'Bruder Klaus! no. It was the blessed Beatus. He was a British missionary, and he converted all that portion of Switzerland. I have visited his cave. From the mouth you can look over the beautiful lake to the snowy heads of the Jung-Frau, the Mönch, and the Eiger. Oh! the scene is so lovely. But no pilgrims visit the cave; the people around have forgotten their benefactor along with the faith he taught them. It is sad. I wept in that cave, and prayed for the re-conversion of those cantons which had fallen into heresy.'
His bright, honest face became clouded with sorrow.
Madame Berthier looked at it, smiled, and changed the subject.
'What is that little statuette in your hand?'
The lad coloured, and extended it to her.
'If you please, madame, I bought it for Mademoiselle André. It seemed to me so long since she left our house, and yet it is only three days, and I was sure that she wanted something, but I could not exactly tell what. I thought about it all day. I felt a voice within me say, "Gabrielle has need of something, you must take it to her." I felt impelled to come here, but I did not know for what purpose. At last it flashed across my mind that she must desire a little image of the Blessed Virgin for her devotions.'
'In other words,' said the lady, 'you felt miserable without Gabrielle, and hunted about for an excuse to come here?'
Nicholas stared at her. This was a new light in which to view his sensations. There might be some truth in it, he admitted to himself, and then his eyes fell.
'Oh, madame,' said he, 'you should see our beautiful lake of the Four Cantons. There is not a promontory that does not end in a little white chapel with a red roof, containing a sacred figure; there is not a rock jutting out of the water which has not its tiny shrine upon it. Oh! it is so pretty, so religious, so happy! I remember one just opposite the arm of the lake that points towards the south, it stands almost on the blue water, a white sunny speck, and when you row up to it you find it to be an arcaded niche, enshrining a statue of S. Nicolas von der Flue, the hermit, in his brown serge habit, staff in hand, with his sad, pale, earnest face looking out towards the hazy ridge, on the flank of which he dwelt so many years in prayer and fasting. And as you near the next prong of rock thrust out of the waves, you see a bower of hazels, in which snuggles another tiny chapel, open only to the water, overhung by a bush of flowering elder, with braids of crimson wild rose wavering against the white walls, and blue salvia and pink willow-herb clustering about the sides; whilst before the statue of the Blessed Virgin bearing her Child, that it contains, the sparkling ripples incessantly bow and whisper their litanies.'