Rollo in Switzerland

CHAPTER V. RIDE TO BERNE.

At length the time arrived for the departure of our two travellers from Basle. A porter from the hotel carried their trunks to the diligence office, while Rollo and Mr. George walked. When they got to the place they found the diligence in the archway, and several men were employed in carrying up trunks and carpet bags to the top of it and stowing them away there. In doing this they ascended and descended by means of a long step ladder. The men took Mr. George's trunk and Rollo's and packed them away with the rest. There were several persons who looked like passengers standing near, waiting, apparently, for the diligence to be ready.

Among them were two children, a girl and a boy, who seemed to be about Rollo's age. They were plainly but neatly dressed. They were sitting on a chest. The boy had a shawl over his arm, and the girl had a small morocco travelling bag in her hand.

The girl looked a moment at Rollo as he came up the archway, and then cast her eyes down again. Her eyes were blue, and they were large and beautiful and full of meaning. There was a certain gentleness in the expression of her countenance which led Rollo to think that she must be a kindhearted and amiable girl. The boy looked at Rollo too, and followed him some time with his eyes, gazing at him as he came up the archway with a look of interest and curiosity.

It was not yet quite time for the diligence to set out. In fact, the horses were not yet harnessed to it; and during the interval Rollo and Mr. George stood by, watching the process of getting the coach ready for the journey, and contrasting the appearance of the vehicle, and of the men employed about it, and the arrangements which they were making, with the corresponding particulars in the setting off of a stage coach as they had witnessed it in America. While doing this Rollo walked about the premises a little; and at length, finding himself near the two children on the chest, he concluded to venture to accost the boy.

"Are you going in this diligence?" said he, speaking in French.

"Yes," replied the boy.

"So am I," said Rollo. "Can you speak English?"

"Yes," said the boy. He spoke the yes in English.

"Are you going to Berne?" asked Rollo.

"I don't know," said the boy.

The girl, who had been looking at Rollo during this conversation, here spoke, and said that they were going to Berne.

"We are going in that diligence," said she.

"So am I," said Rollo. "I have got a seat on the banquette."

"Yes," rejoined the boy. "I wished to have a seat on the banquette, so that I could see; but the seats were all engaged before my father went to the office; so we are going in the coupe; but I don't like it half so well."

"Nor I," said the girl.

"Where is your father?" asked Rollo.

"He is gone," replied the boy, "with mother to buy something at a shop a little way from here. Lottie and I were tired, and so we preferred to stay here. But they are coming back pretty soon."

"Are you all going to ride in the coupe?" said Rollo; "because, there will not be room. There is only room for three in the coupe."

"I know it," said Lottie; "but then, as two of us are children, father thought that we could get along. Father had a plan for getting Adolphus a seat in the interior; but he was not willing to go there, because, he said, he could not see."

Just at this moment the father and mother of Adolphus and Lottie came up the archway into the court yard where the diligence was standing. The horses had been brought out some minutes before and were now nearly harnessed. The gentleman seemed to be quite in a hurry as he came up; and, seeing that the horses were nearly ready, he said,-

"Now, children, get in and take your places as soon as possible."

So they all went to the coach, and the gentleman attempted to open the door leading to the coupe. It was fastened.

"Conductor," said he, speaking very eagerly to the conductor, who was standing near, "open this door!"

"There is plenty of time," said the conductor. "There is no need of haste."

However, in obedience to the request of the gentleman, the conductor opened the door; and the gentleman, helping his wife in, first, afterwards lifted the children in, and then got in himself. The conductor shut the door.

"Come, uncle George," said Rollo, "is not it time for us to get up to our places?"

"No," said Mr. George. "They will tell us when the proper time comes."

So Mr. George and Rollo remained quietly standing by the side of the diligence while the hostlers finished harnessing the horses. Rollo during this time was examining with great interest the little steps and projections on the side of the coach by which he expected that he and Mr. George were to climb up to their places.

It turned out in the end, however, that he was disappointed in his expectation of having a good climb; for, when the conductor was ready for the banquette passengers to take their places, he brought the step ladder and planted it against the side of the vehicle, and Mr. George and Rollo went up as easily as they would have gone up stairs.

When the passengers were seated the step ladder was taken away, and a moment afterwards the postilion started the horses forward, and the ponderous vehicle began to move down the archway, the clattering of the horses' hoofs and the lumbering noise of the wheels sounding very loud in consequence of the echoes and reverberations produced by the sides and vaulting of the archway. As soon as the diligence reached the street the postilion began to crack his whip to the right and left in the most loud and vehement manner, and the coach went thundering on through the narrow streets of the town, driving every thing from before it as if it were a railway train going express.

[Illustration: THE DILIGENCE AT THE OFFICE.]

"Uncle George," exclaimed Rollo, "they have forgotten the conductor!"

Rollo was, in fact, quite concerned for a few minutes lest the conductor should have been left behind. He knew where this official's proper seat was; namely, at the left end of the banquette-that is, at the right hand, as seen in the engraving; and as he was not there, and as he knew that all the other seats were full, he presumed, of course, that he had been left behind. He was relieved of these fears, however, very soon; for, to his great astonishment, he suddenly perceived the head of the conductor coming up the side of the coach, followed gradually by the rest of his body as he climbed up to his place. Rollo wondered how he could manage to get on and climb up, especially as the coach was at this time thundering along a descending portion of the street with a speed and uproar that was terrific.

