A week passed away, during which Nita was confined to bed, and the Count
waited on her with the most tender solicitude. As their meals were sent
to their rooms, it was not necessary for the latter to appear in the
_salle-a-manger_ or the _salon_. He kept himself carefully out of
sight, and intelligence of the invalid's progress was carried to their
friends by Susan Quick, who was allowed to remain as sick-nurse, and who
rejoiced in filling that office to one so amiable and uncomplaining as
Nita.
Of course, Lewis was almost irresistibly tempted to talk with Susan
about her charge, but he felt the impropriety of such a proceeding, and
refrained. Not so Gillie White. That sapient blue spider, sitting in
his wonted chair, resplendent with brass buttons and brazen impudence,
availed himself of every opportunity to perform an operation which he
styled "pumping;" but Susan, although ready enough to converse freely on
things in general, was judicious in regard to things particular.
Whatever might have passed in the sick-room, the pumping only brought up
such facts as that the Count was a splendid nurse as well as a loving
father, and that he and his daughter were tenderly attached to each
other.
"Well, Susan," observed Gillie, with an approving nod, "I'm glad to hear
wot you say, for it's my b'lief that tender attachments is the right
sort o' thing. I've got one or two myself."
"Indeed!" said Susan, "who for, I wonder?"
"W'y, for one," replied the spider, "I've had a wery tender attachment
to my mother ever since that blessed time w'en I was attached to her
buzzum in the rampagin' hunger of infancy. Then I've got another
attachment--not quite so old, but wery strong, oh uncommon powerful--for
a young lady named Susan Quick. D'you happen to know her?"
"Oh, Gillie, you're a sad boy," said Susan.
"Well, I make a pint never to contradict a 'ooman, believin' it to be
dangerous," returned Gillie, "but I can't say that I _feel_ sad. I'm
raither jolly than otherwise."
A summons from the sick-room cut short the conversation.
During the week in question it had rained a good deal, compelling the
visitors at Chamouni to pass the time in-doors with books, billiards,
draughts, and chess. Towards the end of the week Lewis met the Count
and discovered that he was absolutely destitute of funds--did not, in
fact possess enough to defray the hotel expenses.
"Mother," said Lewis, during a private audience in her bed-chamber the
same evening, "I want twenty pounds from you."
"Certainly, my boy; but why do you come to me? You know that Dr
Lawrence has charge of and manages my money. How I wish there were no
such thing as money, and no need for it!"
Mrs Stoutley finished her remark with her usual languid smile and
pathetic sigh, but if her physician, Dr Tough, had been there, he would
probably have noted that mountain-air had robbed the smile of half its
languor, and the sigh of nearly all its pathos. There was something
like seriousness, too, in the good lady's eye. She had been impressed
more than she chose to admit by the sudden death of Le Croix, whom she
had frequently seen, and whose stalwart frame and grave countenance she
had greatly admired. Besides this, one or two accidents had occurred
since her arrival in the Swiss valley; for there never passes a season
without the occurrence of accidents more or less serious in the Alps.
On one occasion the news had been brought that a young lady, recently
married, whose good looks had been the subject of remark more than once,
was killed by falling rocks before her husband's eyes. On another
occasion the spirits of the tourists were clouded by the report that a
guide had fallen into a crevasse, and, though not killed, was much
injured. Mrs Stoutley chanced to meet the rescue-party returning
slowly to the village, with the poor shattered frame of the fine young
fellow on a stretcher. It is one thing to read of such events in the
newspapers. It is another and a very different thing to be near or to
witness them--to be in the actual presence of physical and mental agony.
Antoine Grennon, too, had made a favourable impression on Mrs
Stoutley; and when, in passing one day his extremely humble cottage, she
was invited by Antoine's exceedingly pretty wife to enter and partake of
bread and milk largely impregnated with cream, which was handed to her
by Antoine's excessively sweet blue-eyed daughter, the lady who had
hitherto spent her life among the bright ice-pinnacles of society, was
forced to admit to Emma Gray that Dr Tough was right when he said there
were some beautiful and precious stones to be found among the moraines
of social life.
