Tales of the Wonder Club Volume I Part 21

"This is the gentleman who saw the ghost, Helen," cried one of the other members, pointing to our artist.

The maiden turned and saw a fresh face in the club. Our artist was the youngest, by many years, of any of the other gentlemen present, besides which he was decidedly good looking. He gazed into the eyes of the girl till the poor child blushed crimson and looked down abashed.

"Ho! ho! Helen, my girl," said Mr. Crucible, one of the oldest members of the club, "you don't blush like that when you look at us old fogies--what is the matter, eh?"

A general laugh ensued, much to the confusion of poor Helen, and our artist himself felt not a little confused at having produced such an impression on the girl in the presence of so many others of his own s.e.x.

"What ho! Helen, bring another log; we're freezing," cried Professor Cyanite, changing the conversation, much to the relief of the girl, who was glad to escape from the banter of the club by quitting the room.

Our guests began their repast of cold meat and pickles, bread and cheese, and home-brewed ale. After they had finished the daughter of the landlord re-entered with a large log, which she placed on the fire.

"That's right, my girl," said Mr. Oldstone, drawing his chair up to the fire; "now bring us pipes."

The girl left the room, and soon returned with a bundle of long clay pipes, already waxed, which she distributed amongst the company, receiving a chuck under the chin from one; a gentle pat on the cheek from another; from a third, a stroke on the head; from a fourth, a squeeze of the hand; a fifth placed his arm round her waist; while a sixth pretended to kiss her, but no further harm was done. Our artist placed a chair for her next to himself, round the fire, and asked her if she were fond of hearing stories.

The maiden blushed and smiled and said that she was.

"Bravo, Helen," said Mr. Oldstone; "remain with us and hear a fresh story. Professor Cyanite is just going to favour us."

A circle was formed round the fire; Helen seating herself modestly by the side of the artist, while the professor, sitting back in his chair, and stretching out his legs towards the fire, stroked his ample forehead, and with a puff at his pipe, commenced the following story.

CHAPTER VI.

THE DEMON GUIDE; OR, THE GNOME OF THE MOUNTAIN.--THE GEOLOGIST'S STORY.

Some twenty years ago, when I was on a scientific tour in the mountains of Switzerland with a friend of mine, who travelled with the same object as myself, a strange incident occurred to me, which I have never been able satisfactorily to explain. We journeyed in each other's company daily, each carrying with him a geologist's hammer and a light travelling bag slung round one shoulder, for the purpose of collecting specimens of various minerals, fossils, etc., that we might find during our march.

We jogged along merrily enough together, each day bringing home some rare specimen or other. We were both in full vigour of health, and both capital climbers. Mountain air and exercise had given us marvellous appet.i.tes, and I never remember being in better spirits in my life. As we were not pushed for time or money, and were on a scientific expedition instead of what is called a pleasure trip, it was less our object to scour large tracts of country than to stroll leisurely through the district, making observations by the way.

Travelling, therefore, both with the same object, and not obliged to hurry onward, we had nothing to try our tempers, as ordinary tourists have, who travel in company and usually fall out with each other by the way because one with short wind can't keep up with his longer-winded companion.

Nothing, perhaps, is more trying to the temper than being obliged to keep pace with a well-trained mountaineer if you yourself happen to be out of training. To see him striding on ahead with the most perfect ease and enjoyment, whilst you are toiling and sweating, and puffing and gasping in the rear, parched with thirst and ready to drop with fatigue; perhaps knee deep in snow, plunging about like a porpoise, in the frantic attempt to keep up with your well-trained companion.

Why, the treadmill is a joke to it! How you curse your folly for coming to visit such barbarous places, and how you internally vow never to leave home again. How inconsiderate of your companion to leave you so far behind, as if you did not belong to his party. He seems to ignore you, and you feel the slight. He ought to keep pace with you, not you with him, you think.

