fault they found. But even this sordid company could not spoil the sentiment of the place for us, and the memory of our night at the Hospice remains one of the jewels in our casket.

XI

Next morning, after dipping large hunks of dry bread into big steaming bowls of coffee and milk, along with the rest of the beneficiaries, we took a cordial farewell of our good hosts, and set out on our way. We soon reached the highest point of the pass (six thousand five hundred and ninety feet) and began the down grade with long swinging steps. This day, indeed, we could not afford to loiter very much, for we had a two o’clock train to catch at Brieg, fifteen miles away, and we must get our luncheon somewhere along the road in the meantime.

The scenery was pretty, even beautiful, but nowhere approaching grandeur on this day’s walk.

We caught that train—_just_, having run the last two blocks of the way, bought our tickets on the fly, and clambered aboard breathless and warm at the very last permissible moment. We felt quite pleased at the Americanness of our proceeding.

It was a very short ride to Visp, where we had to wait some time for the train to Zermatt. Here we were back in the Rhone valley, twenty odd miles below where we had left it at Ulrichen three days before! It was fairly palpitating with the heat that particular afternoon. In fact it seemed to be doing so whenever we met it.

I thought we would be less uncomfortable if we did something, so I pointed out the towers and spires of what appeared to be a very picturesque castle on a hill in the center of the town and dragged off the reluctant family to visit it. It turned out to be an optical illusion produced by two churches in line, neither of which was in the least interesting, but our united temperature had been raised several degrees in learning this. I must say that the family took the matter very amiably.

Finally the Zermatt train got ready to start. I wouldn’t like to say how many hours it took us to travel the twenty-two and a half miles of this road, but we spent the remainder of the afternoon on it. It is true that we ascended more than three thousand feet on the way, but the speed of our train was certainly not excessive.

Zermatt is the highest of the big tourist resorts, its altitude being five thousand three hundred and fifteen feet. Its season is short, but very crowded. The town in itself is exceedingly ugly—all hotels and tourist shops and the mushroom air of an American boom-town born over-night. But the surrounding mountains are glorious. The Matterhorn, which is close at hand, we were all gazing at, spellbound, for the first time. We had never before quite believed its pictures. Nobody ever does. I don’t suppose there is such another peak in the world—bizarre, incredible, rankly _impossible_, like the acute-angled mountains children draw on their slates. It made one shiver to think of human beings climbing up those all-but-vertical smooth rock sides to the needle peak nine thousand feet above us, and it was hardly surprising to hear that the local graveyard is filled with the bodies of tourists from many lands who have attempted it unsuccessfully.

The climbers’ tragedies, repeated each summer, are tragic enough, the more so for their utter uselessness. But the poetry which these have inspired, having missed the sublime, has fallen into the ridiculous.

One choice bit, taken from one of the local guides obligingly gotten up by the Swiss government in all languages and distributed free at the Bureaus of Information in the principal cities, filled us with especial glee:

“No dread crevasse, no rugged steep, No crag on the dizzy height, But knows the crash of a human heap Thudding into the night.

* * * * *

Ask not the dead, who slumber now In the village grave hard by How they rolled from the mountain brow And toppled down from the sky.”

Isn’t the “crash of a human heap” an altogether delightful expression? And will you please imagine anyone’s so violating meter and manners as to make that foolish inquiry of “the dead in the village grave”? As for us, we rejoiced over these gems and others like them all the way up from Visp (when we weren’t looking out of the windows), and “toppling down from the sky” became part of our daily vocabulary.

The swarms of tourists in Zermatt oppressed us, and we looked with dread at the caravansaries which housed them. As usual, there seemed to be just one long street, and we followed it to the other end, hoping for a sequestered spot where we could be at peace with the mountains. At the very outskirts of the village we came upon a quiet, clean little house called the Pension des Gorges du Trift, and here we straightway resolved to hang up our hats and knapsacks.

This was the end of our first week’s tramping, and we all voted it a grand success as we sat on a damp bench after dinner watching the red lights on the cascades of the Trift, which was the special property of our small hostelry. I don’t care much, as a rule, for artificially lighted waterfalls, but this seemed to be so entirely our own private personal illumination of an otherwise untouched wilderness, and the porter was so beautifully proud of it that we couldn’t have found it in our hearts to object.

Bright and early next morning we went to the post-office and got the first mail we had had since leaving home. Very delightful it was to hear that the Babes and the Mother were flourishing, the household machinery running smoothly and that we were to stay away as long as we liked!

The next thing I did, while other members of the party were renewing kodak supplies, was to buy a pair of shoes and have the soles well studded with nails. And what a heavenly relief it was to get proper footgear again on my poor feet!

