“Thou hast not spoken of the weather?”

“We are in one of the most uncertain and treacherous months of the good season, Messieurs.  The winter is gathering among the upper Alps, and in a month in which the frosts are flying about like uneasy birds that do not know where to alight, one can hardly say whether he hath need of his cloak or not.”

“San Francesco!  Dost think I am dallying with thee, friend, about a thickness more or less of cloth!  I am hinting at avalanches and falling rocks—­at whirlwinds and tempests?”

Pierre laughed and shook his head, though he answered vaguely as became his business.

“These are Italian opinions of our hills, Signore,” he said; “they savor of the imagination.  Our pass is not as often troubled with the avalanche as some that are known, even in the melting snows.  Had you looked at the peaks from the lake, you would have seen that, the hoary glaciers excepted, they are still all brown and naked.  The snow must fall from the heavens before it can fall in the avalanche, and we are yet, I think, a few days from the true winter.”

“Thy calculations are made with nicety, friend,” returned the Genoese, not sorry, however, to hear the guide speak with so much apparent confidence of the weather, “and we are obliged to thee in proportion.  What of the travellers thou hast named?  Are there brigands on our path?”

“Such rogues have been known to infest the place, but, in general, there is too little to be gained for the risk.  Your rich traveller is not an every-day sight among our rocks; and you well know Signore, that there may be too few, as well as too many, on a path, for your freebooter.”

The Italian was distrustful by habit on all such subjects, and he threw a quick suspicious glance at the guide.  But the frank open countenance of Pierre removed all doubt of his honesty, to say nothing of the effect of a well-established reputation.

“But thou hast spoken of certain vagabonds who have preceded us?”

“In that particular, matters might be better;” answered the plain-minded mountaineer, dropping his head in an attitude of meditation so naturally expressed as to give additional weight to his words.  “Many of bad appearance have certainly gone up to-day; such as a Neapolitan named Pippo, who is anything but a saint—­a certain pilgrim, who will be nearer heaven at the convent than he will be at the death—­St. Pierre pray for me if I do the man injustice!—­and one or two more of the same brood.  There is another that hath gone up also, post haste, and with good reason as they say, for he hath made himself the but of all the jokers in Vevey on account of some foolery in the games of the Abbaye—­a certain Jacques Colis.”

The name was repeated by several near the speaker.

“The same, Messieurs.  It would seem that the Sieur Colis would fain take a maiden to wife in the public sports, and, when her birth came to be be known, that his bride was no other than the child of Balthazar, the common headsman of Berne!”