How you hate him for his rude health and long wind; and should he so far forget himself as to add insult to injury by bawling after you to "come on," and not "lag behind;" or call you by some such name as "slow coach," "stick-in-the-mud," or other choice epithet, oh, then it is not to be borne. Your ire is raised beyond due bounds. You could stab him if you only had him near enough, and a weapon handy.

If any of my friends who content themselves with taking their daily walk of a mile or so on level ground fancy that this is an exaggeration of the state of a man's feelings when the body is tired out and the nerves on the stretch, I recommend him to try a trip in some mountainous district when out of training, and to choose as companion some well-trained son of the mountains.

As I observed before, gentlemen, my friend and I were not wont to fall out in this way with one another, and we took our journey very easily, chipping out a fossil here and a crystal there, conversing the while on secondary and tertiary formations, volcanic eruptions, alluvial deposits, debris, quartz, and marl, mica, slate, talc, calc, etc., etc.

Thus we journeyed on together day after day for weeks, until we found that the face of the country changed suddenly. Two mountain ranges branched off almost at right angles from one another.

My friend and I resolved to separate, and each to explore in a different direction, and to meet again in about a fortnight.

We accordingly parted, and I commenced exploring a wild track of mountainous country alone. Charmed with the wild beauty of the scene, as well as interested in its geological structure, I suffered my footsteps to lead me onward until hunger stole upon me. I had eaten nothing since the morning, and it was now getting late. One day at home without food is bad enough, but it is not to be compared with a day spent in the mountains, walking and climbing all the time.

I looked out for a chalet, but there was none visible. Meanwhile it grew dark, and I found myself benighted. There was not even a shed to rest under, so I was obliged to repose my weary limbs upon the cold, damp, rock, with such shelter from the night air as the dark pine trees afforded.

It was a strange, wild, scene the spot where I encamped. The spectre-like pines stretched forth their weird branches, drooping with bearded moss, like phantom Druids invoking a curse over this scene of desolation. The moon, peeping fitfully through the black clouds, lit up the glaciers on the mountain opposite. Here and there was a great pine torn up by the roots, or over-hanging the abyss below. Immense clumps of rock, grown over with dank moss, were interspersed through the dark pine forest. A small stream trickled over the large stones, pursuing its zig-zag course till it reached the valley below.

The howling of the wind and the occasional thunder of the avalanche from some neighbouring mountain lent a kind of terror to the scene, which I should have enjoyed, had I been in a more comfortable frame of mind.

But, with the gnawing pains of hunger and the horrible feeling of doubt as to whether I should ever meet with any traces of civilisation where I might recruit my wasted energies, the beauty of the spot was shut from me, and I found it only a cold, damp, disagreeable retreat.

It was yet early in the night when I took up my quarters here, but it was dark and cloudy, and I put up at this place, despairing of finding a more hospitable lodging, on account of the darkness, besides which I was tired out. I had reposed in my uncomfortable quarters for, it might be, two or three hours, though without sleeping, when the clouds began to disperse and the sky was calm and serene, the moon bright and clear, so I thought I would leave my camping place and venture a little further, in the vague hope of finding some hospitable chalet where I might obtain fire and food.

I was now considerably rested from my fatigue, but the pangs of hunger grew ever more intense. I wandered on and on, till the pines grew less thick, and a wide extended view opened before me, when I fancied that I descried afar off in the valley a light. My heart began to revive. As I strode onward I saw below me a small lake, over which frowned dark toppling crags. The moon shone brightly over all.

Still keeping the distant chalet in sight, I could think of little else than the meal which would await me on my arrival; but while glancing casually over the lake illumined by the moonbeams, and the cliff that overhung it, my eye was suddenly arrested by an object, apparently a human being, clambering up a height that I should have imagined inaccessible to any mortal man. It literally overhung the lake.

At first I thought my eyes deceived me, but as I looked I was more and more convinced that it was a human being performing this feat. I had heard much of the daring of the Swiss mountaineers, but this beat anything I ever heard of, for the cliff, besides over-hanging, was comparatively smooth, being of slate, and there appeared nothing to hold on by.

