up to him and his goats, singing, “We and you, you and we.” They brought
him greetings from his grandfather’s house, even from two hens, the only
birds of the household; but Rudy was not intimate with them.
Although so young and such a little fellow, Rudy had travelled a great
deal. He was born in the canton of Valais, and brought to his grandfather
over the mountains. He had walked to Staubbach-a little town that seems to
flutter in the air like a silver veil-the glittering, snow-clad mountain
Jungfrau. He had also been to the great glaciers; but this is connected with a
sad story, for here his mother met her death, and his grandfather used to say
that all Rudy’s childish merriment was lost from that time. His mother had
written in a letter, that before he was a year old he had laughed more than
he cried; but after his fall into the snow-covered crevasse, his disposition
had completely changed. The grandfather seldom spoke of this, but the fact
was generally known. Rudy’s father had been a postilion, and the large dog
which now lived in his grandfather’s cottage had always followed him on
his journeys over the Simplon to the lake of Geneva. Rudy’s relations, on
his father’s side, lived in the canton of Valais, in the valley of the Rhone.
His uncle was a chamois hunter, and a well-known guide. Rudy was only a
year old when his father died, and his mother was anxious to return with her
child to her own relations, who lived in the Bernese Oberland. Her father
dwelt at a few hours’ distance from Grindelwald; he was a carver in wood,
and gained so much by it that he had plenty to live upon. She set out
homewards in the month of June, carrying her infant in her arms, and,
accompanied by two chamois hunters, crossed the Gemmi on her way to
Grindelwald. They had already left more than half the journey behind them.
They had crossed high ridges, and traversed snow-fields; they could even
see her native valley, with its familiar wooden cottages. They had only one
more glacier to climb. Some newly fallen snow concealed a cleft which,
though it did not extend to the foaming waters in the depths beneath, was
still much deeper than the height of a man. The young woman, with the
child in her arms, slipped upon it, sank in, and disappeared. Not a shriek,
not a groan was heard; nothing but the whining of a little child. More than
