The discussion was noisy, and was conducted without words: they do
not speak, those men of Gonten--they merely grunt, and each interprets
the grunts as he wills. My two-penny friend told me what it all meant,
in an obliging manner, but in words less intelligible than the grunts;
and one member of the council drew out so elaborate a route--the very
characters being wild patois--splitting the morning into quarter-stundes
and half-quarter-stundes, with a sharp turn to the right or left at the
end of each, that, as I drank my coffee, I determined to take a guide
from the village, whatever the decision of the council might be.
Fortunately, things took a right turn, and when breakfast was finished,
a deputation went out and found a guide, suspiciously like one of their
number who did not return, and I was informed that Christian Opliger
would conduct me to the Schafloch for five francs, and a _Trinkgeld_ if
I were satisfied with him. In order to prove to me that he had really
been at the cave, six days before, with two Bernese gentlemen, he seized
my favourite low-crowned white hat, and endeavoured to knead it into the
shape of the cave.
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