Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/158

128 making tender inquiries after each other's sensitive feelings. After an hour's rest we start, the weak ones for Martigny, the strong by a steep path in the mountains, which brings us after a couple of hours to spring. But stop awhile in winter. A black range of mountains dark and desolate are dressed in thunder-clouds. You feel awed, yet you would rather see it so than in sunshine. A small bit of table-land is on the side; it makes you think of an exile in Siberia or Dante's Damned Soul in a Hell of Snow. We were all silent. No doubt we all made our reflections; and mine ran thus:

"If an angel from heaven came from Almighty God, and told you that Richard was condemned to be chained on that plateau for a hundred years in expiation of his sins before he could enter heaven, and gave you the choice between sharing his exile with him or a throne in the world beneath, which would you choose?"

My answer did not keep me long in suspense; it came in this form:

"A throne would be exile without him, and exile with him a home!"

We reached spring, and passed the châlets where Gruyère cheese is made; and I stopped the herdsman, and took a lesson in the Ranz des Vaches amidst much laughter, and to the evident amusement of a cuckoo, who chimed in. The descent of the Tête Noir is the most beautiful thing we have seen; at any rate, it is the most graven on my memory. It is down the side of magnificently wooded mountains, with bridges