"Get him to marry her first and give the money afterwards," returned Mrs Roby.

"Ay, that might do," replied the Captain, nodding slowly, "only it may be that a man without means may hesitate about marryin' a girl without means, especially if he didn't want her, and she didn't want him. I don't quite see how to get over all these difficulties."

"There's only one way of getting over them," said Mrs Roby, "and that is, by bringin' the young people together, and givin' 'em a chance to fall in love."

"True, true, mother, but, so far as I know, Dr Lawrence don't know the family. We couldn't," said the Captain, looking round the room, dubiously, "ask 'em to take a quiet cup of tea here with us—eh? You might ask Dr Lawrence, as your medical man, and I might ask Miss Emma, as an old friend of her uncle, quite in an off-hand way, you know, as if by chance. They'd never see through the dodge, and would fall in love at once, perhaps—eh?"

Captain Wopper said all this in a dubious tone, looking at the defiant kettle the while, as if propitiating its favourable reception of the idea, but it continued defiant, and hissed uncompromisingly, while its mistress laughed outright.

"You're not much of a match-maker, I see," she said, on recovering composure. "No, Captain, it wouldn't do to ask 'em here to tea."

"Well, well," said the Captain, rising, "we'll let match-makin' alone for the present. It's like tryin' to beat to wind'ard against a cyclone. The best way is to square the yards, furl the sails, and scud under bare poles till it's over. It's blowin' too hard just now for me to make headway, so I'll wear ship and scud."

In pursuance of this resolve, Captain Wopper put on his wide-awake, locked up his mother, and went off to dine at the "west end."



CHAPTER FIVE.

IN WHICH SEVERAL IMPORTANT MATTERS ARE ARRANGED, AND GILLIE WHITE UNDERGOES SOME REMARKABLE AND HITHERTO UNKNOWN EXPERIENCES.

It is not necessary to inflict on the reader Mrs Stoutley's dinner in detail; suffice it to say, that Captain Wopper conducted himself, on the whole, much more creditably than his hostess had anticipated, and made himself so entertaining, especially to Lewis, that that young gentleman invited him to accompany the family to Switzerland, much to the amusement of his cousin Emma and the horror of his mother, who, although she enjoyed a private visit of the Captain, did not relish the thought of his becoming a travelling companion of the family. She pretended not to hear the invitation given, but when Lewis, knowing full well the state of her mind, pressed the invitation, she shook her head at him covertly and frowned. This by-play her son pretended not to see, and continued his entreaties, the Captain not having replied.

"Now, do come with us, Captain Wopper," he said; "it will be such fun, and we should all enjoy you so much—wouldn't we, Emma?" ("Yes, indeed," from Emma); "and it would just be suited to your tastes and habits, for the fine, fresh air of the mountains bears a wonderful resemblance to that of the sea. You've been accustomed no doubt to climb up the shrouds to the crosstrees; well, in Switzerland, you may climb up the hills to any sort of trees you like, and get shrouded in mist, or tumble over a precipice and get put into your shroud altogether; and—"

"Really, Lewie, you ought to be ashamed of making such bad puns," interrupted his mother. "Doubtless it would be very agreeable to have Captain Wopper with us, but I am quite sure it would be anything but pleasant for him to travel through such a wild country with such a wild goose as you for a companion."

"You have modestly forgotten yourself and Emma," said Lewis; "but come, let the Captain answer for himself. You know, mother, it has been your wish, if not your intention, to get a companion for me on this trip—a fellow older than myself—a sort of travelling tutor, who could teach me something of the geology and botany of the country as we went along. Well, the Captain is older than me, I think, which is one of the requisites, and he could teach me astronomy, no doubt, and show me how to box the compass; in return for which, I could show him how to box an adversary's nose, as practised by the best authorities of the ring. As to geology and botany, I know a little of these sciences already, and could impart my knowledge to the Captain, which would have the effect of fixing it more firmly in my own memory; and every one knows that it is of far greater importance to lay a good, solid groundwork of education, than to build a showy, superficial structure, on a bad foundation. Come, then, Captain, you see your advantages. This is the last time of asking. If you don't speak now, henceforth and for ever hold your tongue."

