I have attempted in the foregoing pages to give some general account of the out-door sports which are, as a rule, indulged in by altitudinists in winter. But any picture of this enchanting Swiss life, however slight, would be imperfect without some allusion to other entertainments which take place between sunset and sunrise. As a matter of fact, there are a good many such, and at most Swiss resorts there is in one hotel or another a dance, or a fancy-dress ball, or a concert, or very often more than one of these, practically nightly.

Now this piece of information, which I have thus baldly set down (for I do not believe in the gradual breaking of bad news), will, I am aware, strike a species of terror into many middle-aged and austere breasts. There are large quantities of folk who would sooner die than dance, and who would feel themselves affronted if, at the end of an active day out of doors, they were expected to sit in rows and be sung to or amused, or even worse, were expected to sing or amuse. At the most, they think they would desire merely to sit quietly and read or converse, or perhaps occupy a morose corner in a card-room, and the thought of being kept awake after they have retired to their early beds by the sound of bands or dancers would rouse them to a state of frenzied rage. As for dancing themselves——

Now, I hasten to add words of consolation for all sedate folk. There is not the slightest need for them to be apprehensive, for they will find their quiet corners and card-rooms provided for them, unraided by the frivolous, and nobody wants them to dance and sing unless they feel inclined to. They have an erroneous notion, from hearing enthusiastic young friends on their return from Switzerland say that they had a dance every night, often fancy-dress, except when there was an ice-carnival or a concert, that they are expected to appear as Pierrots or Columbines, or otherwise cover themselves with shame and glory by public performances of some such kind, or, after dinner, sally forth again with a false nose and tights and proceed to dash about the skating-rink among squibs and fireworks. But there is no kind of reason why they should harbour any such fears; they can be as quiet and sedentary as they like.

But the probability is that they will not, when they have become altitudinists, feel quite so sedentary as they do in, let us say, Cromwell Road, after the day’s work in town. Without doubt there is something slightly intoxicating to the mind, some sort of juvenile effervescence in the air and the sun of these high places, which seems to affect the steadiest head, and it is not uncommon to see sober persons of middle-age capering about in a manner altogether surprising. They get a sudden access of youth and high spirits, and make themselves ridiculous (this would be their judgment on themselves while still in Cromwell Road) with immense enjoyment and Élan. Probably in Cromwell Road they would never dream, for instance, if there was a fall of snow, of making a snow-man in the back-garden, even if the snow was not covered with smuts, but out here if by chance a heavy fall renders rink and toboggan-run impracticable for the moment, they are perfectly likely (they will not believe me, but it is quite true) to build up a sumptuous piece of statuary. Similarly, unaccustomed as they are to go out of doors on a winter’s night after dinner, except to be taken in a taxi to the theatre, it is quite probable that they will don coats and gouties and see what is going on at this absurd ice-carnival, which they have been told is to take place on the rink. And really it is almost worth seeing, even if you take no part in it.

A circle of light from hundreds of electric lamps, or a less potent but more variously-coloured illumination from lines of Chinese lanterns, surrounds the rink, so that in that blaze of light the great frosty-burning stars are invisible in the vault overhead, and even the full moon seems no more luminous than a circle of pale yellow paper. These are reflected, wherever there is room for reflection, on the ice they enclose, but there is not very much room for anything, as the whole surface of the rink is covered with brilliant, gaily-dressed figures gliding about in some interval of the dancing. Each carries a Chinese lantern on a stick, and the whole place is an intricate pattern of interweaving lights and colours. Then the band rings out again (“ringing” is the only word that the least describes the sound of violins and horns in this resonant frosty air), and instantly this sheet of weaving light and figures begins to be permeated by rhythm. Couple by couple are swept into this rhythm, circling, oscillating with long gliding steps, their lanterns making a series of luminous loops as they swing to the measure of the dance. What was but a company of mysterious, huge fire-flies, all darting about on separate businesses, is turned into a rhythmical and living pattern of flame, controlled by the lilt and measure of the band. Eye and ear alike are dazzled by this musical and moving and illuminated rhythm. Faster grows the tune as it approaches its end, faster is formed this living and luminous pattern. Then it stops, and the pattern dissolves itself again into streaks of darting lights; the dance of the uncontrolled fire-flies again. And it is far from unlikely that the middle-aged and sedate will hurry back to the hotel to get some skates and a lantern, and some sort of preposterous headgear.

