Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

On the Road

The bright morning sun dazzled the eyes, the snow had ceased, the
mists had vanished, the mountain air was so clear and light that
the new sensation of breathing it was like the having entered on a
new existence. To help the delusion, the solid ground itself
seemed gone, and the mountain, a shining waste of immense white
heaps and masses, to be a region of cloud floating between the blue
sky above and the earth far below.

Some dark specks in the snow, like knots upon a little thread,
beginning at the convent door and winding away down the descent in
broken lengths which were not yet pieced together, showed where the
Brethren were at work in several places clearing the track.
Already the snow had begun to be foot-thawed again about the door.
Mules were busily brought out, tied to the rings in the wall, and
laden; strings of bells were buckled on, burdens were adjusted, the
voices of drivers and riders sounded musically. Some of the
earliest had even already resumed their journey; and, both on the
level summit by the dark water near the convent, and on the
downward way of yesterday's ascent, little moving figures of men
and mules, reduced to miniatures by the immensity around, went with
a clear tinkling of bells and a pleasant harmony of tongues.

In the supper-room of last night, a new fire, piled upon the
feathery ashes of the old one, shone upon a homely breakfast of
loaves, butter, and milk. It also shone on the courier of the
Dorrit family, making tea for his party from a supply he had
brought up with him, together with several other small stores which
were chiefly laid in for the use of the strong body of
inconvenience. Mr Gowan and Blandois of Paris had already
breakfasted, and were walking up and down by the lake, smoking
their cigars.
'Gowan, eh?' muttered Tip, otherwise Edward Dorrit, Esquire,
turning over the leaves of the book, when the courier had left them
to breakfast. 'Then Gowan is the name of a puppy, that's all I
have got to say! If it was worth my while, I'd pull his nose. But
it isn't worth my while--fortunately for him. How's his wife, Amy?

I suppose you know. You generally know things of that sort.'

'She is better, Edward. But they are not going to-day.'

'Oh! They are not going to-day! Fortunately for that fellow too,'
said Tip, 'or he and I might have come into collision.'

'It is thought better here that she should lie quiet to-day, and
not be fatigued and shaken by the ride down until to-morrow.'

'With all my heart. But you talk as if you had been nursing her.
You haven't been relapsing into (Mrs General is not here) into old
habits, have you, Amy?'

He asked her the question with a sly