Chapter 20

I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee berries.

_Tempest._

The day dawned clear and cloudless on the Leman, the morning that
succeeded the Abbaye des Vignerons. Hundreds among the frugal and
time-saving Swiss had left the town before the appearance of the light,
and many strangers were crowding into the barks, as the sun came bright
and cheerfully over the rounded and smiling summits of the neighboring
côtes. At this early hour, all in and around the rock-seated castle of
Blonay were astir, and in motion. Menials were running, with hurried air,
from room to room, from court to terrace and from lawn to tower. The
peasants in the adjoining fields rested on their utensils of husbandry, in
gaping, admiring attention to the preparations of their superiors. For
though we are not writing of a strictly feudal age, the events it is our
business to record took place long before the occurrence of those great
political events, which have since so materially changed the social state
of Europe. Switzerland was then a sealed country to most of those who
dwelt even in the adjoining nations, and the present advanced condition of
roads and inns was quite unknown, not only to these mountaineers, but
throughout the rest of what was then much more properly called the
exclusively civilized portion of the globe, than it is to-day. Even horses
were not often used in the passage of the Alps, but recourse was had to
the surer-footed mule by the traveller, and, not unfrequently, by the more
practised carrier and smuggler of those rude paths. Roads existed, it is
true, as in other parts of Europe, in the countries of the plain, if any
portion of the great undulating surface of that region deserve the name;
but once within the mountains, with the exception of very inartificial
wheel-tracks in the straitened and glen-like valleys, the hoof alone was
to be trusted or indeed used.

The long train of travellers, then, that left the gates of Blonay just as
the fog began to stir on the wide alluvial meadows of the Rhone, were all
in the saddle. A courier, accompanied by a sumpter-mule, had departed
over-night to prepare the way for those who were to follow, and active
young mountaineers had succeeded, from time to time, charged with
different orders, issued in behalf of their comforts.

As the cavalcade passed beneath the arch of the great gate, the lively,
spirit-stirring horn sounded a fare well air, to which custom had attached
the signification of good wishes. It took the way towards the level of the
Leman by means of a winding and picturesque bridle-path that led, among
alpine meadows, groves, rocks, and hamlets, fairly to the water-side.
Roger de Blonay and his two principal guests rode in front, the former