The deal table, of course, serves both for dressing and for feeding purposes, but it is fortunately so long that an end can be devoted to each; and on the whole it is possible to become considerably attached to the room, with its three airy windows, and the cool unceasing hum of a babbling fountain in the village-street below.

The Auberge is a large building, with a clock-tower of considerable height, containing the clock of the commune: as soon as the candle is put out at night, it becomes painfully evident that a rectangular projection in one corner of the room is in connection with this tower, and in fact forms a part of the abode of the pendulum, which plods on with audible vigour, growing more and more audible as the hours pass on, and making a stealthy pervading noise, as if a couple of lazy ghosts were threshing phantom wheat.

The clocks of Vaud, too, are in the habit of striking the hour twice, with a short interval; so that if anyone is not sure what the clock meant the first time, he has a second chance of counting the strokes.

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.