"I know that Lawrence keeps the purse," said Lewis, "but I want your
special permission to take this money, because I intend to give it
away."
"Twenty pounds is a pretty large gift, Lewis," said his mother, raising
her eyebrows. "Who is it that has touched the springs of your
liberality? Not the family of poor Le Croix?"
"No; Le Croix happily leaves no family. He was an unmarried man. I
must not tell you, just yet, mother. Trust me, it shall be well
bestowed; besides, I ask it as a loan. It shall be refunded."
"Don't talk of refunding money to your mother, foolish boy. Go; you may
have it."
Lewis kissed his mother's cheek and thanked her. He quickly found the
Count, but experienced considerable difficulty in persuading him to
accept the money. However, by delicacy of management and by assuming,
as a matter of course, that it was a loan, to be repaid when convenient,
he prevailed. The Count made an entry of the loan in his notebook, with
Lewis's London address, and they parted with a kindly shake of the hand,
little imagining that they had seen each other on earth for the last
time.
On the Monday following, a superb day opened on the vale of Chamouni,
such a day as, through the medium of sight and scent, is calculated to
gladden the heart of man and beast. That the beasts enjoyed it was
manifest from the pleasant sounds that they sent, gushing, like a hymn
of thanksgiving--and who shall say it was not!--into the bright blue
sky.
Birds carolled on the shrubs and in the air; cats ventured abroad with
hair erect and backs curved, to exchange greetings with each other in
wary defiance of dogs; kittens sprawled in the sunshine, and made
frantic efforts to achieve the impossible feat of catching their own
shadows, varying the pastime with more successful, though arduous,
attempts at their own tails; dogs bounded and danced, chiefly on their
hind legs, round their loved companion man (including woman); juvenile
dogs chased, tumbled over, barked at, and gnawed each other with amiable
fury, wagging their various tails with a vigour that suggested a desire
to shake them off; tourist men and boys moved about with a decision that
indicated the having of particular business on hand; tourist women and
girls were busily engaged with baskets and botanical boxes, or flitted
hither and thither in climbing costume with obtrusive alpenstocks, as
though a general attack on Mont Blanc and all his satellite aiguilles
were meditated.
Among these were our friends the Professor, Captain Wopper, Emma Gray,
Slingsby, Lewis, and Lawrence, under the guidance of Antoine Grennon.
Strange to say they were all a little dull, notwithstanding the beauty
of the weather, and the pleasant anticipation of a day on the hills--not
a hard, toilsome day, with some awful Alpine summit as its aim, but what
Lewis termed a jolly day, a picnicky day, to be extended into night, and
to include any place, or to be cut short or extended according to whim.
The Professor was dull, because, having to leave, this was to be his
last excursion; Captain Wopper was dull, because his cherished
matrimonial hopes were being gradually dissipated. He could not
perceive that Lawrence was falling in love with Emma, or Emma with
Lawrence. The utmost exertion of sly diplomacy of which he was capable,
short of straightforward advice, had failed to accomplish anything
towards the desirable end. Emma was dull, because her friend Nita,
although recovering, was still far from well. Slingsby was dull for the
same reason, and also because he felt his passion to be hopeless. Lewis
was dull because he knew Nita's circumstances to be so very sad; and
Lawrence was dull because--well, we are not quite sure why _he_ was
dull. He was rather a self-contained fellow, and couldn't be easily
understood. Of the whole party, Antoine alone was _not_ dull. Nothing
could put him in that condition, but, seeing that the others were so, he
was grave, quiet attentive.
