The Uncle
Rudy arrived at last at his uncle's house, and was thankful to find
the people like those he had been accustomed to see. There was only one
cretin amongst them, a poor idiot boy, one of those unfortunate beings
who, in their neglected conditions, go from house to house, and are received
and taken care of in different families, for a month or two at a time.
Poor Saperli had just arrived at his uncle's house when Rudy came. The
uncle was an experienced hunter; he also followed the trade of a cooper;
his wife was a lively little person, with a face like a bird, eyes like
those of an eagle, and a long, hairy throat. Everything was new to Rudy-
the fashion of the dress, the manners, the employments, and even the language;
but the latter his childish ear would soon learn. He saw also that there
was more wealth here, when compared with his former home at his grandfather's.
The rooms were larger, the walls were adorned with the horns of the chamois,
and brightly polished guns. Over the door hung a painting of the Virgin
Mary, fresh alpine roses and a burning lamp stood near it. Rudy's uncle
was, as we have said, one of the most noted chamois hunters in the whole
district, and also one of the best guides. Rudy soon became the pet of
the house; but there was another pet, an old hound, blind and lazy, who
would never more follow the hunt, well as he had once done so. But his
former good qualities were not forgotten, and therefore the animal was
kept in the family and treated with every indulgence. Rudy stroked the
old hound, but he did not like strangers, and Rudy was as yet a stranger;
he did not, however, long remain so, he soon endeared himself to every
heart, and became like one of the family. "We are not very badly off, here
in the canton Valais," said his uncle one day; "we have the chamois, they
do not die so fast as the wild goats, and it is certainly much better here
now than in former times. How highly the old times have been spoken of,
but ours is better. The bag has been opened, and a current of air now blows
through our once confined valley. Something better always makes its appearance
when old, worn-out things fail." When his uncle became communicative, he
would relate stories of his youthful days, and farther back still of the
warlike times in which his father had lived. Valais was then, as he expressed
it, only a closed-up bag, quite full of sick people, miserable cretins;
but the French soldiers came, and they were capital doctors, they soon
killed the disease and the sick people, too. The French people knew how
to fight in more ways than one, and the girls knew how to conquer too;
and when he said this the uncle nodded at his wife, who was a French woman
by birth, and laughed. The French could also do battle on the stones. "It
was they who cut a road out of the solid rock over the Simplon- such a
road, that I need only say to a child of three years old, 'Go down to Italy,
you have only to keep in the high road,' and the child will soon arrive
in Italy, if he followed my directions." Then the uncle sang a French song,
and cried, "Hurrah! long live Napoleon Buonaparte." This was the first
time Rudy had ever heard of France, or of Lyons, that great city on the
Rhone where his uncle had once lived. His uncle said that Rudy, in a very
few years, would become a clever hunter, he had quite a talent for it;
he taught the boy to hold a gun properly, and to load and fire it. In the
hunting season he took him to the hills, and made him drink the warm blood
of the chamois, which is said to prevent the hunter from becoming giddy;
he taught him to know the time when, from the different mountains, the
avalanche is likely to fall, namely, at noontide or in the evening, from
the effects of the sun's rays; he made him observe the movements of the
chamois when he gave a leap, so that he might fall firmly and lightly on
his feet. He told him that when on the fissures of the rocks he could find
no place for his feet, he must support himself on his elbows, and cling
with his legs, and even lean firmly with his back, for this could be done
when necessary. He told him also that the chamois are very cunning, they
place lookers-out on the watch; but the hunter must be more cunning than
they are, and find them out by the scent. One day, when Rudy went out hunting
with his uncle, he hung a coat and hat on an alpine staff, and the chamois
mistook it for a man, as they generally do. The mountain path was narrow
here; indeed it was scarcely a path at all, only a kind of shelf, close
to the yawning abyss. The snow that lay upon it was partially thawed, and
the stones crumbled beneath the feet. Every fragment of stone broken off
struck the sides of the rock in its fall, till it rolled into the depths
beneath, and sunk to rest. Upon this shelf Rudy's uncle laid himself down,
and crept forward. At about a hundred paces behind him stood Rudy, upon
the highest point of the rock, watching a great vulture hovering in the
air; with a single stroke of his wing the bird might easily cast the creeping
hunter into the abyss beneath, and make him his prey. Rudy's uncle had
eyes for nothing but the chamois, who, with its young kid, had just appeared
round the edge of the rock. So Rudy kept his eyes fixed on the bird, he
knew well what the great creature wanted; therefore he stood in readiness
to discharge his gun at the proper moment. Suddenly the chamois made a
spring, and his uncle fired and struck the animal with the deadly bullet;
while the young kid rushed away, as if for a long life he had been accustomed
to danger and practised flight. The large bird, alarmed at the report of
the gun, wheeled off in another direction, and Rudy's uncle was saved from
danger, of which he knew nothing till he was told of it by the boy. While
they were both in pleasant mood, wending their way homewards, and the uncle
whistling the tune of a song he had learnt in his young days, they suddenly
heard a peculiar sound which seemed to come from the top of the mountain.
They looked up, and saw above them, on the over-hanging rock, the snow-covering
heave and lift itself as a piece of linen stretched on the ground to dry
raises itself when the wind creeps under it. Smooth as polished marble
slabs, the waves of snow cracked and loosened themselves, and then suddenly,
with the rumbling noise of distant thunder, fell like a foaming cataract
into the abyss. An avalanche had fallen, not upon Rudy and his uncle, but
very near them. Alas, a great deal too near! "Hold fast, Rudy!" cried his
uncle; "hold fast, with all your might." Then Rudy clung with his arms
to the trunk of the nearest tree, while his uncle climbed above him, and
held fast by the branches. The avalanche rolled past them at some distance;
but the gust of wind that followed, like the storm-wings of the avalanche,
snapped asunder the trees and bushes over which it swept, as if they had
been but dry rushes, and threw them about in every direction. The tree
to which Rudy clung was thus overthrown, and Rudy dashed to the ground.
The higher branches were snapped off, and carried away to a great distance;
and among these shattered branches lay Rudy's uncle, with his skull fractured.
When they found him, his hand was still warm; but it would have been impossible
to recognize his face. Rudy stood by, pale and trembling; it was the first
shock of his life, the first time he had ever felt fear. Late in the evening
he returned home with the fatal news,- to that home which was now to be
so full of sorrow. His uncle's wife uttered not a word, nor shed a tear,
till the corpse was brought in; then her agony burst forth. The poor cretin
crept away to his bed, and nothing was seen of him during the whole of
the following day. Towards evening, however, he came to Rudy, and said,
"Will you write a letter for me? Saperli cannot write; Saperli can only
take the letters to the post." "A letter for you!" said Rudy; "who do you
wish to write to?" "To the Lord Christ," he replied. "What do you mean?"
asked Rudy. Then the poor idiot, as the cretin was often called, looked
at Rudy with a most touching expression in his eyes, clasped his hands,
and said, solemnly and devoutly, "Saperli wants to send a letter to Jesus
Christ, to pray Him to let Saperli die, and not the master of the house
here." Rudy pressed his hand, and replied, "A letter would not reach Him
up above; it would not give him back whom we have lost." It was not, however,
easy for Rudy to convince Saperli of the impossibility of doing what he
wished. "Now you must work for us," said his foster-mother; and Rudy very
soon became the entire support of the house.