t waiting for my supper I warmed myself by the fire and scrutinised
the inmates of the cottage. The children seemed very healthy, and not
bad looking, if they had not been all disfigured with the family goitre,
which they all inherited in a greater or less degree. They seemed to be
great friends with my guide, gambolling around him and buffeting him
unmercifully.

At length my supper arrived, consisting of poached eggs, cold sausage
and ham, Swiss cheese, stale bread, and some sort of spirit drunk in the
mountains. Having concluded my repast, I lit a pipe, and, drawing up my
chair to the fire, entered into conversation with mine hostess.

"This is your son, I presume?" asked I of the landlady, pointing to my
guide.

"No, sir," she replied; "he is only a poor cretin that I have taken in
out of charity, as the children are fond of him. They say in these parts
that it is lucky to have an idiot in the house, so, having none in my
family, I took in this poor afflicted being; though, as to being lucky,
all the luck which I've known since----"

The hostess suddenly stopped in her conversation, and her face became
locked and rigid without any apparent reason.

I looked in the direction of the cripple, and observed his glance fixed
on the hostess. It was a glance which nearly took my breath away. No
wonder the landlady paused in her conversation. It was as if he
possessed the gift of the evil eye. The magnetic influence he had over
her completely closed her mouth.

Curious to know whether the landlady was really under a spell, I
resumed.

"And this unfortunate, besides being idiotic, is he also deaf and dumb?"

The landlady seemed to awake suddenly, as from a dream, and replied,
"Alas! yes, sir; no one has ever heard him utter a sound, or even----"

Here she paused again, and again I noticed the creature's glance fixed
upon her.

"It is very strange," I observed, following up the conversation, "for I
myself this evening have discoursed with him by signs, and so far from
being idiotic, I must say that I found him very intelligent."

"Ah, yes, sir," she rejoined; "and if you should want a guide to-morrow,
you could not do better than take him. No one knows the mountains here
better than he."

"Indeed," I replied; "then he cannot be altogether an idiot."

"Well, as to that, sir, I fancy at times he is more knave than fool.
Indeed, I cannot quite make him out. He is an odd being. No one
hereabouts knows who his paren