"Well, my lad," said the Captain, with much gravity, "I've turned the thing over in my mind, and since Mrs Stoutley is so good as to say it would be agreeable to her, I think I'll accept your invitation!"

"Bravo! Captain, you're a true blue; come, have another glass of wine on the strength of it."

"No wine, thank 'ee," said the Captain, placing his hand over his glass, "I've had my beer; and I make it a rule never to mix my liquor. Excuse me, ma'am," he continued, addressing his hostess, "your son made mention of a tooter—a travellin' tooter; may I ask if you've provided yourself with one yet!"

"Not yet," answered Mrs Stoutley, feeling, but not looking, a little surprised at the question, "I have no young friend at present quite suited for the position, and at short notice it is not easy to find a youth of talent willing to go, and on whom one can depend. Can you recommend one?"

Mrs Stoutley accompanied the question with a smile, for she put it in jest. She was, therefore, not a little surprised when the Captain said promptly that he could—that he knew a young man—a doctor—who was just the very ticket (these were his exact words), a regular clipper, with everything about him trim, taut, and ship-shape, who would suit every member of the family to a tee!

A hearty laugh from every member of the family greeted the Captain's enthusiastic recommendation, and Emma exclaimed that he must be a most charming youth, while Lewis pulled out pencil and note-book to take down his name and address.

"You are a most valuable friend at this crisis in our affairs," said Lewis, "I'll make mother write to him immediately."

"But have a care," said the Captain, "that you never mention who it was that recommended him. I'm not sure that he would regard it as a compliment. You must promise me that."

"I promise," said Lewis, "and whatever I promise mother will fulfil, so make your mind easy on that head. Now, mother, I shouldn't wonder if Captain Wopper could provide you with that other little inexpensive luxury you mentioned this morning. D'you think you could recommend a page?"

"What's a page, lad?"

"What! have you never heard of a page—a page in buttons?" asked Lewis in surprise.

"Never," replied the Captain, shaking his head.

"Why, a page is a small boy, usually clad in blue tights, to make him look as like a spider as possible, with three rows of brass buttons up the front of his jacket—two of the rows being merely ornamental, and going over his shoulders. He usually wears a man's hat for the sake of congruity, and is invariably as full of mischief as an egg is of meat. Can you find such an article?"

"Ha!" exclaimed the Captain. "What is he used for?"

"Chiefly for ornament, doing messages, being in the way when not wanted, and out of the way when required."

"Yes," said the Captain, meditatively, "I've got my eye—"

"Your weather eye?" asked Lewis.

"Yes, my weather eye, on a lad who'll fit you."

"To a tee?" inquired Emma, archly.

"To a tee, miss," assented the Captain, with a bland smile.

Lewis again pulled out his note-book to enter the name and address, but the Captain assured him that he would manage this case himself; and it was finally settled—for Lewis carried everything his own way, as a matter of course—that Dr George Lawrence was to be written to next day, and Captain Wopper was to provide a page.

"And you'll have to get him and yourself ready as fast as possible," said the youth in conclusion, "for we shall set off as soon as my mother's trunks are packed."

Next morning, while Captain Wopper was seated conversing with his old landlady at the breakfast-table—the morning meal having been just concluded—he heard the voice of Gillie White in the court. Going to the end of the passage, he ordered that imp to "come aloft."

Gillie appeared in a few seconds, nodded patronisingly to old Mrs Roby, hoped she was salubrious, and demanded to know what was up.

"My lad," said the Captain—and as he spoke, the urchin assumed an awful look of mock solemnity.

"I want to know if you think you could behave yourself if you was to try?"

"Ah!" said Gillie, with the air of a cross-examining advocate, "the keewestion is not w'ether I could behave myself if I wos to try, but, w'ether I think I could. Well, ahem! that depends. I think I could, now, if there was offered a very strong indoocement."

"Just so, my lad," returned the Captain, nodding, "that's exactly what I mean to offer. What d'ee say to a noo suit of blue tights, with three rows brass buttons; a situation in a respectable family; a fair wage; as much as you can eat and drink; and a trip to Switzerland to begin with?"