"Could it really be a human being?" I asked myself. If so, it was so hideously misshapen as hardly to deserve the t.i.tle. In spite of my hunger, I panted awhile in breathless anxiety to observe the course of this creature.

"Surely some madman," thought I, "tired of his life."

Every moment I expected to see his foot slip and to hear a splash in the lake below; but no, the being, whatever it was, crawled steadily upwards like a huge spider, till it gained the summit of the cliff. I then lost sight of it. A few steps further on led me to the spot the climber had reached, when soon among the lengthened shadows of the pines, I descried a shadow which was not that of a tree.

I approached, and as the moon lit up the object in my path, I beheld a sight that made my blood freeze to look upon. It was one of those hideous cretins which inhabit the valleys of all mountainous countries.

I started, and the idiot, who gazed at me vacantly at first, seemed to have sense enough to be aware of the impression he had made, and to take a fiendish delight in the effect that he had produced. The aspect of this being was the most frightful of anything I had ever seen in human shape. He could not have exceeded four feet in height, but the breadth of his shoulders was such as to make his figure a complete square. His neck was short, and his head, which was enormous, was covered over with scant sandy hair. The complexion was ghastly; the lips thin and livid, the nose flat and spreading, and the eyes, which were an immense distance apart, pale green and fishy; the face was round and broad, and though generally idiotic in expression, was lit up at times with a look of intelligence, mixed with the most preternatural cunning and malignity. The muscular development of the upper part of this strange figure was prodigious, and the arms were so long that the fingers all but touched the ground, but the legs were extremely short and misshapen, the feet being monstrous. His back was round as a camel's, and from his throat down to his waist hung a huge goitre, which gave a still more disgusting look to his _tout ensemble_; added to this, his ears were large and s.h.a.ggy, his fingers short and stunted, the palms of his hands hard and h.o.r.n.y. He was dressed after the usual fashion of the Swiss peasantry in that part of Switzerland, but his clothes were so patched and tattered, that the masterpiece was barely discernible.

I gazed for some moments in silent horror at the spectacle before me, when the monster blocking up my path clapped his hands suddenly on his thighs, and burst into a loud discordant laugh, exhibiting two rows of black, uneven teeth. My blood curdled as the echo of those fiendish tones broke on my ear. I recoiled, but, mastering my fear, I said in his own native tongue--or, rather, in better German than is spoken among the peasantry--"Well, my friend, does my appearance amuse you? Are strangers so rare in your country that they are found worthy of so much notice?"

The idiot gazed at me awhile with vacant stare, then pointed to his mouth, to signify that he was dumb.

"Poor wretch," I muttered to myself; "and yet he seems to understand a little."

I thought I would ask him by signs where he lived. I read by his eye, which suddenly grew intelligent, much to my surprise, that he understood my question, and he answered by gestures, which seemed to say, "My home is here, there, and everywhere. On the black mountain top, in the pine forest, by the still lake--anywhere where there is earth and sky."

"Poor wanderer," thought I; "houseless, like myself, and yet how infinitely more contented. Who knows but that that stunted form may contain the soul of a philosopher." "Idiot," I said, with all possible meekness in my outward bearing, "I am hungry. Can you lead me to a chalet where I may get food and shelter?"

He nodded his head.

"Bravo!" said I. "Lead on."

The dwarf gave me a peculiar look, which I understood to mean, "What will you give me if I show you the way?"

"Oh, don't be afraid," said I; "I'll pay you well; only make haste; I'm starving."

I put my finger in my waistcoat pocket to make him comprehend that I was willing to reward him, but he glanced contemptuously at my gesture, and, thrusting his hand into his pocket, he brought out a handful of good-sized gold nuggets, which he threw towards me with a disdainful air.

I was amazed, and seeing them glitter in the moonlight, I stopped to pick them up. At this the creature burst out again into a loud laugh. I felt somewhat abashed at this reproof of my covetousness from one who evidently despised filthy lucre himself, but I consoled my conscience with the thought that I looked upon the nuggets more from a geologist's point of view than from a miser's.