"A good-evening to you, father!" said Bernard de Rohan, riding between him and the edge of the precipice.
"Pray let us have it quickly, my son," replied the priest; "for the one we have got seems likely to be as bad a one as ever I saw, at present."
"Indeed it is," answered the young gentleman, smiling at his somewhat cynical reply; "I am heartily glad to have met with you, my good father, for I trust you can show us some place of shelter."
"Good faith," replied the priest, turning for a moment to look at the cavalier's followers, "I cannot say I am so glad of the encounter; for where I am going we cannot be sure of finding too many of the good things of this life, and the lion's portion is always sure to go to the fighting men."
"Nay, nay! we will share alike!" rejoined Bernard.
"Ay! but I am a king in those matters," answered the priest; "I do not like to share at all. But come on, come on; I am only jesting. We shall find plenty, I doubt not; for, when last I passed that little inn, there was good meat and wine enough to have fed a refectory for a week, or an army for a year. Come on quick, I say, for yon foul-mouthed railer at the top of the hill is beginning to roar at us as well as spit at us. We have still far to go, and a storm in these mountains is like a dull jest, I can tell you, young gentleman; for one never knows what may come next."
"Why, what can come next," demanded the cavalier, "but fine weather after the storm?"
"A rock upon your head," replied the priest, "or an avalanche at your heels, which would smother you in your steel case like a lobster in his shell. Come on! come on! Sancta Maria! why, my small ass will out-run your tall charger now!" and, bestowing a buffet with his straw hat upon the flank of his bearer, the beast quickened his pace still more, and, with a malicious whisk of the tail and fling with his hind feet, set off into a gallop. But we must pause to change the scene, and precede the travellers on their way.
There are few situations in life which convey to the mind of man more completely the sensations of comfort, security, and repose, than when, after a long day's ride, he sits at ease by a glowing fire, and hears--while all the ready service of a well-conducted inn is in bustling activity to minister to his wants or satisfy his appetite--the rain patter and the tempest roar without. Nor is it from any selfish comparison of their own fate with that of others less happy that men derive this sensation, notwithstanding the dictum of the most selfish of would-be philosophers. It is, on the contrary, from a comparison of their own situation at the moment with what that situation sometimes has been, or might even then be, that the good and the generous experience such feelings; and, though the thought of others exposed to the tempest must naturally cross their minds, yet that thought is mixed with pity and regret.