"You are young in your charitable office, brother," remarked the soldier, when familiarity was a little established. "This will be among the first of the winters you will have passed at your benevolent post?"
"It will make the eighth, as novice and as canon. We are early trained to this kind of life, though no practice will enable any of us to withstand the effect which the thin air and intense cold produce on the lungs many winters in succession. We go down to Martigny when there is occasion, and breathe an atmosphere better suited to man. Thou hadst an angry storm below, the past night?"
"So angry, that we thank God it is over, and that we are left to share your hospitality. Were there many on the mountain besides ourselves, or did any come up from Italy?"
"There were none but those who are now in the common refectory, and none came from Aoste. The season for the traveller is over. This is a month in which we see only those who are much pressed, and who have their reasons for trusting the weather. In the summer we sometimes lodge a thousand guests." "They whom ye receive have reason to be thankful, reverend Augustine; for, in sooth, this does not seem a region that abounds in its fruits."
Sigismund and the monk looked around at the vast piles of ragged naked rocks, and they smiled as their eyes met.
"Nature gives literally nothing," answered the Augustine: "even the fuel that warms us is transported leagues on the backs of mules, and thou wilt readily conceive that of all others this is a necessary we cannot forego. Happily, we have some of our ancient, and what were once rich, endowments; and--"
The young canon hesitated to proceed.
"You were about to say, father, that they who have the means to show gratitude are not always unmindful of the wants of those, who share the same hospitality without possessing the same ability to manifest their respect for the institution."
The Augustine bowed, and he turned the discourse by pointing out the frontiers of Italy, and the site of the ancient temple; both of which they had this time reached. An animal moved among the rocks, and attracted their attention.
"Can it be a chamois!" exclaimed Sigismund, whose blood began to quicken with a hunter's eagerness: "I would I had arms!"