As the reader may suppose, the terrible accident to Lewis Stoutley put
an end to further merry-making among our friends at Chamouni. Mrs
Stoutley would have left for England at once if that had been possible,
but Lewis could not be moved for several weeks. At first indeed, fears
were entertained for his life, but his constitution being good, and not
having been damaged by dissipation, he rallied sooner than might have
been expected, although it was evident from the beginning that complete
restoration could not be looked for until many months, perhaps years,
had passed away.
We need scarcely say, that the rapid improvement of his health was
largely due to the tender watchful care of his mother.
Since visiting Switzerland, that excellent lady's spirit had undergone a
considerable change. Without going minutely into particulars, we may
say that the startling events which had occurred had been made the means
of opening her spiritual eyes. It had occurred to her--she scarce knew
how or why--that her Creator had a claim on her for more consideration
than she had been in the habit, heretofore, of testifying by a few
formalities on Sundays; that there must be some higher end and aim in
life than the mere obtaining and maintaining of health, and the pursuit
of pleasure; and that as there was a Saviour, whom she professed on
Sundays to follow, there must be something real from which she had to be
saved, as well as something real that had to be done. Sin, she knew, of
course, was the evil from which everybody had to be saved; but, being a
good-natured and easy-going woman, she really did not feel much troubled
by sin. Little weaknesses she had, no doubt, but not half so many as
other people she knew of. As to anything seriously worthy the name of
sin, she did not believe she had any at all. It had never, until now,
occurred to her that the treating of her best Friend, during a lifetime,
with cool and systematic indifference, or with mere protestations, on
Sundays, of adoration, was probably as great a sin as she could commit.
Her thoughts on these points she did not at first mention to any one,
but she received great help and enlightenment, as well as comfort, from
the quiet sensible talk of Dr Lawrence, as he sat day after day, and
hour after hour, at the bedside of his friend, endeavouring to cheer his
spirits as well as to relieve his physical pain--for Lawrence was well
fitted to do both.
He was not by any means what is styled a sermoniser. He made no
apparent effort to turn conversation into religious channels. Indeed we
believe that when men talk with the unrestrained freedom of true
friendship, conversation needs no directing. It will naturally flow
along all channels, and into all the zigzags and crevices of human
thought--religion included. Lewis was in great pain and serious danger.
Lawrence was a man full of the Holy Spirit and love to Jesus. Out of
the fullness of his heart his mouth spoke when his friend appeared to
desire such converse; but he never bored him with _any_ subject--for it
is possible to be a profane, as well as a religious, bore!
As soon as Lewis could turn his mind to anything, after his being
brought back to the hotel, he asked earnestly after Nita Horetzki.
"She has left," said Mrs Stoutley.
"Left! D'you mean gone from Chamouni, mother?" exclaimed Lewis, with a
start and a look of anxiety which he did not care to conceal.
"Yes, they went yesterday. Nita had recovered sufficiently to travel,
and the medical man who has been attending her urged her removal without
delay. She and her father seemed both very sorry to leave us, and left
kind messages for you. The Count wanted much to see you, but we would
not allow it."
"Kind messages for me," repeated Lewis, in a tone of bitterness, "what
sort of messages?"
"Well, really, I cannot exactly remember," returned Mrs Stoutley, with
a slight smile, "the kind of messages that amiable people might be
expected to leave in the circumstances, you know--regret that they
should have to leave us in such a sad condition, and sincere hope that
you might soon recover, etcetera. Yes, by the way, Nita also, just at
parting, expressed a hope--an earnest hope--that we might meet again.
Poor dear thing, she is an extremely affectionate girl, and quite broke
down when saying good-bye."
"D'you know where they have gone to, mother?"
"No. They mean to move about from place to place, I believe."
"Nita said nothing about writing to you, did she?"
"Did they leave any address--a _poste restante_--anywhere, or any clew
whatever as to their whereabouts?"
"None whatever."
