The light grew clearer now. The mountains rose reluctantly, and shook off their wrappings of mist. The little clouds doffed their crimson finery. The man held together by the marvellous complication of shoulder-straps, closed his guide-book with an air of entire satisfaction. Evidently the programme, as laid down by Murray, had been accurately carried out. Everybody exclaimed, "Wonderful!" in his or her native tongue. All the knickerbockers, and woollen shirts, and lank water-proofs, without any back hair to speak of, trotted off down the hill to be metamorphosed into human beings, and prepare for breakfast, even to the individual who had been stalking about in a white bed blanket, with a striped border--though printed notices in every room expressly forbade the using of bed blankets as morning wraps.
When breakfast was over, there was nothing to do but to make the descent to Weggis, and return to Lucerne.
After a time, when weariness could no longer be made an excuse for lingering, we prepared for a tour through Switzerland. Engaging carriages to meet us at Fluellen, we embarked for the last time upon the beautiful lake, winding in and out its intricate ways, shut in by the towering cliffs that closed before us, only to re-open, revealing new charms as we rounded some promontory, and the lake widened again. Upon the bays thus formed, villages lean against the mountain-side. Where the rocks fall abruptly to the water, an occasional _châlet_ is perched upon some natural terrace, in the midst of an orchard or scanty garden. As we touched at these lake villages, brown-faced girls, in scant blue petticoats and black bodices, and with faded hair braided in their necks, offered us fruits--apricots and cherries--in pretty, rustic baskets.
One of these green spots, high among the rocks, forms a sloping meadow, touching the water at last. It is an oasis in the surrounding desert of barren rock. Do you know why the grass is greener here than elsewhere? why the sun bestows its kisses more warmly? why the foliage upon the scattered walnut and chestnut trees is thicker, darker, than upon those on other mountain-sides? It is because this is Grütlii--the birthplace of Swiss liberty. Here, more than five hundred years ago, the three confederates met at night to plan the throwing off of the Austrian yoke.