These preliminary errands attended to, we took the mountain railroad to the Riffelberg and walked from there to the summit of the Gornergrat. The railroad goes within a fifteen-minute walk of the top, but both economy and pleasure counseled us to get out at the earlier station.

I recall the fellow-citizen from Keokuk or Kokomo, I forget which, who sat opposite to us in the open car going up. He thirsted for some statistical information, which Antonio, who is the soul of courtesy, supplied. Whereupon he fastened like a leech on the poor boy and began plying him with questions till the rest of us had to plunge in to rescue him and keep a few tattered shreds of our personal history from that relentless cross-examiner! We were glad to leave him at the Riffelberg.

The view from the Gornergrat is certainly one of the grandest on God’s earth. Here, as nowhere else, can the average person, without danger or fatigue, get into the very heart of the glacier world. One stands on a rocky ledge, the Gornergrat, and all around and below sweep and swirl the great frozen rivers. From their far brink rise the bare jagged peak of the Matterhorn and the round snow-clad shoulders of the Breithorn and Monta Rosa. Way down below lies the green valley with Zermatt in its hollow, and away as far as the eye can reach are ranges upon ranges of snow mountains.

If we could have had it all to ourselves without the tourists! But then we should have had to work very much harder for it. It is better to take the gifts which the gods provide and be thankful.

It did not seem to me as if I could ever come to love the Valais mountains as I did those of the Oberland, but they were magnificent.

We had reached our maximum altitude thus far for the summer, 10,290 feet. The air was very thin, and we watched Belle Soeur carefully for signs of the mountain sickness. But thanks, I suppose, to our having made all but eighteen hundred feet of the ascent by rail and the careful slowness with which we had climbed the remainder, she escaped this time entirely.

We ate our lunch on a rock overlooking the great Gorner glacier, just as far from the tourists and the summit restaurant as we could get. Then, when we had looked our fill and tried to store our minds with enough glacier pictures to last the rest of our lives, we began the long but delightful descent afoot to Zermatt. All the way down we kept getting beautiful views, and I think the Matterhorn never looked finer than seen between the fir trees of the lower slopes in the pink glow of sunset.

Who would have guessed that our harmonious little party was going to be disrupted on the morrow—and by me, its shepherd and chaperon!

XII

An exhaustive account of the causes leading up to my famous elopement with the cash capital would lead us far afield. If the man from Kokomo were here to cross-examine me, he would probably get it all out of me. But he is not. I shall, therefore, make no attempt to gain credit for the really noble and altruistic motives which animated me, and the reader will have to make his own diagnosis. He will probably decide that eight days of being called Fräulein and Mademoiselle had turned my matronly head and produced an Indian-summer florescence of the practical-joking age. Or he may explain my conduct as one of those occasional eccentric outbursts in usually well-disciplined characters, such as have been celebrated in a whole cycle of short stories of “The Revolt of Mother” and “Wild Oats of a Spinster” type. It really doesn’t matter. My shoulders are broad, and my reputation, I think, will stand the strain. At all events, I hope so.

It happened that on the day following the Gornergrat trip we resolved to take it easy. We slept late in the morning, had our lunch put up for us at the hotel and wandered out with it in the direction of the Staffel Alp, resolved not to go all the way unless we felt like it. Now, we had been living a pretty strenuous life, and relaxing the bent bow all at once was a little risky. We were in prime physical condition, and the masculine half of the party, not having wholly emerged from the colt stage, were distinctly feeling their oats. I don’t wish to go into horrid details, but when it came time for luncheon Belle Soeur and I found ourselves without any.

“I give you infants fair warning,” said I, “that if the bearer of the common purse should be pushed too far, she might take her doll rags and go home, and it might prove inconvenient.”

This threat referred to the fact that they had all given me their money to take care of at the beginning of the trip, I being the one who made the business arrangements and paid the bills and who was supposed to be least likely to leave it all under a pillow. But Frater replied jeeringly, “Oh, you can’t frighten me _that_ way! I’ve got eight francs in my pocket!” And Antonio chimed in, “I’ve got six-fifty.”

“All right,” said I, “good-bye. Shall we go get some luncheon, Belle Soeur?”

