the green valley, and then up the snowy mountains, sometimes
exchanging a word with Franz, but oftener listening, as he talked in a
low voice to Annette, of what she was to do during the day.
"And if he dies, Franz!"
"God grant that he may not."
We had now reached the little cottage, and, laying down her packages,
Annette ran to a little shed and brought each of us a long pole
furnished with a spike at the end, for which we found abundant use
before we returned; she then brought a draught of clear, cold water,
gushing out of a rock near by, and, bidding us "God speed," entered
the hut.
Franz was with us, but he had just stopped for a word with his
father, and there was a moisture in his eye that came very near
calling the tears to our own. We did not question him then, but going
on, we paused occasionally to observe the ruin which had been wrought
by many avalanches, while our ears mistook the sound of others for
thunder. Trees uprooted, withered branches and blasted trunks were
scattered in every direction, and sometimes a large space was
completely cleared by one of these tremendous agents of destruction.
"You have seen the village of Chamouni," said Franz; "it is said to
have been built by a few peasants who escaped an avalanche that
occurred on the opposite side of the Arve."
The higher we ascended the more steep and difficult it became, and
more than once did Franz have to turn and teach us how to use our
poles, resting the weight of the body upon them, but still inclining
the figure to the face of the mountain instead of the valley. Higher
up we came to shoots or rivers of frozen snow; the inclination of the
ice being extremely steep and the surface smooth, Franz crossed first,
making marks with his pole for our feet. He then directed us to look
neither above nor below us, but only to our feet, for should we fall
nothing could save us from sliding down the ice and being dashed
against the rocks or the stumps of trees beneath. Passing the first in
safety, we found the next less formidable, while the danger was
diminished in proportion to the experience we acquired.
Once over, Franz told us how his father was accustomed to descend the
ice shoot; planting his heels firmly in the snow and placing his pole
under his right arm and leaning the entire weight of his body upon it
he came down with the swiftness of an arrow, his body almost in a
sitting posture, his heels and the spiked end of his pole alone
touching the ice and deeply indenting it.
"It happened," said Franz, "that my father was showing a small company
of travellers to the summit, when a sudden fancy seized one of them to
make the descent in that way. My father expostulated, and told him
that it required practice and skill, that but few of the guides would
undertake it. He would not be deterred, feeling, as he said, sure that
he could do anything performed by another. Seeing that he was
determined, my father helped him to adjust his pole, and then shut his
eyes."
"And what then?" I asked, as Franz stopped and looked in the direction
of the Mer de Glace.
"There was no help for him," said Franz; "he was buried at the foot
of the mountain."
Having reached the summit, the scene that burst upon us was sublime in
the highest degree; immediately beneath was the Mer de Glace, a broad
river of ice running nearly forty miles up into the Alps; to the north
the green valley of Chamouni, to the south the gigantic barriers that
separate Savoy from Piedmont, and around us inaccessible peaks and
mountains of eternal snow, finely contrasting with the deep blue of
the heavens; while the roar of cataracts and the thunder of avalanches
were the only sounds that broke upon the profound stillness of the
terrible solitude.
On the summit of the mountain we found an inn or hospice. We entered
and warmed ourselves, neither did we refuse the black bread and glass
of sour wine that were presently brought to us. As we sat by the fire
a small table was brought near us, and on it lay the album in which we
were expected to enter our names. Many notable autographs we found
here, and despite the gladness we felt in adding ours to the number,
there was still a sad, desolate thought: those most distinguished had
all passed away. The mountains remained, their glory undiminished; but
the human beings climbing their heights, and exulting in the grandeur
of heaven and earth, had vanished like the mist wreath. Years would
pass and other feet would cross the slippery fields, other eyes look
out upon the work of God's hands, other names be traced, and we, like
the throng before us, be gone--no longer to look upon the created, but
the Creator.
As soon as we were sufficiently rested, Franz summoned us to the Sea
of Ice, and we began to descend the steep and rugged face of the
mountain. As we approached the surface of the glacier, these
inequalities rose into considerable elevations, intermingled with
half-formed pyramids, bending walls and shapeless masses of ice; with
blocks of granite and frightful chasms at once savage and fantastic.
