Book The Second- Riches - Page 2

A craggy track, up which the mules in single file
scrambled and turned from block to block, as though they were
ascending the broken staircase of a gigantic ruin, was their way
now. No trees were to be seen, nor any vegetable growth save a
poor brown scrubby moss, freezing in the chinks of rock. Blackened
skeleton arms of wood by the wayside pointed upward to the convent
as if the ghosts of former travellers overwhelmed by the snow
haunted the scene of their distress. Icicle-hung caves and cellars
built for refuges from sudden storms, were like so many whispers of
the perils of the place; never-resting wreaths and mazes of mist
wandered about, hunted by a moaning wind; and snow, the besetting
danger of the mountain, against which all its defences were taken,
drifted sharply down.

The file of mules, jaded by their day's work, turned and wound
slowly up the deep ascent; the foremost led by a guide on foot, in
his broad-brimmed hat and round jacket, carrying a mountain staff
or two upon his shoulder, with whom another guide conversed. There
was no speaking among the string of riders. The sharp cold, the
fatigue of the journey, and a new sensation of a catching in the
breath, partly as if they had just emerged from very clear crisp
water, and partly as if they had been sobbing, kept them silent.

At length, a light on the summit of the rocky staircase gleamed
through the snow and mist. The guides called to the mules, the
mules pricked up their drooping heads, the travellers' tongues were
loosened, and in a sudden burst of slipping, climbing, jingling,
clinking, and talking, they arrived at the convent door.

Other mules had arrived not long before, some with peasant riders
and some with goods, and had trodden the snow about the door into
a pool of mud. Riding-saddles and bridles, pack-saddles and
strings of bells, mules and men, lanterns, torches, sacks,
provender, barrels, cheeses, kegs of honey and butter, straw
bundles and packages of many shapes, were crowded confusedly
together in this thawed quagmire and about the steps. Up here in
the clouds, everything was seen through cloud, and seemed
dissolving into cloud. The breath of the men was cloud, the breath
of the mules was cloud, the lights were encircled by cloud,
speakers close at hand were not seen for cloud, though their voices
and all other sounds were surprisingly clear. Of the cloudy line
of mules hastily tied to rings in the wall, one would bite another,
or kick another, and then the whole mist would be disturbed: with
men diving into it, and cries of men and beasts coming out of it,
and no bystander discerning what was wrong. In the midst of this,
the great stable of the convent, occupying the basement story and
entered