He lived at Streatham. Suddenly I hated
him. The dogged fool, to keep his nose on the grindstone like that. What
was all his courage but the very tip-top of cowardice? What a vile
nature--almost Sadish, proud, like the infamous Red Indians, of being
able to stand torture.
The landlord came to talk to me. He was fat and comfortable and too
respectful. But I had to tell him all the Englishman had done, in the
way of a holiday, just to shame his own fat, ponderous, inn-keeper's
luxuriousness that was too gross. Then all I got out of his enormous
comfortableness was:
'Yes, that's a _very_ long step to take.'
So I set off myself, up the valley between the close, snow-topped
mountains, whose white gleamed above me as I crawled, small as an
insect, along the dark, cold valley below.
There had been a cattle fair earlier in the morning, so troops of cattle
were roving down the road, some with bells tang-tanging, all with soft
faces and startled eyes and a sudden swerving of horns. The grass was
very green by the roads and by the streams; the shadows of the mountain
slopes were very dark on either hand overhead, and the sky with snowy
flanks and tips was high up.
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