Rollo, though at first very much astonished at this performance of the conductor, afterwards ceased to wonder at it; for he found that the conductor could ascend and descend to and from his seat at any time without any difficulty, even while the horses were going at the top of their speed. If the snapper of the coachman's whip got caught in the harness so that he could not liberate it, as it often did on the road, the conductor would climb down, run forward to the horses, set the snapper free, fall back to the coach, catch hold of the side and climb up, the coachman cracking his whip as soon as it was freed, and urging on his horses to a gallop, without troubling himself at all to consider how the conductor was to get up again.

But to return to the story. When Rollo found that the conductor was safe he amused himself by looking to the right and left into the windows of the houses at the second story. His seat was so high that he could do this very easily. Many of these windows were open, and persons were sitting at them, sewing or reading. At some of them groups of children were standing. They were looking out to see the diligence go by. The street was so narrow that Rollo found himself very near these persons as he passed by.

"A little nearer," said he to his uncle George, "and I could shake hands with them."

In a very few minutes the coach passed under a great arched gateway leading through the wall of the city, and thence over a sort of drawbridge which spanned the moat. Immediately afterwards it entered a region of smooth, green fields, and pretty rural houses, and gardens, which presented on every side very charming pictures to the view.

"Now, uncle George," said Rollo, "won't we have a magnificent ride?"

Rollo was not disappointed in his anticipations. He found the ride to Berne a very magnificent one indeed. The road was smooth and hard as a floor. From side to side it was flat and level, and all the ascents which it made were so gradual that the horses trotted on at their full speed, without any cessation, sweeping around long and graceful curves, which brought continually into view new landscapes, each one, as it seemed, more varied and beautiful than the one which had preceded it. From his lofty seat on the banquette Rollo looked abroad over a very wide extent of country; and when the coach stopped at the villages or post houses to change horses, he could look down with great advantage upon the fresh teams as they were brought out and upon the groups of hostlers and post boys employed in shifting the harness. He could hear, too, all that they said, though they generally talked so fast, and mingled their words with so much laughter and fun, that Rollo found that he could understand but little.

[Illustration: THE DILIGENCE ON THE ROAD.]

Rollo was particularly struck, as he was whirled swiftly along the road, by the appearance of the Swiss houses. They were very large, and were covered with a very broad roof, which extended so far over the walls on every side as to appear like a great, square, broad-brimmed hat. Under this roof were platforms projecting from the house, one on each story, like piazzas. These piazzas were very broad. They were bordered by balustrades on the outer edge, and were used for sheds, store houses, and tool rooms. There were wood piles, wagons, harrows, and other farming implements, bundles of straw, and stones piled up here and there upon them. In fact, the Swiss cottager has his house, and barn, and sheds, and outhouses all under one roof; and what there is not room for within he stores without upon these platforms.

These houses were situated in the midst of the most beautiful fields and gardens, the whole forming a series of very charming landscapes. The view, too, as seen in many places along the road, was bounded at the south by a long line of snow-covered mountains, which glittered brilliantly in the sun and imparted an inexpressible fascination to the prospect.

The diligence arrived at the city of Berne near night, and Mr. George and Rollo remained in that city until the next day at noon. Rollo was extremely interested in walking about the streets in the morning. In almost all the streets of Berne the second stories of the houses are extended over the sidewalks, the superincumbent masonry being supported by massive square pillars, built up from the edge of the sidewalk below, and by arches above. Of course, in going along the sidewalk the passenger is sheltered by the roof above him, and in the worst weather he can go all over the city without being exposed to the rain excepting at the street crossings. This arrangement is a very convenient one, certainly, for rainy weather; but it gives the streets a very gloomy and forbidding appearance at other times.

Still Rollo was very much amused in walking along under these arcades; the more so because, in addition to the shops in the buildings themselves, there were usually stalls and stands, between and around the pillars, filled with curious things of all sorts, which were for sale; so that in walking along he had a display of goods on both sides of him. These goods consisted of toys, books, pictures, tools, implements, and curiosities, including a multitude of things which Rollo had never seen or heard of before.

Berne is famous for bears. The bear is, in fact, the emblem of the city, and of the canton, or province, in which Berne is situated. There is a story that in very ancient times, when Berchtold, the original founder of the city, was beginning to build the walls, a monstrous bear came out of the woods to attack him. Berchtold, with the assistance of the men who were at work with him on the walls, killed the bear. They gloried greatly in this exploit, and they preserved the skin and claws of the bear for a long time as the trophy of their victory. Afterwards they made the bear their emblem. They painted the figure of the animal on their standards. They made images and effigies of him to ornament their streets, and squares, and fountains, and public buildings. They stamped the image of him on their coins; and, to this day, you see figures of the bear every where in Berne. Carved images of Bruin in every attitude are for sale in the shops; and, not contented with these lifeless symbols, the people of Berne for a long time had a pit, or den, similar to those in the Garden of Plants at Paris, where they kept living specimens for a long time.[4] This den was just without the gates of the city. The guide book which Rollo read as he was coming into Berne, to see what it said about the city, stated that there was one bear in the garden at that time; and he wished very much to go and see it, but he did not have a very convenient opportunity.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: See Rollo in Paris for an account of these dens for bears in the Garden of Plants.]