Some of the excursionists had left at a much earlier hour. Four
strapping youths, with guides, had set out for the summit of Mont Blanc;
a mingled party of ladies, gentlemen, guides, and mules, were on the
point of starting to visit the Mer de Glace; a delicate student, unable
for long excursions, was preparing to visit with his sister, the Glacier
des Bossons. Others were going, or had gone, to the source of the
Arveiron, and to the Brevent, while the British peer, having previously
been conducted by a new and needlessly difficult path to the top of
Monte Rosa, was led off by his persecutor to attempt, by an impossible
route, to scale the Matterhorn--to reach the main-truck, as Captain
Wopper put it, by going down the stern-post along the keel, over the
bobstay, up the flyin' jib, across the foretopmast-stay, and up the
maintop-gallant halyards. This at least was Lewis Stoutley's report of
the Captain's remark. We cannot answer for its correctness.
But nothing can withstand the sweet influences of fresh mountain-air and
sunshine. In a short time "dull care" was put to flight and when our
party--Emma being on a mule--reached the neighbouring heights, past and
future were largely forgotten in the enjoyment of the present.
Besides being sunny and bright, the day was rather cool, so that, after
dismissing the mule, and taking to the glaciers and ice-slope, the air
was found to be eminently suitable for walking.
"It's a bad look-out," murmured Captain Wopper, when he observed that
Dr Lawrence turned deliberately to converse with the Professor, leaving
Lewis to assist Emma to alight, even although he, the Captain, had, by
means of laboured contrivance and vast sagacity, brought the Doctor and
the mule into close juxtaposition at the right time. However, the
Captain's temperament was sanguine. He soon forgot his troubles in
observing the curious position assumed by Slingsby on the first steep
slope of rocky ground they had to descend, for descents as well as
ascents were frequent at first.
The artist walked on all-fours, but with his back to the hill instead of
his face, his feet thus being in advance.
"What sort of an outside-in fashion is that, Slingsby?" asked the
Captain, when they had reached the bottom.
"It's a way I have of relieving my knees," said Slingsby; "try it."
"Thank 'ee; no," returned the Captain. "It don't suit my pecooliar
build; it would throw too much of my weight amidships."
"You've no idea," said Slingsby, "what a comfort it is to a man whose
knees suffer in descending. I'd rather go up twenty mountains than
descend one. This plan answers only on steep places, and is but a
temporary relief. Still that is something at the end of a long day."
The artist exemplified his plan at the next slope. The Captain tried
it, but, as he expressed it, broke in two at the waist and rolled down
the slope, to the unspeakable delight of his friends.
"I fear you will find this rather severe?" said the Professor to Emma,
during a pause in a steep ascent.
"Oh no; I am remarkably strong," replied Emma, smiling. "I was in
Switzerland two years ago, and am quite accustomed to mountaineering."
"Yes," remarked Lawrence, "and Miss Gray on that occasion, I am told,
ascended to the top of the Dent du Midi, which you know is between ten
and eleven thousand feet high; and she also, during the same season,
walked from Champery to Sixt which is a good day's journey, so we need
have no anxiety on her account."
Although the Doctor smiled as he spoke, he also glanced at Emma with a
look of admiration. Captain Wopper noted the glance and was comforted.
At luncheon, however, the Doctor seated himself so that the Professor's
bulky person came between him and Emma. The Captain noted that also,
and was depressed. What between elation and depression, mingled with
fatigue and victuals, the Captain ultimately became recklessly jovial.
"What are yonder curious things?" asked Emma, pointing to so me gigantic
objects which looked at a distance like rude pillars carved by man.
"These," said the Professor, "are Nature's handiwork. You will observe
that on each pillar rests a rugged capital. The capital is the cause of
the pillar. It is a hard rock which originally rested on a softer bed
of friable stone. The weather has worn away the soft bed, except where
it has been protected by the hard stone, and thus a natural pillar has
arisen--just like the ice-pillars, which are protected from the sun in
the same way; only the latter are more evanescent."