While the Captain spoke, the small boy's eyes opened wider and wider, and his month followed suit, until he stood the very picture of astonishment.

"You don't mean it?" he exclaimed.

"Indeed I do, my lad."

"Then I'm your man," returned the small boy emphatically, "putt me down for that sitooation; send for a lawyer, draw up the articles, I'll sign 'em right off, and—"

"Gillie, my boy," interrupted the Captain, "one o' the very first things you have to do in larnin' to behave yourself is to clap a stopper on your tongue—it's far too long."

"All right, Capp'n," answered the imp, "I'll go to Guy's Hospital d'rectly and 'ave three-fourths of it ampitated."

"Do," said the Captain, somewhat sternly, "an' ask 'em to attach a brake to the bit that's left.

"Now, lad," he continued, "you've got a very dirty face."

Gillie nodded, with his lips tightly compressed to check utterance.

"And a very ragged head of hair," he added.

Again Gillie nodded.

The Captain pointed to a basin of water which stood on a chair in a corner of the room, beside which lay a lump of yellow soap, a comb, and a rough jack-towel.

"There," said he, "go to work."

Gillie went to work with a will, and scrubbed himself to such an extent, that his skin must undoubtedly have been thinner after the operation. The washing, however, was easy compared with the combing. The boy's mop was such a tangled web, that the comb at first refused to pass through it; and when, encouraged by the Captain, the urchin did at last succeed in rending its masses apart various inextricable bunches came away bodily, and sundry teeth of the comb were left behind. At last, however, it was reduced to something like order, to the immense satisfaction of Mrs Roby and the Captain.

"Now," said the latter, "did you ever have a Turkish bath?"

"No—never."

"Well, then, come with me and have one. Have you got a cap?"

"Hm—never mind, come along; you're not cleaned up yet by a long way; but we'll manage it in course of time."

As the Captain and his small protege passed along the streets, the former took occasion to explain that a Turkish bath was a species of mild torture, in which a man was stewed alive, and baked in an oven, and par-boiled, and scrubbed, and pinched, and thumped (sometimes black and blue), and lathered with soap till he couldn't see, and heated up to seven thousand and ten, Fahrenheit and soused with half-boiling water, and shot at with cold water—or shot into it, as the case might be—and rolled in a sheet like a mummy, and stretched out a like corpse to cool. "Most men," he said, "felt gaspy in Turkish baths, and weak ones were alarmed lest they should get suffocated beyond recovery; but strong men rather enjoy themselves in 'em than otherwise."

"Hah!" exclaimed the imp, "may I wentur' to ax, Capp'n, wot's the effect on boys?"

To this the Captain replied that he didn't exactly know, never having heard of boys taking Turkish baths. Whereupon Gillie suggested, that if possible he might have himself cleaned in an ordinary bath.

"Impossible, my lad," said the Captain, decidedly. "No or'nary bath would clean you under a week, unless black soap and scrubbin' brushes was used.

"But don't be alarmed, Gillie," he added, looking down with a twinkle in his eyes, "I'll go into the bath along with you. We'll sink or swim together, my boy, and I'll see that you're not overdone. I'm rather fond of them myself, d'ee see, so I can recommend 'em from experience."

Somewhat reassured by this, though still a little uneasy in his mind, the imp followed his patron to the baths.

