I nodded in affirmation of the truth. It was enough. Catholic and
Protestant had met on common ground,--we understood each other,--we were
reconciled.
Has he carried his large faith with him into the great metropolis? and
have I kept mine unshaken in spite of the storm that is raging in my
native land? Armed in his simplicity only, he has gone to meet the gusts
of temptation; and I have lived to see the Republic, which I believed
inviolable as Mother Earth herself, tremble and totter, as one after
another of her rotten pillars has fallen away. God grant that we may
both, in this day of our peril, be able, as then, to realize that "_Il
est partout_"!
During my short Alpine journey I held the office of paymaster for our
party, my election being due not so much to proficiency in the queer
dialect above alluded to as to courage in the use of it. It is always a
pleasant office to disburse the funds, but was never more so than when,
late at night, Michel and Auguste came to the hotel at Martigny to
receive the reward of their day's toil. Michel had his full dues in
money, and plenty of praise to boot; Auguste, evidently much to his
surprise, a trifle more than his minimum price. Each of them then
grasped my hand in his horny palm,--an unexpected salutation, but not a
harsh one, for each hand had a heart in it, or I believed it had, which
was all the same to me.
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