We lay awake much of that summer night, in the hay mow, but the “poetry” of the thing was all wasted on Mr. Harte. We heard the solitary watchman of the village, who with his lantern walked about in the darkness, cry to the sleepers: “Twelve o’clock, and all is well.” That solitary watchman’s occupation did touch Mr. Harte. It is indeed a singular life, going around there alone all the night, the towering pinnacles of the rocks on one hand, the depths of the valley and the lake below on the other, the flash of waterfalls close by, the thunder of distant falling avalanches. Never a night in three hundred years but some watchman has gone about the byways of Obstalden with his lantern, calling aloud the hours.
A tin cup, and a little mountain rill that laughed its way through the village, afforded Mr. Harte and myself our opportunities for morning toilettes. Mr. Harte’s new clothes had been pressed in the hay-mow, but not always in the right direction. We met the ladies at the breakfast table of the inn. Mr. Harte’s narrative to them of the adventures of the night made a hearty laugh. Never did a breakfast of brown bread and butter, with good coffee, hot milk and wild honey, taste better. The table was set out on the terrace. The blue lake was far, far below us. On its opposite shore, the perpendicular rocks, a mile high, shut in the loveliest water in Switzerland.
Up on top of those walls of rock, on a little green plateau, we could see the town of Amden. Nothing like it in the world. Not a horse nor a carriage up there. It is reached by a stone stairway, zigzagging along the face of the rocks. Everything the people buy or sell is lugged up and down this wonderful stairway on peasants’ shoulders.
In the afternoon, Mr. Harte’s attention was riveted on a curious procession of row boats, slowly crossing the lake in our direction. One of the boats was entirely covered with garlands and white flowers. It was a village funeral, said our landlord. They don’t have ground enough for a graveyard up there in Amden; so they bury their people this side of the lake.
“There is your story,” I said to Mr. Harte--“the wonderful stairway--the lake funeral--the town on the high rocks.”
“Yes--all right,” he answered; “but, somehow, I never have luck with material I don’t find out for myself. I must suggest it myself.” I recalled Bayard Taylor’s saying, “there is no satisfaction in even a pint of hot water which has been heated by somebody else.” I am afraid I heated this water, not very hot. The story will never be written.
That evening we visited the “goat village,” not far away, and watched hundreds and hundreds of goats, led by a young mountaineer, with a great bunch of Alpine roses tied to his staff, and a wreath of roses on his hat. He was coming down from the grassy slopes of a mountain. He was whistling and singing all the way. It was a picturesque sight. The “goat village” is composed of scores of little huts or pens, each one big enough for a single goat. It was interesting to see how each goat knew its own hut among the many, and hurried into it to be milked.
In a very few days Mr. Harte had had enough of Alpine simplicity, though we had secured a room in the inn.
Far down below us on the lake lay pretty Wesen. It looked more civilized, and he would try it there. When he was shown his room in the Wesen inn, and strolled into the little drawing-room, what was his surprise to notice lying among the books on the table, “the Works of Bret Harte.”
This was fame--away off in an Alpine village of Switzerland to find his name was known, his books read.