CHAPTER XX.

PATERFAMILIAS, GUERNSEY, MONA.

When I returned in the autumn of 1855 from my principal continental tour, wherein for three months I had conducted my whole family of eleven (servants inclusive) all through the usual route of French and Swiss travel,—­I committed my journal to Hatchard, who forthwith published it; but not to any signal success,—­for it was anonymous, which was a mistake:  however, I did not care to make public by name all the daily details of my homeflock pilgrimage.  The pretty little book with its fine print of the Pass of Gondo as a frontispiece, nevertheless made its way, and has been inserted in Mr. Gregory’s list of guide-books as a convenience if not a necessity to travellers on the same roads, though in these days of little practical use:  indeed, wherever we stopped, I contrived to exhaust, on the spot all that was to be seen or done, with the advantages of personal inspection, and therefore of graphic and true description.  The book has been praised for its interest and includes divers accidents, happily surmounted, divers exploits in the milder form of Alpine climbing (as the Mauvais Pas, which I touch experimentally at the end of Life’s Lessons, in “Proverbial Philosophy,” Series IV.), divers grand sights, as the Great Exhibition, close to which we lived for some weeks in the Champs Elysees, and many pleasant incidents, as greetings with friends, old and new, and other usual memorabilia.  Among these let me mention the honest kindliness of Courier Pierre,—­always called Pere by my children, with whom he was a great favourite—­the more readily because he has long gone to “the bourne whence no traveller returns,” so he needs no recommendation from his late employer.  This, then, I say is memorable.  At Lucerne, as my remittance from Herries failed to reach me, I seemed obliged to make a stop and to return; but Pierre objected, saying it was “great pity not to pass the Simplon and see Milan,—­and, if Monsieur would permit him, he could lend whatever was needful, and could be paid again.”  Certainly I said this was very kind, and so I borrowed at his solicitation:—­it was L100, as I find by the journal; our travel was costing us L40 a week.  Well, to recount briefly, when, after having placed in our repertoire Bellinzona, Como, Milan, &c. &c., I found myself at Geneva, and with remittances awaiting me, my first act was to place in Pierre’s hands L105,—­and when he counted the notes, he said, “Sare, there is one five-pound too many.”—­“Of course, my worthy Pierre, I hope you will accept that as interest.”—­“Non, Monsieur, pardon; I could not, I always bring money to help my families:”—­and he would not.  Now, if that was not a model courier, worthy to be commemorated thus,—­well, I hope there are some others of his brethren on the office-books of Bury Street, St. James’s, who are equally duteous and disinterested.  “Some people are heroes