It puzzled me to know why it should have been called a sea, a rough
and stony one at that; but to me it looked like a river, walled in by
two enormous mountains, rising to the height of ten thousand feet, and
forming a ravine a mile and a half wide, that pursues a straight
course for several miles and divides at the upper end into two glens,
like deep gashes, that run up to the highest elevation of the Alps,
terminating at the lower extremity in an icy precipice of two thousand
feet, whose base is in a still deeper valley. It was as if there had
been innumerable torrents dashing down the precipice into the
valley--arrested by a mighty hurricane as they hurried along, and
wrought into the wildest forms by the fury of the tempest, and then
suddenly congealed, leaving a sea or river of ice, framed in with
lofty peaks and snowy summits, cataracts and avalanches, clouds and
storms, a wonderful combination of the grand, the terrible, and the
sublime.
Franz understood his business of guide too well to let me loiter as I
wished. "These fissures are the chief danger," he said; and, holding
out his small hand, he grasped mine with the tenacity of one not
accustomed to let anything slip through his fingers. A girdle of
imperfectly frozen snow borders this sea; and Franz never planted his
feet till he had first ascertained the nature of the surface with his
pole. Some of these fissures are of an amazing depth, and, taking out
my watch, I tried to fathom one of them by dropping large fragments of
granite; and calculating by the time that elapsed before reaching the
bottom, we judged it to be over five hundred feet.
Franz had hurried us; now, he stopped, and bade us look above us. We
did so, and were amply repaid for all our toil. To try to describe it
would be in vain; and still the distinct outline is indelibly
impressed upon my mind, and I am confident will never be effaced. We
were standing in the midst of the rough waves and yawning abysses of
this frozen sea; while almost perpendicularly from its brink the
mountains rose, clothed with scanty herbage, and adorned with the tiny
crimson blossoms of the rhododendron that bloomed upon their sides.
As the eye looked up the valley, every trace of vegetation died away;
and the snowy mountains appeared to meet and mingle with each other.
We left the glacier, and ascending again to the hospice of Montanvert,
I sat down by the side of Franz upon a block of granite, and looked
again upon a scene the equal of which I never expect to see again.
There was a far away look in Franz's eyes. Was he thinking of the
little cottage far up the mountain, and of Annette watching by the
bedside of his sick father? Perhaps so; in any case I was glad that we
had taken him. His could not be an everyday story, there must be some
particular motive why he should want so earnestly to come. I would not
question him then; but I determined to stop at the little cottage and
learn for myself.
With all the untold glory above and beneath me, I felt oppressed with
the littleness, as well as the greatness of my nature. How
insignificant I appeared amid these gigantic forms; and still I
exulted in the consciousness that "My Father made them all, that
Father with whom I could commune, and whose Son I was privileged to
love."
"And this God is our God," I was constrained to say aloud. Franz
turned his speaking eye upon me.
"If it was not for this, how could we endure it?" he said, while there
was a grave, calm look on his face, so little to be expected in a
guide.
"How could we endure this grandeur, or our own littleness?" I asked.
"To know that God rules, giving each his place, to the mountains
theirs, and to us ours. Insignificant we may be, and still we are each
of us of more value than all the mountains in the universe. Jesus
created mountains; but he died for us."
"Where did you learn this, Franz?"
"From the Bible, sir."
I saw it all; the Bible was the textbook he had studied. It was this
which had given him that rare expression of face, and the words so far
above the condition of life indicated by the little hamlet where he
lived.
There was no more time, for the sun was going down, and we must go
with it; and rising, we began to make the descent.
The moon was full orbed before we reached the cottage. I was weary
beyond the power of utterance.
"If you would prefer to stop here, we can give you a comfortable bed,"
said Franz, "and Annette will have something to eat. I told her that
there was a possibility that you would like to remain."
It was the very thing I wanted, and placing my pole by the side of
Franz's in the little shed from which Annette had brought it in the
morning, I entered the cottage.
