Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/275

230 efforts to break through the clouds, so, spreading out our coats to dry, we made various perilous ascents of the great rock against which the hut is built.

During the afternoon we strolled back to the Montenvers pursued by sundry showers and ever darkening weather. Arrived at the hotel, we shook off the mud from our boots and the rain from our clothing, at the desolate ice and rock, and vowed that our next walk should be amongst the pine trees and meadows of the L'Ognan, and thence away to the rich fields and luxuriant vegetation of the Val d'Aoste.

A week later we returned to the Montenvers, but unfortunately a spirit of laziness seized hold upon us, and in company with some friends we wasted the precious hours scrambling on rocks and séracs well within reach of the dinner-bell, and not wholly beyond shouts and other signals indicative of afternoon tea and similar mundane pleasures. Indeed, our occupations were graphically described by a foreign friend as consisting of "an eternity of breakfast and an everlasting afternoon tea."

Hastings at length rescued us from this ignoble sloth, and drove us forth along "Les Ponts" to the Pierre à Béranger. Though the hut has reached the pig-sty stage of existence characteristic of the Chamonix district, we preferred it to the Couvercle, remembering that a roof, like charity, covers a multitude of sins.