Or, while still the fireworks and Bengal lights are unlit, you can walk to the end of the rink, and, turning your back on its brightness, look out over the lower valley below and the hills beyond. Away from the glare of the festooned lights, your eye gets accustomed to the gloom, and presently it ceases to be gloom at all. Ivory white shine the untrodden snows beneath the full moon and the glory of innumerable stars: far below, perhaps, a level sea of cloud extends like a marble floor over the valley, and across it the aiguilles of Mont Blanc, and nearer the summits of the Dent du Midi stand sparkling like crystals. Then from behind you sounds the swish of an aspiring rocket, and across the firmament streams a line of light. Slower and slower it mounts, then from the end of it bursts a huge constellation of coloured

globes of flame. Then suddenly the whole hillside, the village, the pine-trees, and the snow-slopes begin to shine with a red glow as if the whole world was on fire. Then stars are quenched, the moon resigns altogether, even the lights on and around the rink grow dim in the glow that turns everything into molten fire. But it is only a Bengal light behind the chÂlet. “Only” indeed! As if there was anything more magical than these blood-red snows and red-hot pines beneath the cold of the winter night! For it requires a hideously-sensible person to outlive the joys of fireworks.

Then after a while the lights are quenched and the band goes home, and you walk back beneath the moon to your hotel. All that artificial fire has not stained the white radiance of the guardians of the night. They whirl steadfast and remote and sparkling, turning the snow to glistening ivory and the shadows to ebony, as they “quire to the bright-eyed seraphim.” And all night long (thoughts come strangely and incongruously mixed in this intoxicating air) the patient and laborious ice-man will be clearing up the rink, and sprinkling it through the dark hours, so that to-morrow you shall have a virgin field for your quavering rockers.

The most absorbed votary of quavering rockers must not mind an occasional violation of his frozen sanctuary by day as well as by night, for there are entertainments known as ice-gymkhanas that must from time to time be permitted to those more frivolous than he. In other words, he will come down to the rink on some fine morning with perhaps a new and illuminating theory that shall make all his difficulties with regard to rockers vanish like breath on a frosty morning, to find his ice desecrated by the presence of crowds in gouties, and shovels and potatoes and sacks and barrels. Eager young people will put other eager young people on the shovels and race against each other: they will pick up a series of potatoes singly, and see who can deposit them most speedily in a receptacle placed at the end of the line. They will have obstacle-races and climb through barrels, or more probably stick in them, they will perform every imaginable antic on a surface which renders those antics most perilous, and they will assuredly shout with laughter all the time, and cut up the ice in a manner that makes the grim skater’s heart to bleed. But it really is all great fun, and if he finds he cannot bear it he had better go for a walk until it is over. The best plan of all, however, when such things are going on is to join in them. The worst that can happen to you is that you are disqualified for some profoundly unsatisfactory reason.

But the main point for parents and guardians to remember is, that they will feel quite different, when they are at a sufficient altitude on a sunny day, from what they do when they are coming out of the twopenny tube into a London fog. An exhilaration, approaching, as I have said, to a sort of intoxication, will invade their stately limbs, and they will feel inclined to do all kinds of things which their sober and city minds tell them are silly and ridiculous. But then a sober and city mind, like the tubercle bacillus, cannot live in this enchanted atmosphere. Fortunately or unfortunately, it does not quite die, for it slowly resumes its activity when they have returned to Cromwell Road, and they will find that it is probably quite unimpaired by this temporary anÆsthetic of the air at 4000 feet up in winter. They need not feel afraid of becoming schoolboys permanently again, or of behaving like the adorable Mr. Bultitude when his son had changed places with him in Mr. Anstey’s Vice-Versa. Their business capacities will be quite unimpaired when they get home: indeed they will very likely prove to have been brightened up by such experiences.

And already the year is on the turn again, and these foolish long summer days are beginning to get short. Very soon it will be time to settle whether we go to A——, or B——, or try that new place C——.... And then people speak well of D——, but on the other hand E——, which we went to three years ago, has got a new ice-run, and the rink has been enlarged. But there is more sun at F——, and even in that awful winter of 1911-1912, when Switzerland was a mere puddle, G—— held out against the thaw. But the hotels at H—— are very comfortable, and the ski-ing is good, though not so good as at I——.... That is the only Debating Society in which I enjoy taking a part.

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
at Paul’s Work, Edinburgh

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