Now it is a curious thing, and one I will not dwell on -
LECTOR. You do nothing but dwell.
AUCTOR. It is the essence of lonely travel; and if you have come to
this book for literature you have come to the wrong booth and counter.
As I was saying: it is a curious thing that some people (or races)
jump from one subject to another naturally, as some animals (I mean
the noble deer) go by bounds. While there are other races (or
individuals - heaven forgive me, I am no ethnologist) who think you a
criminal or a lunatic unless you carefully plod along from step to
step like a hippopotamus out of water. When, therefore, I asked this
family-drilling, house-managing, mountain-living woman whether she
could make omelettes, she shook her head at me slowly, keeping her
eyes fixed on mine, and said in what was the corpse of French with a
German ghost in it, 'The bed is a franc.'
'Motherkin,' I answered, 'what I mean is that I would sleep until I
wake, for I have come a prodigious distance and have last slept in the
woods. But when I wake I shall need food, for which,' I added, pulling
out yet another coin, 'I will pay whatever your charge may be; for a
more delightful house I have rarely met with. I know most people do
not sleep before sunset, but I am particularly tired and broken.'
She showed me my bed then much more kindly, and when I woke, which was
long after dusk, she gave me in the living room of the hut eggs beaten
up with ham, and I ate brown bread and said grace.
Then (my wine was not yet finished, but it is an abominable thing to
drink your own wine in another person's house) I asked whether I could
have something to drink.
'What you like,' she said.
'What have you?' said I.
'Beer,' said she.
'Anything else?' said I.
'No,' said she.
'Why, then, give me some of that excellent beer.'
I drank this with delight, paid all my bill (which was that of a
labourer), and said good-night to them.
In good-nights they had a ceremony; for they all rose together and
curtsied. Upon my soul I believe such people to be the salt of the
earth. I bowed with real contrition, for at several moments I had
believed myself better than they. Then I went to my bed and they to
theirs. The wind howled outside; my boots were stiff like wood and I
could hardly take them off; my feet were so martyrized that I doubted
if I could walk at all on the morrow. Nevertheless I was so wrapped
round with the repose of this family's virtues that I fell asleep at
once. Next day the sun was rising in angry glory over the very distant
hills of Germany, his new light running between the pinnacles of the
clouds as the commands of a conqueror might come trumpeted down the
defiles of mountains, when I fearlessly forced my boots on to my feet
and left their doors.
The morning outside came living and sharp after the gale - almost
chilly. Under a scattered but clearing sky I first limped, then, as
my blood warmed, strode down the path that led between the trees of
the farther vale and was soon following a stream that leaped from one
fall to another till it should lead me to the main road, to Belfort,
to the Jura, to the Swiss whom I had never known, and at last to
Italy.
But before I call up the recollection of that hidden valley, I must
describe with a map the curious features of the road that lay before
me into Switzerland. I was standing on the summit of that knot of
hills which rise up from every side to form the Ballon d'Alsace, and
make an abrupt ending to the Vosges. Before me, southward and
eastward, was a great plain with the fortress of Belfort in the midst
of it. This plain is called by soldiers 'the Gap of Belfort', and is
the only break in the hill frontier that covers France all the way
from the Mediterranean to Flanders. On the farther side of this plain
ran the Jura mountains, which are like a northern wall to Switzerland,
and just before you reach them is the Frontier. The Jura are fold on
fold of high limestone ridges, thousands of feet high, all parallel,
with deep valleys, thousands of feet deep, between them; and beyond
their last abrupt escarpment is the wide plain of the river Aar.
Now the straight line to Rome ran from where I stood, right across
that plain of Belfort, right across the ridges of the Jura, and cut
the plain of the Aar a few miles to the west of a town called
Solothurn or Soleure, which stands upon that river.
It was impossible to follow that line exactly, but one could average
it closely enough by following the high road down the mountain through
Belfort to a Swiss town called Porrentruy or Portrut - so far one was a
little to the west of the direct line.
From Portrut, by picking one's way through forests, up steep banks,
over open downs, along mule paths, and so forth, one could cross the
first ridge called the 'Terrible Hill', and so reach the profound
gorge of the river Doubs, and a town called St Ursanne. From St
Ursanne, by following a mountain road and then climbing some rocks and
tracking through a wood, one could get straight over the second ridge
to Glovelier. From Glovelier a highroad took one through a gap to
Undervelier and on to a town called Moutier or Munster. Then from
Munster, the road, still following more or less the line to Rome but
now somewhat to the east of it, went on southward till an abrupt turn
in it forced one to leave it.
