In my opinion it is a sign of strength rather than of weakness, to change one's mind with a good grace. For my part, I find pleasure in the experience, feeling refreshed by it, as if I had had a bath, and got into clean linen after a hot walk. Changing the mind gives also somewhat the same sensation as waking in the morning with the consciousness that no one on earth has ever seen this day before; or the satisfaction one has on breaking an egg, the inside of which no human eye has beheld until that moment. A change of mind bestows on one for the time being a new Ego; therefore I did not grudge myself my delight in the once despised Rhone Valley. Nevertheless, I was glad that the Mule of Brig had been one with which I could conscientiously decline to associate. My resolve not to take a pack-mule there had become so fixed, that to have uprooted it would have seemed a confession of failure. Besides, the need to go on to Martigny had given an excuse for another day with Jack, Molly, and Mercédès.
I had been as happy as a man whose duty it is to be broken-hearted, may dare to be. But the next morning came at Martigny, and with my bath the news that the five promised men with their five mules awaited my choice.
I had secretly hoped that the day might be mule-less till evening, for in that case Jack and Molly would probably stay on, and I should not be left alone in the world until to-morrow.
However, it was not to be. I gave myself the satisfaction of keeping the mules waiting, on the principle of always doing unto others what they have done unto you; and after a leisurely toilet, I went down to hold the review.
Four men, with four mules, started forward eagerly, jostling each other, at sight of me accompanied by the landlord. But one held back a little, with a modest dignity, as if he were too proud to push himself into notice, or too generous to exalt himself at the expense of others. He was a slim, dark man of middle height, past thirty in age, perhaps, with a look of the soldier in the bearing of his shoulders and head. He had very short black hair; high cheekbones, where the rich brown of his skin was touched with russet; deep-set, thoughtful eyes, and a melancholy droop of the moustache. His collar was incredibly tall and shiny, with turn-down points; he wore a red tie; his thick brown clothes might have been bought ready made in the Edgeware Road; evidently he had honoured the occasion with his Sunday best. While his comrades jabbered together, in patois which flung in a French word now and then, like a sop to Cerberus, he spoke not a word; yet I saw his lips tighten, as he laid his arm over the neck of a small but well-built mule of a colour which matched its master's clothing. The animal rubbed a brown velvet head against the brown waistcoat which, perhaps, covered a fast-beating heart. From that instant I knew that this was my man, and this my mule, as certainly as if they had been tattooed with my family crest and truculent motto: "What I will, I take."
"You've been a soldier, haven't you?" I asked the muleteer in French.
He saluted as he replied that he had, and that for several years he had served a French general, as orderly. His name was Joseph Marcoz, and—he added—he was a Protestant.
"And your mule?" I asked.
"Finois, Monsieur."
"Ah, but his persuasion? He is Protestant, too?" If Joseph had looked puzzled, I should have been disappointed, but a spark of humour lit the gloom of his sombre eye. "Finois is Pantheist, I think you call it, Monsieur. I am persuaded that he has a soul, for which there will be a place in the Beyond; and if he goes there first, I hope that he will be looking out for me."