The Crystal Hunters: A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps

“What’s the matter, Mr Dale?”

“Matter, Saxe, my boy? Well, this. I undertook to take you back to your

father and mother some day, sound in wind and limb; but if you begin like

that, the trip’s over, and we shall have to start back for England in less than

a week—at least, I shall, with my luggage increased by a case containing

broken boy.”

There was a loud burst of hearty laughter from the manly-looking lad

addressed, as he stood, with his hands clinging and his head twisted round,

to look back: for he had spread-eagled himself against a nearly

perpendicular scarp of rock which he had begun to climb, so as to reach a

patch of wild rhododendrons.

There was another personage present, in the shape of a sturdy, muscularlooking man, whose swarthy face was sheltered by a wide-brimmed soft felt

hat, very much turned up at the sides, and in whose broad band was stuck a

tuft of the pale grey, starry-looking, downy plant known as the Edelweiss.

His jacket was of dark, exceedingly threadbare velvet; breeches of the

same; and he wore gaiters and heavily nailed lace-up boots; his whole

aspect having evoked the remarks, when he presented himself at the door of

the chalet:

“I say, Mr Dale, look here! Where is his organ and his monkey? This chap

has been asking for you—for Herr Richard Dale, of London.”

“Yes, I sent for him. It is the man I am anxious to engage for our guide.”

For Melchior Staffeln certainly did look a good deal like one of the

“musicians” who infest London streets with “kists o’ whustles,” as the

Scottish gentleman dubbed them—or much noisier but less penetrating

instruments on wheels.