Chapter 25

------Hadst thou not been by,
A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,
Noted, and sign'd to do a deed of shame,
This murder had not come into my mind.

Shakspeare.

The arrival of Sigismund's party at the hospice preceded that of the other
travellers more than an hour. They were received with the hospitality with
which all were then welcomed at this celebrated convent; the visits of the
curious and the vulgar not having blunted the benevolence of the monks,
who, mostly accustomed to entertain the low-born and ignorant, were always
happy to relieve the monotony of their solitude by intercourse with guests
of a superior class. The good clavier had prepared the way for their
reception; for even on the wild ridge of St. Bernard, we do not fare the
worse for carrying with us a prestige of that rank and consideration that
are enjoyed in the world below. Although a mild Christian-like good-will
were manifested to all, the heiress of Willading, a name that was
generally known and honored between the Alps and the Jura, met with those
proofs of _empressement_ and deference which betray the secret thought, in
despite of conventional forms and which told her, plainer than the words
of welcome, that the retired Augustines were not sorry to see so fair and
so noble a specimen of their species within their dreary walls.

All this, however, was lost on Sigismund. He was too much occupied with
the events of the morning to note other things; and, first committing
Adelheid and his sister to the care of their women, he went into the open
air in order to await the arrival of the rest.

As it has been mentioned, the existence of the venerable convent of St.
Bernard dates from a very remote period of Christianity. It stands on the
very brow of the precipice which forms the last steep ascent in mounting
to the Col. The building is a high, narrow, but vast, barrack-looking
edifice, built of the ferruginous stone of the region, having its gable
placed toward the Valais, and its front stretching in the direction of the
gorge in which it stands. Immediately before its principal door, the rock
rises in an ill-shapen hillock, across which runs the path to Italy. This
is literally the highest point of the pass, as the building itself is the
most elevated habitable abode in Europe. At this spot, the distance from
rock to rock, spanning the gorge, may be a hundred yards, the wild and
reddish piles rising on each side for more than a thousand feet. These are
merely dwarfs, however, among their sister piles, several of which, in
plain view of the convent, reach to the height of eternal snow. This point
in the road attained, the path began immediately to descend, and the
drippings of a snow-bank before the convent door, which had