This is no doubt
an admirable plan under ordinary circumstances, but it does certainly
try the patience of a sleepless dyspeptic after a surfeit of
cafe-au-lait and honey; and when he has counted carefully the first
time, and is bristling with the consciousness that it is only
midnight, it is aggravating in the extreme to have the long slow story
told a second time within a few feet of his head.
The Cavalier had retained a guide overnight, Henri Renaud by name, and
he appeared punctually at eight o'clock in the morning, got up in the
short-tail coat of the country, and a large green umbrella with mighty
ribs of whalebone. The weather was extremely unpleasant, a cold pitiless
rain rendering all attempts at protection unavailing; but, fortunately,
the glaciere is only an hour and a quarter from the village. The path is
tolerably steep, leading across the _petit Pre de Rolle_, and through
woods of beech and fir, till the summit of one of the minor ridges of
the Jura is reached, whence a short descent leads to the mouth of the
glaciere, something more than 4,000 feet above the sea.
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