At last it being now dark, and I having
long since entered the upper mist, or rather cloud (for I was now as
high as the clouds), I saw a light gleaming through the fog, just off
the road, through pine-trees.
It was time. I could not have gone much
farther.
To this I turned and found there one of those new hotels, not very
large, but very expensive. They knew me at once for what I was, and
welcomed me with joy. They gave me hot rum and sugar, a fine warm bed,
told me I was the first that had yet stopped there that year, and left
me to sleep very deep and yet in pain, as men sleep who are stunned.
But twice that night I woke suddenly, staring at darkness. I had
outworn the physical network upon which the soul depends, and I was
full of terrors.
Next morning I had fine coffee and bread and butter and the rest, like
a rich man; in a gilded dining-room all set out for the rich, and
served by a fellow that bowed and scraped. Also they made me pay a
great deal, and kept their eyes off my boots, and were still courteous
to me, and I to them. Then I bought wine of them - the first wine not
of the country that I had drunk on this march, a Burgundy - and putting
it in my haversack with a nice white roll, left them to wait for the
next man whom the hills might send them.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 185 of 361
Words from 50229 to 50496
of 97758