So then, during the weary days of suffering that he knew full well lay
before him, poor Lewis had no consolatory thought in regard to Nita save
in her expressed "earnest hope" that they might meet again. It was not
much, but it was better than nothing. Being an ingenious as well as
daring architect, Lewis built amazing structures on that slight
foundation--structures which charmed his mental eyes to look upon, and
which, we verily believe, tended to facilitate his recovery--so potent
is the power of true love!
"Captain Wopper," said Mrs Stoutley one morning, towards the end of
their stay in Switzerland, Lewis having been pronounced sufficiently
restored to travel homeward by easy stages, "I have sent for you to ask
you to do me a favour--to give me your advice--your--"
Here, to the Captain's amazement, not to say consternation, Mrs
Stoutley's voice trembled, and she burst into tears. If she had
suddenly caught him by the nose, pulled his rugged face down and kissed
it, he could not have been more taken aback.
"My dear madam," he stammered, sitting down inadvertently on Mrs
Stoutley's bonnet--for it was to the good lady's private dressing-room
that he had been summoned by Gillie White--"hold on! don't now, please!
What ever have I done to--"
"You've done nothing, my dear Captain," said Mrs Stoutley, endeavouring
to check her tears. "There, I'm very foolish, but I can't help it.
Indeed I can't."
In proof of the truth of this assertion she broke down again, and the
Captain, moving uneasily on his chair, ground the bonnet almost to
powder--it was a straw one.
"You have been a kind friend, Captain Wopper," said Mrs Stoutley,
drying her eyes, "a very kind friend."
"I'm glad you think so, ma'am; I've meant to be--anyhow."
"You have, you have," cried Mrs Stoutley, earnestly, as she looked
through her tears into the seaman's rugged countenance, "and that is my
reason for venturing to ask you now to trouble yourself with--with--"
There was an alarming symptom here of a recurrence of "squally weather,"
which caused the Captain to give the bonnet an "extra turn," but she
recovered herself and went on--
"With my affairs. I would not have thought of troubling you, but with
poor Lewie so ill, and Dr Lawrence being so young, and probably
inexperienced in the ways of life, and Emma so innocent and helpless,
and--in short I'm--hee!--that is to say--ho dear! I _am_ so silly, but
I can't--indeed I can't--hoo-o-o!"
It blew a regular gale now, and a very rain of straw _debris_ fell
through the cane-bottomed chair on which the Captain sat, as he vainly
essayed to sooth his friend by earnest, pathetic, and even tender
adjurations to "clap a stopper upon that," to "hold hard," to "belay",
to "shut down the dead-lights of her peepers," and such-like expressive
phrases.
At length, amid many sobs, the poor lady revealed the overwhelming fact
that she was a beggar; that she had actually come down to her last
franc; that her man of business had flatly declined to advance her
another sovereign, informing her that the Gorong mine had declared "no
dividend;" that the wreck of her shattered fortune had been swallowed up
by the expenses of their ill-advised trip to Switzerland, and that she
had not even funds enough to pay their travelling expenses home; in
short that she was a miserable boulder, at the lowest level of the
terminal moraine!
To all this Captain Wopper listened in perfect silence, with a blank
expression on his face that revealed nothing of the state of feeling
within.
"Oh! Captain Wopper," exclaimed the poor lady anxiously, "surely--
surely _you_ won't forsake me! I know that I have no claim on you
beyond friendship, but you have always given us to understand that you
were well off, and I merely wish to _borrow_ a small sum. Just enough,
and no more. Perhaps I may not be able to repay you just immediately,
but I hope soon; and even if it came to the worst, there is the
furniture in Euston Square, and the carriage and horses."
Poor Mrs Stoutley! She was not aware that her man of business had
already had these resources appraised, and that they no more belonged to
her at that moment than if they had been part of the personal estate of
the celebrated man in the moon.
Still the Captain gazed at her in stolid silence.