It would have been a sight worth seeing, the entrance of these two into the temple of soap-and-water. To see Gillie's well-made, but very meagre and dirty little limbs unrobed; to see him decked out with the scrimpest possible little kilt, such as would, perhaps, have suited the fancy of a Fiji islander; to see his gaze of undisguised admiration on beholding his companion's towering and massive frame in the same unwonted costume, if we may so style it; to see the intensifying of his astonishment when ushered into the first room, at beholding six or seven naked, and apparently dead men, laid round the walls, as if ready for dissection; to see the monkey-like leap, accompanied by a squeal, with which he sprang from a hot stone-bench, having sat down thereon before it had been covered with a cloth for his reception; to see the rapid return of his self-possession in these unusual circumstances, and the ready manner in which he submitted himself to the various operations, as if he had been accustomed to Turkish baths from a period long prior to infancy; to see his horror on being introduced to the hottest room, and his furtive glance at the door, as though he meditated a rush into the open air, but was restrained by a sense of personal dignity; to see the ruling passion strong as ever in this (he firmly believed) his nearest approach to death, when, observing that the man next to him (who, as it were, turned the corner from him) had raised himself for a moment to arrange his pillow, he (Gillie) tipped up the corner of the man's sheet, which hung close to his face in such a manner that he (the man), on lying down again, placed his bare shoulder on the hot stone, and sprang up with a yell that startled into life the whole of the half-sleeping establishment with the exception of the youth on the opposite bench, who, having noticed the act, was thrown into convulsions of laughter, much to the alarm of Gillie, who had thought he was asleep and feared that he might "tell;"—to see him laid down like a little pink-roll to be kneaded, and to hear him remark, in a calm voice, to the stalwart attendant that he might go in and win and needn't be afraid of hurting him; to observe his delight when put under the warm "douche," his gasping shriek when unexpectedly assailed with the "cold-shower," and his placid air of supreme felicity when wrapped up like a ghost in a white sheet, and left to dry in the cooling-room—to see and hear all this, we say, would have amply repaid a special journey to London from any reasonable distance. The event, however, being a thing of the past and language being unequal to the description, we are compelled to leave it all to the reader's imagination.



CHAPTER SIX.

A LESSON TAUGHT AND LEARNED.

Two days after the events narrated in the last chapter, rather late in the evening, Dr George Lawrence called at "the cabin" in Grubb's Court, and found the Captain taking what he called a quiet pipe.

"I have been visiting poor Mrs Leven," he said to Mrs Roby, sitting down beside her, "and I fear she is a good deal worse to-night. That kind little woman, Netta White, has agreed to sit by her. I'm sorry that I shall be obliged to leave her at such a critical stage of her illness, but I am obliged to go abroad for some time."

"Goin' abroad, sir!" exclaimed Mrs Roby in surprise, for the Captain had not yet told her that Lawrence was to be of the party, although he had mentioned about himself and Gillie White.

"Yes, I'm going with Mrs Stoutley's family for some weeks to Switzerland."

Captain Wopper felt that his share in the arrangements was in danger of being found out. He therefore boldly took the lead.

"Ah! I know all about that, sir."

"Indeed?" said Lawrence.

"Yes, I dined the other day with Mrs Stoutley; she asked me also to be of the party, and I'm going."

Lawrence again exclaimed, "Indeed!" with increasing surprise, and added, "Well, now, that is a strange coincidence."

"Well, d'ee know," said the Captain, in an argumentative tone, "it don't seem to me much of a coincidence. You know she had to git some one to go with her son, and why not you, sir, as well as any of the other young sawbones in London? If she hadn't got you she'd have got another, and that would have been a coincidence to him, d'ee see? Then, as to me, it wasn't unnatural that she should take a fancy to the man that nussed her dyin' husband, an' was chum to her brother-in-law; so, you see, that's how it came about and I'm very glad to find, sir, that we are to sail in company for a short time."

Lawrence returned this compliment heartily, and was about to make some further remark, when little Netta White rushed into the room with a frightened look and pale cheeks, exclaiming, "Oh, Dr Lawrence, sir, she's very ill. I think she's dying."

Without waiting for a reply, the child ran out of the room followed by Lawrence and Mrs Roby, who was assisted by the Captain—for she walked with great difficulty even when aided by her crutches. In a few seconds they stood beside Mrs Leven's bed. It was a lowly bed, with scant and threadbare coverings, and she who lay on it was of a lowly spirit—one who for many years had laid her head on the bosom of Jesus, and had found Him, through a long course of poverty and mental distress, "a very present help in trouble."

"I fear that I'm very ill," she said, faintly.

"No doubt you feel rather low just now," said the doctor, "but that is very much owing to your having lived so long on insufficient diet. I will give you something, however, which will soon pull you up a bit. Come, cheer up. Don't let your spirits get so low."

