two bears; but, when we came to examine into it, the romance vanished,
for the man was a brewer's waggoner with a dray of beer, and the bears
were tame bears, led in a string, which frightened the brewer's horses,
and so the man was killed. Contrary to our expectations and fears, we
did catch the train, and arrived in a thankful frame of mind at
comfortable quarters in Neufchâtel.


FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 54: _Cruel comme à Morat_ was long a popular saying.]


* * * * *




CHAPTER IX.

THE SCHAFLOCH, OR TROU-AUX-MOUTONS, NEAR THE LAKE OF THUN.


The next morning, my sisters went one way and I another; they to a
valley in the south-west of Vaud, where our head-quarters were to be
established for some weeks, and I to Soleure, where a Swiss _savant_ had
vaguely told us he believed there was a glacière to be seen. That town,
however, denied the existence of any approach to such a thing, with a
unanimity which in itself was suspicious, and with a want of imagination
which I had not expected to find. One man I really thought might be