Further on, the Professor drew the attention of his friends to the
beautiful blue colour of the holes which their alpenstocks made in the
snow. "Once," said he, "while walking on the heights of Monte Rosa, I
observed this effect with great interest, and, while engaged in the
investigation of the cause, got a surprise which was not altogether
agreeable. Some of the paths there are on very narrow ridges, and the
snow on these ridges often overhangs them. I chanced to be walking in
advance of my guide at the time to which I refer, and amused myself as I
went along by driving my alpenstock deep into the snow, when suddenly,
to my amazement I sent the end of the staff right through the snow, and,
on withdrawing it, looked down into space! I had actually walked over
the ridge altogether, and was standing above an abyss some thousands of
feet deep!"
"Horrible!" exclaimed Emma. "You jumped off pretty quickly, I dare
say."
"Nay, I walked off with extreme caution; but I confess to having felt a
sort of cold shudder with which my frame had not been acquainted
previously."
While they were thus conversing, a cloud passed overhead and sent down a
slight shower of snow. To most of the party this was a matter of
indifference, but the man of science soon changed their feelings by
drawing attention to the form of the flakes. He carried a magnifying
glass with him, which enabled him to show their wonders more distinctly.
It was like a shower of frozen flowers of the most delicate and
exquisite kind. Each flake was a flower with six leaves. Some of the
leaves threw out lateral spines or points, like ferns, some were
rounded, others arrowy, reticulated, and serrated; but, although varied
in many respects, there was no variation in the number of leaves.
"What amazin' beauty in a snowflake," exclaimed the Captain, "many a one
I've seen without knowin' how splendid it was."
"The works of God are indeed wonderful," said the Professor, "but they
must be `sought out'--examined with care--to be fully understood and
appreciated."
"Yet there are certain philosophers," observed Lewis, "who hold that the
evidence of design here and elsewhere does not at all prove the
existence of God. They say that the crystals of these snow-flakes are
drawn together and arrange themselves by means of natural forces."
"They say truly," replied the Professor, "but they seem to me to stop
short in their reasoning. They appear to ignore the fact that this
elemental original force of which they speak must have had a Creator.
However far they may go back into mysterious and incomprehensible
elements, which they choose to call `blind forces,' they do not escape
the fact that matter cannot have created itself; that behind their
utmost conceptions there must still be One non-created, eternal, living
Being who created all, who upholds all, and whom we call God."
Descending again from the heights in order to cross a valley and gain
the opposite mountain, our ramblers quitted the glacier, and, about
noon, found themselves close to a lovely pine-clad knoll, the shaded
slopes of which commanded an unusually fine view of rocky cliff and
fringing wood, with a background of glacier and snow-flecked pinnacles.
Halting, accidentally in a row, before this spot they looked at it with
interest. Suddenly the Professor stepped in front of the others, and,
pointing to the knoll, said, with twinkling eyes--
"What does it suggest? Come, dux (to Slingsby, who happened to stand at
the head of the line), tell me, sir, what does it suggest?"
"_I_ know, sir!" exclaimed the Captain, who stood at the dunce's
extremity of the line, holding out his fist with true schoolboy
eagerness.
"It suggests," said the artist, rolling his eyes, "`a thing of beauty;'
and--"
"Next!" interrupted the Professor, pointing to Lawrence.
"_I_ know, sir," shouted the Captain.
"Hold your tongue, sir!"
"Ay, ay, sir."
"It is suggestive," said Lawrence, "of an oasis in the desert."
"Very poor, sir," said the Professor, severely. "Next."
"It suggests a cool shade on a hot day," said Emma.
"Better, but not right. Next."
"Please, sir, I'd rather not answer," said Lewis, putting his forefinger
in his mouth.
"You must, sir."
"_I_ know, sir," interrupted Captain Wopper, shaking his fist eagerly.
"Silence, you booby!--Well, boy, what does it suggest to _you_?"
"Please, sir," answered Lewis, "it suggests the mole on your
professorial cheek."
"Sir," cried the Professor, sternly, "remind me to give you a severe
caning to-night."
"Yes, sir."
"Well, booby, what have _you_ got to say to it?"
"Wittles!" shouted the Captain.