All was still and quiet. It seemed Annette had not heard us; for as
the door was opened, she rose from the bedside, where she had been
kneeling, and springing lightly to Franz hid her little tear-wet face
in his bosom. She did not perceive me, and for a moment there was
nothing to be heard but the heavy breathing of the sick man.
"How has he been, Annette?" and Franz unclasped his sister's arm.
"He did not say much till the sun was nearly down, then he began to
ask for you, and at last I read him to sleep."
"Can you give us something to eat, Annette? you see I have brought the
stranger with me."
She turned with such an air of modesty, dropping a courtesy so very
humbly, and yet with a blending of maidenly dignity, that I felt
instinctively to bow to the womanhood before me, quaint and
picturesque as it was in its black dress, white sleeves, and
wooden-heeled shoes.
Giving one glance at the sleeper, Annette slipped out at a side-door;
while Franz rising from his straight-backed chair, and dropping on his
knees beside the bed, pressed his lips to the furrowed brow. The
action seemed to recall the sick man, his breathing was not so heavy
and his eyes partly opened.
"Father, you are not sleeping easily; let me turn you on your pillow."
The voice was low and tender, and the action gentle as a woman's.
"Franz!" and the withered hand stroked his light curls. "Franz!" there
was nothing more; but oh, what a world of love, of restored
confidence! the stiffening tongue lingered fondly on each letter.
The room was large, and there was a general air of neatness; but
there was a lack of comforts such as we are accustomed to see at home.
There was no lamp in the room; only on the hearth a pine-knot nearly
spent, sending out now a bright light, then wavering, bringing out
shadows on the wall, and permitting us to catch glimpses of the
outdoor radiance, the silvery effulgence of the rocks and hills.
The sick man slept, and now his breathing was as sweet as an infant's.
I rose to look at him, his bronzed face bleached to a deathly pallor,
his high brow seamed with furrows, and his hair like a network of
silver falling over the coarse white pillow.
"Has he been long ill?" I asked.
"It is about three months now," and Franz drew up a little stand, and
lifted the Bible that had been lying open on the bed to the table.
"Annette spoke of reading him to sleep; was this the book?" I
questioned.
"Father has come to like this since he was sick; he don't care for any
other."
"Then he has not always liked it?"
"No, sir."
"May I know, Franz, when you first learned to love this book?"
He looked up with such a shy, timid look, and still with the same
frankness that had characterized him during the day. Just then Annette
entered, whispered to Franz, and both went out. In a moment Franz
returned.
"Annette was afraid it would not do; it is the best we have, and I
know you must be hungry."
White bread, and strawberries, and goat's milk; while the bottle of
sour wine I had seen in the morning graced the table. I had not
expected such a tempting meal, and I was hungry, as Franz said. Taking
his seat Franz raised his eyes to mine. There was no mistaking its
upward, grateful glance. Bowing our heads, we asked a blessing, and
then picking up the broken thread, Franz went on to tell me of
himself.
Franz's Story.
"It is nearly four years since an English gentleman and his daughter
visited Chamouni, and my father was their guide. Mr. Wyndham was a
gentleman of refined manners; a Christian man, loving God, and
speaking of that love with the earnestness of one who wishes others to
love Him also. His daughter Alice, a frail, gentle girl, was one of
those beings that seem lent, not given; the last of a large family,
and herself not strong. Her father brought her to Lausanne, hoping
that pure air and change of scene would restore and invigorate her. I
hardly know why, but certain it is that my father was never so much
interested in travellers before; while from the first it seemed to me
that I could never do enough for the gentle girl, who never failed to
inspire me with the love of something beyond what I knew. It was not a
tangible idea, and when I tried to reach it I could not. Often in
going up the mountain we would stop and rest on some shelf of the
rock, while Alice would take her Bible from her pocket, and read the
beautiful descriptions of the majesty and glory of the mountain
heights, their grandeur and splendor, and then of the great God,
creator and ruler of the universe, and kneeling in the cleft of the
rock, she would commit herself to him with such a sweet, childlike
confidence, I used to weep without knowing what I was weeping for,
wishing and longing that I could understand for myself. Whenever she
read, and especially when she prayed, my father would listen
attentively, taking care when we went home to say nothing about it.