"Yes," she murmured, "I am brought very low, but the Lord will lift me up. He is my strength and my Redeemer."

She clasped her hands with difficulty, and shut her eyes.

A silence followed, during which Captain Wopper drew Lawrence into the passage.

"D'you think she is near her end, doctor?"

"She looks very like it," replied the doctor. "There is a possibility that she might recover if the right medicine could be found, namely, ease of mind; but her dissipated son has robbed her of that, and is the only one who can give it back to her—if indeed he has the power left now. She is dying of what is unprofessionally styled a broken heart. It is unfortunate that her son is not with her at present."

"Does no one know where to find him?" asked the Captain.

"I fear not," replied the doctor.

"Please, sir, I think I know," said a subdued voice behind them.

It was that of Gillie White, who had drawn near very silently, being overawed by the sad scene in the sick-room.

"Do you, my lad? then get along as fast as you can and show me the way," said the Captain, buttoning up his pilot-coat. "I'll bring him here before long, doctor, if he's to be found."

In a few minutes the Captain and Gillie were at the head of the lane, where the former hailed a passing cab, bade the boy jump in, and followed him.

"Now, my lad, give the address," said the Captain.

"The Strand," said the boy, promptly.

"What number, sir?" asked the cabman, looking at the Captain.

"Right on till I stop you," said Gillie, with the air of a commander-in-chief—whom in some faint manner he now resembled, for he was in livery, being clothed in blue tights and brass buttons.

In a short time Gillie gave the order to pull up, and they got out in front of a brilliantly-lighted and open door with a lamp above it, on which was written the word Billiards. The Captain observed that it was the same door as that at which he had parted from Lewis Stoutley some days before.

Dismissing the cab and entering, they quickly found themselves in a large and well-lighted billiard-room, which was crowded with men of all ages and aspects, some of whom played, others looked on and betted, a good many drank brandy and water, and nearly all smoked. It was a bright scene of dissipation, where many young men, deceiving themselves with the idea that they went merely to practise or to enjoy a noble game of skill, were taking their first steps on the road to ruin.

The Captain, closely attended by Gillie, moved slowly through the room, looking anxiously for Fred Leven. For some time they failed to find him. At last a loud curse, uttered in the midst of a knot of on-lookers, attracted their attention. It was followed by a general laugh, as a young man, whose dishevelled hair and flushed face showed that he had been drinking hard, burst from among them and staggered towards the door.

"Never mind, Fred," shouted a voice that seemed familiar to the Captain, "you'll win it back from me next time."

Ere the youth had passed, the Captain stepped forward and laid his hand on his arm.

Fred uttered a savage growl, and drew back his clenched hand as if to strike, but Captain Wopper's size and calm look of decision induced him to hold his hand.

"What d'you mean by interrupting me?" he demanded, sternly.

"My lad," said the Captain, in a low, solemn voice, "your mother is dying, come with me. You've no time to lose."

The youth's face turned ashy pale, and he passed his hand hastily across his brow.

"What's wrong?" exclaimed Lewis Stoutley, who had recognised the Captain, and come forward at the moment.

"Did he lose his money to you?" asked the Captain, abruptly.

"Well, yes, he did," retorted Lewis, with a look of offended dignity.

"Come along, then, my lad. I want you too. It's a case of life an' death. Ask no questions, but come along."

The Captain said this with such an air of authority, that Lewis felt constrained to obey. Fred Leven seemed to follow like one in a dream. They all got into a cab, and were driven back to Grubb's Court.

As they ascended the stair, the Captain whispered to Lewis, "Keep in the background, my lad. Do nothing but look and listen."

Another moment and they were in the passage, where Lawrence stopped them.

"You're almost too late, sir," he said to Fred, sternly. "If you had fed and clothed your mother better in time past, she might have got over this. Fortunately for her, poor soul, some people, who don't gamble away their own and their parents' means, have given her the help that you have refused. Go in, sir, and try to speak words of comfort to her now."

He went in, and fell on his knees beside the bed.

"Mother!" he said.