"Right," cried the Professor, "only it would have been better expressed
had you said--Luncheon. Go up, sir; put yourself at the head of the
class, and lead it to a scene of glorious festivity."
Thus instructed, the Captain put himself at the head of the line.
"Now, then, Captain," said Lewis, "let's have a true-blue nautical word
of command--hoist yer main tops'l sky-scrapers abaft the cleat o' the
spanker boom, heave the main deck overboard and let go the painter--or
something o' that sort."
"Hold on to the painter, you mean," said Slingsby.
"You're both wrong," cried the Captain, "my orders are those of the
immortal Nelson--`Close action, my lads--England expects every man to'--
hooray!"
With a wild cheer, and waving his hat, the seaman rushed up the side of
the knoll, followed by his obedient and willing crew.
In order to render the feast more complete, several members of the party
had brought small private supplies to supplement the cold mutton, ham,
bread, and light claret which Antoine and two porters had carried in
their knapsacks. Captain Wopper had brought a supply of variously
coloured abominations known in England by the name of comfits, in
Scotland as sweeties. These, mixed with snow and water, he styled
"iced-lemonade." Emma tried the mixture and declared it excellent,
which caused someone to remark that the expression of her face
contradicted her tongue. Lewis produced a small flask full of a rich
dark port-winey liquid, which he said he had brought because it had
formerly been one of the most delightful beverages of his childish
years. It was tasted with interest and rejected with horror, being
liquorice water! Emma produced a bottle of milk, in the consumption of
which she was ably assisted by the Professor, who declared that his
natural spirits required no artificial stimulants. The Professor
himself had not been forgetful of the general good. He had brought with
him a complex copper implement, which his friends had supposed was a new
species of theodolite, but which turned out to be a scientific
coffee-pot, in the development of which and its purposes, as the man of
science carefully explained, there was called into play some of the
principles involved in the sciences of hydraulics and pneumatics, to
which list Lewis added, in an under-tone, those of aquatics, ecstatics,
and rheumatics. The machine was perfect, but the Professor's natural
turn for practical mechanics not being equal to his knowledge of other
branches of science, he failed properly to adjust a screw. This
resulted in an explosion of the pot which blew its lid, as Lewis
expressed it, into the north of Italy, and its contents into the fire.
A second effort, using the remains of the scientific pot as an ordinary
kettle, was more successful.
"You see, my friends," said the Professor, apologetically, "it is one of
the prerogatives of science that her progress cannot be hindered. Her
resources and appliances are inexhaustible. When one style of
experiment fails we turn at once to another and obtain our result, as I
now prove to you by handing this cup of coffee to Miss Gray. You had
better not sweeten it, Mademoiselle. It is quite unnecessary to make
the very trite observation that in your case no sugar is required. Yes,
the progress of science is slow, but it is sure. Everything must fall
before it in time."
"Ah, just so--`one down, another come on,'--that's your motto, ain't
it?" said Captain Wopper, who invariably, during the meal, delivered his
remarks from a cavern filled with a compound of mutton, bread, and ham.
"But I say, Professor, are you spliced?"
"Spliced?" echoed the man of science.
"Ay; married, I mean."
"Yes, I am wed," he replied, with enthusiasm. "I have a beautiful wife
in Russia, and she is good as beautiful."
"In Roosia--eh! Well, it's a longish way off, but I'd advise you, as a
friend, not to let her know that you pay such wallopin' compliments to
young English ladies. It might disagree with her, d'ye see?"
At this point the conversation and festivities were interrupted by
Slingsby, who, having gone off to sketch, had seated himself on a mound
within sight of his friends, in a position so doubled up and ridiculous
as to call forth the remark from Lawrence, that few traits of character
were more admirable and interesting than those which illustrated the
utter disregard of personal appearance in true and enthusiastic devotees
of art. To which Captain Wopper added that "he was a rum lot an' no
mistake."
