Rank Tyranny

“Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke.” 
—­SHAKESPEARE.

We seemed to have formed a habit, the Boy and I, of steering always for a Hotel Mont Blanc, if there were one in a town; so that now we had come to look upon a hostelry with such a name as a sort of second home, a daughter of a mother house.  There were still two other reasons why we should select the Mont Blanc in Chamounix:  the first, because the Contessa was going there and had asked us to do likewise; the second, because at Martigny we had seen an advertisement of the hotel which stated that it was situated in a “vaste parc avec chamois.”

Our imagination pictured an ancient chateau, altered for modern uses, shut away from the outer world in a mysterious forest of dark pines, where wild chamois sported gracefully at will, leaping across chasms from one overhanging rock to another.

It was long past twilight when our little procession of four human beings and three beasts of burden straggled through a lighted gateway which we had been told to enter for the Hotel Mont Blanc.  With one blow our ancient castle was shattered.  At a hundred metres distant from the street rose an enormous modern hotel, blazing with light at every window.  Where was the vast park with its crowding pines and its ravines for the wild chamois?  It must be somewhere, since the advertisement certified its existence, and so must the chamois.  Perhaps the forest lay behind the hotel; but the Boy was too tired to care, and to us both baths, food, and rest were for the moment worth more than parks or chamois.  The hotel struck a high note of civilisation, and I had seen nothing so fine since London or Paris.  The Boy and I dined late and sumptuously, tete-a-tete, for the hot sun and the long drive had sent Gaeta to bed, chastened with a headache; and, weary as he was, the Little Pal had pluck enough left to suggest an appointment for early next morning.  “I shall want to know how Mont Blanc looks from my window, so I won’t waste my time in bed,” said he.  “Besides, I’m rather keen to see the chamois, aren’t you?  The only one I’ve ever met was stuffed, and rather moth-eaten.  He was in a dime museum in New York.”

I was up at half-past six next day, and at my window, where Mont Blanc in early sunshine smote me in the face with its nearness.  A sudden longing took me, as the longing for a great white lamp takes a moth, to fly at it, or, in other words, to get myself to the top.  I had never “done” any Swiss ascents, though I knew almost every peak and pinnacle of rock in Cumberland and Wales, and it seemed to me that I should be a muff to miss the chance of such a climb as this.  By the time I had dressed, the thing was decided.  I would see about guides, and try to arrange at once for the ascent.

The thought had joy in it, and I ran downstairs, whistling the “Alpine Maid.”  The Boy and I had settled overnight that we would drink our morning coffee and eat our rolls together, at a quarter to eight, long before the Contessa or her friends had opened their eyes; but the appointed time was not yet come, and I had it in mind to make enquiries concerning my excursion, when I almost stumbled against the Boy, coming in at the front door.