As soon as we were out of hearing on the path back to Zermatt, we began to discuss what we should do. For one wild moment we considered the expediency of just disappearing—taking a train and going off somewhere and leaving the boys to settle the hotel bill with their fourteen francs fifty as best they could. We soon decided that this would be too low-down mean. So little by little we plotted the details of a modified disappearance, including the fairy story which was supposed to save our “face” and the boys’ at the hotel. We rushed in with an air of great haste. Would they show us the time-table? Would they get our bill ready? We had received word which made it necessary to curtail our visit and go home immediately. We could not even wait for the two gentlemen, who had gone on a long tramp and might not be back till late. We would leave a note of explanation for them, and they would doubtless take the first train. Yes, we would pay for _all_. It would make it easier for them if they had _just_ time to catch a train. So we hustled our belongings into our knapsacks, and I wrote a letter to Frater saying we had decided to go to Leuk (on the hill) that evening by rail, that they could rejoin us there on foot the next day if they wished to, and that the second morning, if they had not appeared, we would continue over the Gemmi Pass and home according to program. I also mentioned that the hotel bill had been paid.

All this time we were momentarily expecting the arrival of the boys to make their peace. But they did not come.

We took a belated lunch at the station buffet and had time to perfect our plans a little further. We had all originally intended to walk from Zermatt to Visp. It was an easy and pretty walk, and why should we give it up? And what on earth could we do with ourselves for a whole day at Leuk in that hot Rhone valley? But we had to get out of Zermatt. So we bought our tickets to a little station called Randa, only six miles away. And when we got there, having considerable daylight still on our hands, walked five or six miles further to St. Niklaus.

We went to the Grand Hotel, which was not excessively grand, but English curates and such like eminently respectable people were boarding there. We felt that it would not just do for two lone females to experiment in cheap lodgings.

The hotel did not quite rate clean napkins at each meal, so the curates and their friends kept theirs from contamination by buttoning them up, ring and all, in neat little embroidered shawl-strap covers. It was beautifully in character, and we loved them for it. We were further rejoiced by their signatures in the hotel register, especially that of a very small, dapper, timid little clerical gentleman who in a microscopic but superlatively correct hand described himself as a “Clerk in Holy Orders.”

The excitement of our successful elopement had put us into the highest spirits. We had enjoyed our walk greatly. And we had no compunctions—ah, not the ghost of a one! But when, after the evening meal was over, we had retired to our room in the Grand Hotel and looked out on the darkening landscape, we began to wish we knew where the boys were. We were tolerably sure they would be sleeping in the open air that night. They would hardly waste any of their small hoard on lodgings. It wouldn’t hurt them, of course. In fact, it would do them good. But we wouldn’t greatly object, now that our dignity was vindicated, to seeing those long-legged objects with knapsacks on backs swing into view under our window. However, they didn’t. And we went to bed and to sleep.

After an excellent breakfast next morning we started on our ten-mile walk down the valley to Visp. We went along laughing and singing and still enormously pleased with ourselves. We discussed from time to time such questions as whether the pretty waitress had really given Frater my letter, and whether the boys were now ahead of us or behind us on the road. I was inclined to the former theory, but it all depended on how soon after we left they had reached the Hotel du Trift. If they had gotten there shortly after our departure, they would doubtless have started immediately walking down the road to shorten the next day’s tramp all they could, for it was about thirty-two miles from Zermatt to Leuk on the hill. They should have spent the night in the vicinity of Randa or even farther along. And people who sleep out of doors usually do not sleep late in the morning. So doubtless they arose some two hours earlier than we did and were very likely even now ahead of us. If not, with their more rapid gait, they would soon catch up.

It was to meet this latter contingency that we decided it would be a kind attention to leave bulletins along the road for them. I have already alluded to our habit of putting notes of explanation for each other in conspicuous places. I tore a leaf from my account book and penciled on it “E. E. W. and M. F. W. passed this spot at 10:15 A. M., Aug. 10th, heading north, in excellent health.” Then folded it up and put Frater’s and Antonio’s initials on the outside and pinned it to a tree by the road.

After this we went along like Hop o’ My Thumb and his white pebbles, leaving a bulletin every half hour. These were of various sorts. Some gave little personal items about ourselves designed to allay any anxiety they might be supposed to be feeling about us, such as “11:45 A. M., M. F. W. and E. E. W. have just had a light refection of fruit and seltzer water and feel much refreshed.” Some were intended to administer spiritual consolation to our young friends in case they were feeling the pinch of any material want. Of this type was the text “Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled,” and “_Allah ya tik_.” This last is an Arabic phrase which my husband and I had picked up in Egypt. It signifies, “God will provide for you,” and you say it to beggars when you don’t want to give them anything yourself. One bulletin was really practical and informed them that M. F. W. and E. E. W. would lunch at the station buffet at Visp and take the two o’clock train to Leuk Susten.

As we approached Visp, it grew hotter and hotter and hotter. We reached the station about one o’clock and, choosing a little table on the shady side of the platform, ordered the most cooling lunch we could devise.

