They certainly did, replied Lawrence, but I cant see it.
There are two or three splendid-looking peaks, said Lewis, pointing up the valley, but surely thats not the direction of the top we look for.
No, my lad, it aint the right point o the compass by a long way, said the Captain; but yonder goes a strange sail a-head, lets overhaul her.
Heave a-head then, Captain, said Lewis, and clap on stunsls and sky-scrapers, for the strange sail is making for that cottage on the hill, and will get into port before we overhaul her if we dont look sharp.
The strange sail was a woman. She soon turned into the cottage referred to, but our travellers followed her up, arranging, as they drew near, that Lawrence, being the best French scholar of the three (the Captain knowing nothing whatever of the language), should address her.
She turned out to be a very comely young woman, the wife, as she explained, of one of the Chamouni guides, named Antoine Grennon. Her daughter, a pretty blue-eyed girl of six or so, was busy arranging a casket of flowers, and the grandmother of the family was engaged in that mysterious mallet-stone-scrubbing-brush-and-cold-water system, whereby the washerwomen of the Alps convert the linen of tourists into shreds and patches in the shortest possible space of time.