Rivers of Ice Part 30

The Count shook his head.

"You speak in ignorance, Mr Stoutley. You know nothing of the struggles I have made. It is impossible."

"With G.o.d _all_ things are possible," replied Lewis, quoting, almost to his own surprise, a text of Scripture. "But forgive my delay," he added; "I came here on purpose to look for you. Your daughter Nita is ill--not seriously ill, I believe," he said, on observing the Count's startled look, "but ill enough to warrant your being sent for."

"I know--I know," cried the Count, with a troubled look, as he pa.s.sed his hand across his brow. "I might have expected it. She cannot sustain the misery I have brought on her. Oh! why was I prevented from freeing her from such a father. Is she very ill? Did she send for me?

Did she tell you what I am?"

The excited manner and wild aspect of the gambler, more than the words, told of a mind almost, if not altogether, unhinged. Observing this with some anxiety, Lewis tried to soothe him. While leading him to an hotel, he explained the nature of Nita's attack as well as he could, and said that she had not only refrained from saying anything about her father, but that she seemed excessively unwilling to reveal the name of the place to which he had gone, or to send for him.

"No one knows anything unfavourable about Count h.o.r.etzki," said Lewis, in a gentle tone, "save his fellow-sinner, who now a.s.sures him of his sincere regard. As for Antoine Grennon, he is a wise, and can be a silent, man. No brother could be more tender of the feelings of others than he. Come, you will consent to be my guest to-night. You are unwell; I shall be your amateur physician. My treatment and a night of rest will put you all right, and to-morrow, by break of day, we will hie back to Chamouni over the Tete-Noire."

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

MOUNTAINEERING IN GENERAL.

A week pa.s.sed 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 bra.s.s b.u.t.tons 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s 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 dest.i.tute 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 pa.s.ses 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 creva.s.se, 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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.suming, 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 pa.s.sion to be hopeless. Lewis was dull because he knew Nita's circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sist 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 a.s.sumed 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."