It was at this time that our hearts began to melt (no wonder in such a temperature) and we got rather sorry for the abandoned boys. The heat waves were fairly dancing out in the Rhone valley, and it made our heads ache just to think of walking ten miles in that fiery furnace to Leuk Susten. And we doubted their having the wherewithal to buy railroad tickets.

We watched along the road, expecting them every minute to appear in sight.

“Shall we wait for the four o’clock train,” suggested Belle Soeur, “so we can take them along with us?”

“But suppose they are _ahead_ of us and are actually at this minute staving down that dreadful Rhone valley? Supposing they get there before we do and don’t find us? We _said_ we’d be there, and they would have no way of understanding our change of program. They’d be boiled and worn out and penniless and would think themselves abandoned for sure.” So we took the train and went on.

The truthful Baedeker says it is only a mile from Leuk Susten, the station, to old Leuk on the hill, but Belle Soeur and I agreed as we toiled up the shadeless road in the middle of the hot afternoon that it was quite the longest mile we had ever traversed. It was a picturesque little old place when we got to it, with a ruined castle and just two inns, very modest looking, and obligingly side by side.

We got a room and bespoke another for the gentlemen of our party when they should arrive. We cooled ourselves off by dint of bathing and clean collars, sallied out and had a look at the ruins of the castle, then found a turn of the road that commanded all the lower windings to the railroad station, including a long bridge across the river, and sat ourselves down to watch. Every time we saw two specks of humanity approaching we were sure it was our boys. We developed various theories. Perhaps they had economized on eating so as to come by rail from Visp. If so, that later train was just in, and they ought to be appearing any minute. A carriage was seen winding up the road. “Perhaps they are in it,” suggested Belle Soeur; “it would be just like their enterprise to charter a carriage and have themselves delivered C. O. D.”

But they weren’t in the carriage. And the various pedestrians whom we had taken for them turned into peasants returning from work, women, priests, or commercial travelers, on nearer approach.

Twilight was stealing over the Rhone valley, and a little wistful sense of loneliness was stealing over _us_. It had been a fine game, this eloping, but we had now reached the time scheduled for it to end in a happy reunion—all hands around and everything forgiven.

We went back to the hotel and got them to set a little table for our dinner on the balcony outside the dining-room. Of course it was cooler and in every way pleasanter out there. And it also commanded the street.

Afterwards, we sat at our window and watched that street till bed-time, though we kept up a pretense of talking. Belle Soeur says that I jumped up out of bed in the middle of the night and ran to the window because somebody was walking by on the stone pavement. _I_ say _she_ did it. Perhaps both stories are true.

XIII

According to what we had said in our Zermatt letter, if the boys had not rejoined us by the morning of August 11th, we would continue over the Gemmi Pass and back to Grindelwald by ourselves.

We talked over the pros and cons, but could see no reason for changing this. We could not figure out any explanation for their not having caught up with us, if they had made an effort to do so. The thirty-two or three miles down grade on a good road, was a long day’s walk, especially in view of the heat of the last part, but it was by no means prohibitive. We had walked almost as far several times ourselves, and the young men always gave us to understand that they had plenty of reserve strength which _our_ style of walking made no drafts on. The only inference seemed to be that they had stayed quietly in Zermatt and sent home for money. We therefore felt that we had been abandoned, so we cast the ungrateful wretches from our minds and started forth.

Strange to say, although deprived of the stimulus of masculine walking, we kept nearer to the Baedeker time schedule this day than we had ever done before. He allows three and a half hours for the walk from Leuk to Leuk Baden, which we made in four.

It was rather warm all the way, for our rise in altitude was just about balanced by the advance towards midday. For a long time we were looking down into the Rhone valley and across to the mountains on the other side, then we struck north towards the divide, and the foothills closed up behind us.

We reached Leuk Baden about half-past eleven, got our lunch in a restaurant that offered us a little table on a second-story balcony overhanging the main street, visited the baths, which were at that hour deserted, and continued on our way. We felt a mild curiosity to see the patrons of the baths disporting themselves in the pools, but not enough to keep us until the afternoon bathing hour.

The thermal establishments are large, though rather dingy. Besides many corridors of private baths, there is the great common pool, where everybody taking the cure is supposed to disport himself or herself for several hours morning and afternoon standing up to the chin in water, while the public gazes from a balcony. These rendezvous are said to be very animated, with plenty of talking and singing. There are also little trays floating around on which tea or other refreshments can be served, or books, or writing materials placed. Why, in such prolonged promiscuous soaking, the afflicted do not interchange microbes and emerge with three or four diseases instead of one, I do not pretend to say.