"Even my personal wardrobe," proceeded Mrs Stoutley, beginning again to
weep, "I will gladly dis--"
"Avast! Madam," cried the Captain, suddenly, thrusting his right hand
into his breeches-pocket, and endeavouring to drag something therefrom
with a series of wrenches that would have been terribly trying to the
bonnet, had its ruin not been already complete, "don't talk to me of
repayment. Ain't I your--your--husband's brother's buzzum friend--
Willum's old chum an' messmate? See here."
He jerked the chair (without rising) close to a table which stood at his
elbow, and placed thereon a large canvas bag, much soiled, and tied
round the neck with a piece of rope-yarn, which smelt of tar even at a
distance. This was the Captain's purse. He carried it always in his
right trouser-pocket, and it contained his gold. As for such trifling
metal as silver, he carried that loose, mixed with coppers, bits of
tobacco, broken pipes, and a clasp-knife, in the other pocket. He was
very fond of his purse. In California he had been wont to carry nuggets
in it, that simple species of exchange being the chief currency of the
country at the time he was there. Some of the Californian _debris_ had
stuck to it when he had filled it, at a place of exchange in London,
with Napoleons. Emptying its glittering contents upon the table, he
spread it out.
"There, madam," he said, with a hearty smile, "you're welcome to all
I've got about me just at this moment, and you shall have more when
that's done. Don't say `not so much,' cause it ain't much, fifty pound,
more or less, barrin' the nuggets, which I'll keep, as I dessay they
would only worry you, and there's plenty more shot in the locker where
that come from; an' don't talk about payin' back or thankin' me. You've
no occasion to thank me. It's only a loan, an' I'll hold Willum, your
brother-in-law, responsible. You wouldn't decline to take it from
Willum, would you?"
"Indeed no; William Stout has always been so kind to us--kinder than I
have deserved."
"Well, then, I'll write to Willum. I'll say to him, `Willum, my boy,
here's your brother's widdy bin caught in a squall, had her sails blown
to ribbons, bin throw'd on her beam-ends, and every stick torn out of
her. You've got more cash, Willum, than you knows what to do with, so,
hand over, send me a power of attorney (is that the thing?) or an
affydavy--whatever lawyer's dockiments is required--an' I'll stand by
and do the needful.' An' Willum 'll write back, with that power an'
brevity for which he is celebrated,--`Wopper, my lad, all right; fire
away. Anything short o' ten thousand, more or less. Do yer w'ust.
Yours to command,
"`Willum.'"
There was no resisting such arguments. Mrs Stoutley smiled through her
tears as she accepted the money. Captain Wopper rose, crammed the empty
canvas bag into his pocket, and hastily retired, with portions of the
bonnet attached to him.
"Susan," said Mrs Stoutley, on the maid answering her summons, "we
shall start for London tomorrow, or the day after, so, pray, set about
packing up without delay."
"Very well, ma'am," replied Susan, whose eyes were riveted with an
expression of surprised curiosity on the cane-bottomed chair.
"It is my bonnet Susan," said the lady, looking in the same direction
with a sad smile. "Captain Wopper sat down on it by mistake. You had
better remove it."
To remove it was a feat which even Susan, with all her ready wit and
neatness of hand, could not have accomplished without the aid of brush
and shovel. She, therefore, carried it off chair and all, to the
regions below, where she and Gillie went into convulsions over it.
"Oh! Susan," exclaimed the blue spider, "wot would I not have given to
have seed him a-doin' of it! Only think! The ribbons, flowers, and
straw in one uniwarsal mush! _Wot_ a grindin' there must ave bin! I
heer'd the Purfesser the other day talkin' of wot he calls
glacier-haction--how they flutes the rocks an' grinds in a most musical
way over the boulders with crushin' wiolence; but wot's glacier haction
to _that_?"
Susan admitted that it was nothing; and they both returned at intervals
in the packing, during the remainder of that day, to have another look
at the bonnet-debris, and enjoy a fresh explosion over it.