Rollo in Geneva Part 13

The dining room was very plain and simple in all its arrangements. There was no carpet on the floor, and the woodwork was unpainted. There were two windows in front, which looked out upon the lake. Directly beneath the windows was the road, and the open s.p.a.ce, already described, between the hotel and the pier.

There was a boy with a knapsack on his back standing by the window, looking out. Rollo went to the window, and began to look out too.

"Do you speak English?" said Rollo to the boy.

"_Nein_," said the boy, shaking his head.

_Nein_ is the German word for _no_. This Rollo knew very well, and so he inferred that the boy was a German. He, however, thought it possible that he might speak French, and so he asked again,--

"Do you speak French?"

"Very little," said the boy, answering now in the French language. "I am studying it at school. I am at school at Berne, and my cla.s.s is making an excursion to Geneva."

"Do you travel on foot?" asked Rollo.

"Yes," said the boy; "unless there is a steamboat, and then we go in the steamboat."

"And I suppose you are going to take the steamboat here to-morrow morning to go to Geneva."

"No," said the boy; "we are going to see Chillon to-night, and then we are going along the sh.o.r.e of the lake beyond, to Montreux, and take the boat there to-morrow morning."

It was quite amusing to Rollo to talk thus with a strange boy in a language which both had learned at school, and which neither of them could speak well, but which was, nevertheless, the only language they had in common.

"How many boys are there in your cla.s.s?" asked Rollo.

"Sixteen," said the boy; "sixteen--six." The boy then held up the five fingers of one hand, and one of the other, to show to Rollo that six was the number he meant. The words six and sixteen are very similar in the French language, and for a moment the boy confounded them.

"And the teacher too, I suppose," said Rollo.

"Yes," said the boy, "and the teacher."

Here there was a short pause.

"Are you going to Chillon?" said the boy to Rollo.

"Yes," said Rollo. "I am going with my father and mother."

"I wish you were going with us," said the boy.

"I wish so too," said Rollo; "I mean to ask my father to let me."

During this time Mr. Holiday had been making an arrangement with the maid of the inn for two bedrooms, one for himself and his wife, and the other for Rollo; and the maid was now just going to show the party the way to their rooms. So Rollo went with his father, and after seeing that all their effects were put in the rooms, he informed his father that he had made acquaintance with a young German schoolboy who was going with his cla.s.s and the teacher to visit Chillon; and he asked his father's consent that he might go with them.

"I can walk there with them," said Rollo, "and wait there till you and mother come."

"Does the boy speak English?" asked Mr. Holiday.

"No, sir," said Rollo; "but he can speak French a little. He speaks it just about as well as I can, and we can get along together very well."

"Is the teacher willing that you should go?" asked Mr. Holiday.

"I don't know," said Rollo; "we have not asked him yet."

"Then the first thing is to ask him," said Mr. Holiday. "Let your friend ask the teacher if he is willing to have another boy invited to go with his party; and if he is willing, you may go. If you get to Chillon first, you may go about the castle with the boys, and then wait at the castle gates till we come."

"How soon shall you come?" asked Rollo.

"Very soon," said Mr. Holiday. "I have ordered the carriage already, and we shall perhaps get there as soon as you do."

So Rollo went down stairs again to his friend, the German boy.

"Do you think," said Rollo, "that the teacher would be willing to have me go with you?"

"Yes," said the boy, "I am sure he will. He is always very glad to have us meet with an opportunity to speak French. Besides, there are some boys in the school who are learning English, and he would like to have you talk a little with them."

"Go and ask him," said Rollo.

So the boy went off to ask the teacher. He met him on the stairs, coming down with the rest of the boys. The teacher was very much pleased with the plan of having an American boy invited to join the party, and so it was settled that Rollo was to go.

The boys all went down stairs, and rendezvoused at the door of the inn.

Most of the omnibuses and diligences had gone. The boys of the school all accosted Rollo in a very cordial manner; and the teacher shook hands with him, and said that he was very glad to have him join their party.

The teacher spoke to him in French. There were two other boys who tried to speak to him in English. They succeeded pretty well, but they could not speak very fluently, and they made several mistakes. But Rollo was very careful not to laugh at their mistakes, and they did not laugh at those which he made in talking French; and so they all got along very well together.

Thus they set out on the road which led along the sh.o.r.e of the lake towards the Castle of Chillon.

CHAPTER XII.

THE CASTLE OF CHILLON.

The party of boys walked along the road very pleasantly together, each one with his knapsack on his back and his pikestaff in his hand. Rollo talked with them by the way--with some in English, and with others in French; but inasmuch as it happened that whichever language was used, one or the other of the parties to the conversation was very imperfectly acquainted with it, the conversation was necessarily carried on by means of very short and simple sentences, and the meaning was often helped out by signs, and gestures, and curious pantomime of all sorts, with an accompaniment, of course, of continual peals of laughter.

Rollo, however, learned a good deal about the boys, and about the arrangements they made for travelling, and also learned a great many particulars in respect to the adventures they had met with in coming over the mountains.

Rollo learned, for example, that every boy had a fishing line in his knapsack, and that when they got tired of walking, and wished to stop to rest, if there was a good place, they stopped and fished a little while in a mountain stream or a lake.

Another thing they did was to watch for b.u.t.terflies, in order to catch any new species that they might find, to add to the teacher's cabinet of natural history. For this purpose one of the boys had a gauze net on the end of a long but light handle; and when a b.u.t.terfly came in sight that seemed at all curious or new, one of the boys set off with the rest to catch him. If the specimen was found valuable, it was preserved. The specimens thus kept were secured with a pin in the bottom of a broad, but flat and very light box, which one of the older boys carried with his knapsack. The boy opened this box, and showed Rollo the b.u.t.terflies which they had taken. They had quite a pretty collection. There were several that Rollo did not recollect ever to have seen before.

Talking in this way, they went on till they came to the part of the road which was opposite to the Hotel Byron. The hotel was on an eminence above the road, and back from the lake. Broad gravelled avenues led up to it. There were also winding walks, and seats under the trees, and terraces, and gardens, and parties of ladies and gentlemen walking about, and children playing here and there, under the charge of their nurses.

The boys gave only a pa.s.sing glance at these things as they went by.

They were much more interested in gazing up from time to time at the stupendous cliffs and precipices which they saw crowning the mountain ranges which seemed to border the road; and on the other side, in looking out far over the water of the lake at the sail boats, or the steamer, or the little row boats which they beheld in the offing.

The road went winding on, following the little indentations of the sh.o.r.e, till at length it reached the castle. It pa.s.sed close under the castle walls, or, rather, close along the margin of the ditch which separated the foundations of the castle from the main land. There was a bridge across this ditch. This bridge was enclosed, and a little room was built upon it, with windows and a door. The outer door was, of course, towards the road, and it was open when the boys arrived at the place.

The teacher led the way in by this door, and the boys followed him.