o the little
graveyard that surrounds the village chapel, to look at the graves
of the victims--the graves of Croz the guide, of Hudson, and the boy
Hadow. The text on one stone caught my eye--"_Be ye therefore also
ready..._" It was too much; I fled back to the hotel, locked the door
of my room, shuttered the windows so that I should not see the vestige
of a mountain--and wept.

It is odd to think how I hated it all that night, how to myself
I maligned all climbers, calling them in my haste
foolhardy--senseless--imbecile, when I had only to go up my first easy
mountain to become as keen as the worst--or the best.

Sometimes in those mountaineering excursions with John to Zermatt,
to Chamonix, to Grindelwald, I have found it in my heart to envy the
unaspiring people who spend long days pottering about on level ground.
But looking back it isn't the quiet, lazy days one likes to think
about. No--rather it is the mornings when one rose at 2 a.m. and,
thrusting aching feet into nailed boots, tiptoed noisily into the
deserted dining-room to be supplied with coffee and rolls by a
pitifully sleepy waiter.

Outside the guides wait, Joseph and Aloys, and away we tramp in single
file along the little path that runs through fields full of wild
flowers, drenched with dew, into a fairy-tale wood of tall, straight
pine-trees. We follow the steady, slow footsteps of Joseph, the chief
guide, up the winding path that turns and twists, and turns again, but
rises, always rises, until we are clear of the wood, past the rough,
stony ground, and on to the snow, firm and hard to the feet before the
sun has melted the night's frost. When we reach the rocks, and before
we rope, Aloys removes his ruecksack and proceeds to lay out our
luncheon; for if one breakfasts at two one is ready for the next meal
at nine. Crouched in strange attitudes, we munch cold chicken, rolls
and hard-boiled eggs, sweet biscuits and apples, with great content.
Joseph has buried a bottle of white wine in the snow, and now pours
some into a horn tumbler, which he hands to Mademoiselle with an
air--a draught of nectar. It is John's turn for the tumbler next, and
as he emerges from the long, ice-cold, satisfying drink he declares
his firm intention, his unalterable resolve, never to drink anything
but white wine again in this world. But doubtless as you know, the
white wine of the Lowlands is not the white wine of the mountains.
It needs to be buried in the snow by Jo