the candle is put out at night, it becomes painfully evident that a
rectangular projection in one corner of the room is in connection with
this tower, and in fact forms a part of the abode of the pendulum,
which plods on with audible vigour, growing more and more audible as
the hours pass on, and making a stealthy pervading noise, as if a
couple of lazy ghosts were threshing phantom wheat. The clocks of
Vaud, too, are in the habit of striking the hour twice, with a short
interval; so that if anyone is not sure what the clock meant the first
time, he has a second chance of counting the strokes. This is no doubt
an admirable plan under ordinary circumstances, but it does certainly
try the patience of a sleepless dyspeptic after a surfeit of
café-au-lait and honey; and when he has counted carefully the first
time, and is bristling with the consciousness that it is only
midnight, it is aggravating in the extreme to have the long slow story
told a second time within a few feet of his head.

The Cavalier had retained a guide overnight, Henri Renaud by name, and
he appeared punctually at eight o'clock in the morning, got up in the
short-tail coat of the country, and a large green umbrella with mighty
ribs of whalebone. The weather was extremely unpleasant, a cold pitiless
rain rendering all attempts at protection unavailing; but, fortunately,
the glacière is only an hour and a quarter from the village. The path is
tolerably steep, leading across the _petit Pré de Rolle_, and through
woods of beech and fir, till the summit of one of the minor ridges of
the Jura is reached, whence a short descent leads to the mouth of the
glacière, something more than 4,000 feet above the sea. The ground here
slopes down towards the north; and on the slope, among fir-trees, an
irregular circular basin is seen, some seven or eight yards across,[13]
and perhaps two yards deep, at the bottom of which are two holes. One of
these holes is open, and as the guide and I--for my sisters remained at