The devotee was seen by the revellers to start once or twice and clap
his hands to various pockets, as though he had forgotten his
india-rubber or pen-knife. Then he was observed to drop his
sketching-book and hastily slap all his pockets, as if he had forgotten
fifty pieces of india-rubber and innumerable pen-knives. Finally, he
sprang up and slapped himself all over wildly, yelling at the same time
as if he had been a maniac.
He had inadvertently selected an ant-hill as his seat, that was all; but
that was sufficient to check his devotion to art, and necessitate his
retirement to a rocky defile, where he devoted himself to the study of
"the nude" in his own person, and whence he returned looking imbecile
and hot.
Such _contretemps_, however, do not materially affect the health or
spirits of the young and strong. Ere long Slingsby was following his
companions with his wonted enthusiasm and devotee-like admiration of
Nature in all her varying aspects.
His enthusiasm was, however, diverted from the study of vegetable and
mineral, if we may so put it, to that of animal nature, for one of the
porters, who had a tendency to go poking his staff into holes and
crannies of the rocks, suddenly touched a marmot. He dropped his pack
and began at once to dig up earth and stones as fast as possible,
assisted by his comrades; but the little creature was too sagacious for
them. They came to its bed at last, and found that, while they had been
busy at one end of the hole, the marmot had quietly walked out at the
other, and made off.
Having pushed over the valley, and once more ascended to the regions of
perpetual ice, the ramblers determined to "attack"--as the phrase goes
among Alpine climbers--a neighbouring summit. It was not a very high
one, and Emma declared that she was not only quite able, but very
anxious, to attempt it. The attempt was, therefore, made, and, after a
couple of hours of pretty laborious work, accomplished. They found
themselves on a pinnacle which overlooked a large portion of the
ice-world around Mont Blanc. While standing there, one or two
avalanches were observed, and the Professor pointed out that avalanches
were not all of one character. Some, he said, were composed of rock,
mud, and water; others entirely of ice; many of them were composed of
these elements mixed, and others were entirely of snow.
"True, Monsieur," observed the guide, "and the last kind is sometimes
very fatal. There was one from which my wife and child had a narrow
escape. They were visiting at the time a near relation who dwelt in a
village in a valley not far distant from this spot. Behind the village
there is a steep slope covered with pines; behind that the mountain
rises still more steeply. The little forest stands between that village
and destruction. But for it, avalanches would soon sweep the village
away; but wood is not always a sure protector. Sometimes, when frost
renders the snow crisp and dry, the trees fail to check its descent. It
was so on the last night of my wife's visit. A brother was about to set
off with her from the door of our relative's house, when the snow began
to descend through the trees like water. It was like dry flour. There
was not much noise, merely a hissing sound, but it came down in a
deluge, filled all the houses, and suffocated nearly all the people in
them. My brother-in-law saw it in time. He put his horse to full
speed, and brought my dear wife and child away in safety, but his own
father, mother, and sister were lost. We tried to reach their house the
next day, but could advance through the soft snow only by taking two
planks with us, and placing one before the other as we went along."
Soon after the ramblers had begun their return journey, they came to a
slope which they thought might be descended by sliding or "glissading."
It was the first time that Emma had seen such work, and she felt much
inclined to try it, but was dissuaded by Antoine, who led her round by
an easier way. At the foot of the slope they came to a couloir, or
sloping gorge, so steep that snow could not lie on it. Its surface was,
therefore, hard ice. Although passable, Antoine deemed it prudent not
to cross, the more so that he observed some ominous obelisks of ice
impending at the top of the slope.
"Why not cross and let Emma see how we manage by cutting steps in the
ice?" said Lewis.
He received a conclusive though unexpected answer from one of the
obelisks above-mentioned, which fell at the moment, broke into
fragments, and swept the couloir from top to bottom with incredible
violence.
It is wonderful what a deal of experience is required to make foolish
people wise! Winthin the next ten minutes this warning was forgotten,
and Lewis led his cousin into a danger which almost cost the lives of
three of the party.