[Illustration]
"I remember one day we had been to 'Le Jardin,' a little spot of green
at the foot of the grand Jarasse, framed in with eternal snows, but
itself covered with Alpine plants and flowers, and yielding herbage
sufficient to tempt the herdsmen to drive their cattle across the Mer
de Glace. Her father and mine had gone a little out of the path,
leaving me in charge and Alice to rest. Seeing some bright flowers of
a peculiar species I stopped to gather them, and when I returned Alice
was reading. It was not of Christ's power, glory and majesty, but of
his love, the tenderness he felt for us, of his life, and last of all,
of his death. I had never heard the story before, and it took entire
possession of my spirit. Going down the mountain I was continually
asking myself, 'What shall I render to him for all he has suffered on
my account? and what for the blessings he has given me?' Thinking of
his buffetings, scoffs and scourging, I could hardly keep the tears.
My father observing this, and supposing that I was weary or had hurt
myself, was kinder than usual; but when I told him of the little book
and what Alice had told me of the love of Jesus, he grew angry and
said that the next time they needed a guide I should stay at home. 'I
have listened once or twice,' he said, 'because my living depends upon
my politeness to strangers; but when it comes to turning the heads of
my children it is quite another thing.'
"A few weeks after this Mr. Wyndham left Chamouni for Lausanne.
"'We shall miss you,' said Alice; for my father let me go to bid them
good-by; 'and that you may have something to remember me by, I am
going to give you this little Bible. You will see that I have marked
the passages I want you to study; and you must try to read it every
day.'
"It was the very thing that I had wanted, but I could hardly tell her
so. Tears were running over my face, and I had barely time to slip the
little book into my pocket when my father came up. After that I was
happier. I could read for myself, and it was sweet to know that God
cared for me. Many a pleasant hour did I enjoy in the mountain passes,
and in telling Annette of the treasure I had found in the Bible.
"My father may have suspected this. I hardly know; but one day the
priest came to talk to me upbraiding me not a little with reading a
book that could do me no good, and demanding that I should give it to
him. This I refused to do. He appealed to my father; invectives and
blows followed, and at last my father told me that I should either
give up the book or never see him or Annette any more. It was a
struggle, and I came near giving it up.
"When Annette suggested that I should go to Lausanne and see Mr.
Wyndham and Alice, I had not thought that I could do this, and without
delay started. I was received very kindly by Mr. Wyndham. Alice had
grown very weak; could not walk, and seldom could ride. I can not tell
you how the days passed, neither of the exertion she made to teach me
out of my little book. Then came a day when her voice was still, and
the next the sweet face was hidden from my sight for ever.
"Soon after this Mr. Wyndham left for England, but before he left he
had a long talk with me, and of my plans and hopes for the future. The
result was that I was placed in school, of which there are several, in
Lausanne, and began to study with reference to being myself a teacher
of his blessed word. My little Bible I sent to Annette; but my father
would not let me come home. For the last year he has been failing;
three months since he took to his bed, and then Annette prevailed upon
him to let me come and wait upon him. I found him greatly changed.
From the first he let me read the Book, as he calls it, and of late I
feel that he loves Jesus, and trusts him for the future. Living upon
his labor, it troubles him that he can do nothing; and this was why I
was so anxious to go with you yesterday; he likes to think of me as a
guide."
"And I trust you will be a guide," I said, as we left the table and
entered the sick-room, "a guide to lead souls to Christ. What a
blessed privilege!"
"If I can only do it," and his eyes were full of a holy light.
Annette sat by the bedside; the face of the sick man was as pale as
marble, and but for the gentle breathing, we should have thought him
already departed. Franz put on a fresh knot, and the red flame sent a
rosy tinge over the apartment. Sitting before the fire we watched him
as he slept, knowing, feeling that it could not be long. Then a
chapter was read, and a prayer went up for strength and guidance.
Franz would not let me watch with him; and leading me into a small
room with a clean but somewhat hard bed, left me to myself. Weary as I
was, I could not sleep. The glory of the day; the sad, sweet history
just related; the sick man, with the messenger waiting at the humble
door, thrilled me with a feeling that would not rest. Opening my
window, I enjoyed the stillness, the solitude, and the grandeur of the
scene: the glittering dome of Mont Blanc, and all the surrounding and
inferior domes and spires and pyramids that cluster in this wondrous
region, which fancy might conceive the edifices of some great city, or
the towers and dome of some vast minster. Far above the mountain-tops
the moon was shining; while her retinue of stars, seen through the
cool crisp air, seemed larger and more beautiful than I had ever
before seen them.
It would be impossible to detail all the thoughts that passed, and the
emotions that were excited in my mind. Every object around, beneath,
above me seemed in silent but impressive eloquence to celebrate God's
praise; from the moon that led the starry train, from the patriarch of
his kindred hills and nearest to the heavenly sanctuary, down to the
frozen glaciers and the roaring torrents of the lower valleys, all
seemed endowed with a peculiar language--a voice to touch the heart of
man, and to enter into the ear of God.
At length sleep overpowered me, and when I awoke the sun was shining.
Stepping into the outer room I was met by Franz, looking as fresh as
though sleep had not been denied him. Leading me to the bedside, he
spoke a few words to his father, while the trembling hand met mine,
weak and worn. I saw that his course was nearly run; but there was a
light in his eye that spoke of peace. Words were of little use.
After breakfast, which Annette insisted that I should take, I walked
down to the inn, and there learned more of Franz than he had been
willing to tell me. Not only had he been the means of leading his
father to the Saviour, but it was his habit to gather the people
together and read to them out of his Bible, telling them of Jesus and
of his pure and spotless life, then of his agony and death, picturing
his love and his infinite tenderness.
I was not restricted to a set number of days, and for three days I
vibrated between the inn and the small cottage on the mountain. On the
fourth it was over; the messenger had done his bidding. Franz and
Annette were not the only mourners, not a villager but joined them;
and when they turned from the grave to the silence of their humble
room, I went with them.
Not many days after that the door of the cottage was shut; and when I
sailed for my western home, Franz Muller was prosecuting his studies
at Basle.
"He is to be a minister," said Annette, as she followed me to the
door, "and he says that wherever his work is, I may share it with
him."
Her face was lit up with a smile almost as bright as I had seen on
Franz's face. Surely the angels know nothing of the rapture of such a
work.
Mont Blanc.
After making the ascent of Montanvert, and learning something of the
wonders of the Mer de Glace, we again sallied forth upon a tour of
discovery in the immediate neighborhood of La Prieuré.
With Mont Blanc before me and hardly conscious that I was alone, I
pursued my walk, continuing to ascend till my path was obstructed by a
mass of fallen snow. Fascinated with the idea of a better view, I
determined to find a way around it, I climbed higher and higher, now
stopping to admire the interior domes and spires and pyramids that
cluster in this wondrous region, then fancying myself in a vast
cathedral more grand and magnificent than I had ever before seen. The
summit of Mont Blanc seemed to have greatly increased since I began to
ascend, and this, and not looking behind me, rendered me wholly
unconscious of the progress I made.
At length, from the slippery condition of the path and the frequent
use that I was obliged to make of the pole with which I had been
furnished, I became conscious that I had advanced far beyond what I
had at first purposed. Looking back, I could see nothing of the
valley; night was coming on, and the winds sweeping over the snowy
heights made me shiver; at the same time they threatened to hurl me
over the precipice. Go on I could not; to retrace my steps seemed
equally impossible; planting my pole with its long spike deep in the
ice, I attempted to keep my footing. Sending my eyes in every
direction, and hoping that the guides had missed me and followed in
the track, I perceived an immense mass of ice, one of the very turrets
that I had so greatly admired, trembling and just ready to fall.
Before I had time to think, it slipped and fell with a thundering
sound, rolling and dashing like a huge cataract of liquid silver,
glittering in the sunbeams, and spent itself on the surface below over
which it spread. Its roar, like that of thunder, reverberated from
peak to peak, and many seconds elapsed before it completely died away.