Fain would he have said more, but no word could he utter. His tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth. Mrs Leven opened her eyes on hearing the single word, and her cheek flushed slightly as she seized one of his hands, kissed it and held it to her breast. Then she looked earnestly, and oh! so anxiously, into his face, and said in a low tone:—

"Fred, dear, are you so—"

She stopped abruptly.

"Yes, yes," cried her son, passionately; "yes, mother, I'm sober now! Oh mother, dearest, darling mother, I am guilty, guilty; I have sinned. Oh forgive, forgive me! Listen, listen! I am in earnest now, my mother. Think of me as I used to be long ago. Don't shut your eyes. Look at me, mother, look at Fred."

The poor woman looked at him with tears of gladness in her eyes.

"God bless you, Fred!" she murmured. "It is long, long, since you spoke like that. But I knew you would. I have always expected that you would. Praise the Lord!"

Fred tried to speak, and again found that he could not, but the fountain of his soul was opened. He laid his face on his mother's hand and sobbed bitterly.

Those who witnessed this scene stood as if spellbound. As far as sound or motion went these two might have been in the room alone. Presently the sound of sobbing ceased, and Fred, raising his head, began gently to stroke the hand he held in his. Sometime in his wild career, he knew not when or where, he had heard it said that this slight action had often a wonderful power to soothe the sick. He continued it for some time. Then the doctor advanced and gazed into the invalid's countenance.

"She sleeps," he said, in a low tone.

"May I stay beside her?" whispered Fred.

Lawrence nodded assent, and then motioning to the others to withdraw, followed them into Mrs Roby's room, where he told them that her sleeping was a good sign, and that they must do their best to prevent her being disturbed.

"It won't be necessary for any one to watch. Her son will prove her best attendant just now; but it may be as well that some one should sit up in this room, and look in now and then to see that the candle doesn't burn out, and that all is right. I will go now, and will make this my first visit in the morning."

"Captain Wopper," said Lewis Stoutley, in a subdued voice, when Lawrence had left, "I won this ten-pound note to-night from Fred. I—I robbed him of it. Will you give it to him in the morning?"

"Yes, my lad, I will," said the Captain.

"And will you let me sit up and watch here tonight?"

"No, my lad, I won't. I mean to do that myself."

"But do let me stay an hour or so with you, in case anything is wanted," pleaded Lewis.

"Well, you may."

They sat down together by the fireside, Mrs Roby having lain down on her bed with her clothes on, but they spoke never a word; and as they sat there, the young man's busy brain arrayed before him many and many a scene of death, and sickness, and suffering, and sorrow, and madness, and despair, which, he knew well from hearsay (and he now believed it), had been the terrible result of gambling and drink.

When the hour was past, the Captain rose and said, "Now, Lewis, you'll go, and I'll take a look at the next room."

He put off his shoes and went on tiptoe. Lewis followed, and took a peep before parting.

Fred had drawn three chairs to the bedside and lain down on them, with his shoulders resting on the edge of the bed, so that he could continue to stroke his mother's hand without disturbing her. He had continued doing so until his head had slowly drooped upon the pillow; and there they now lay, the dissipated son and the humble Christian mother, sleeping quietly together.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE GREAT WHITE MOUNTAIN.

We are in Switzerland now; in the "land of the mountain and the flood"— the land also of perennial ice and snow. The solemn presence of the Great White Mountain is beginning to be felt. Its pure summit was first seen from Geneva; its shadow is now beginning to steal over us.

We are on the road to Chamouni, not yet over the frontier, in a carriage and four. Mrs Stoutley, being a lady of unbounded wealth, always travels post in a carriage and four when she can manage to do so, having an unconquerable antipathy to railroads and steamers. She could not well travel in any other fashion here, railways not having yet penetrated the mountain regions in this direction, and a mode of ascending roaring mountain torrents in steamboats not having yet been discovered. She might, however, travel with two horses, but she prefers four. Captain Wopper, who sits opposite Emma Gray, wonders in a quiet speculative way whether "the Mines" will produce a dividend sufficient to pay the expenses of this journey. He is quite disinterested in the thought, it being understood that the Captain pays his own expenses.

But we wander from our text, which is—the Great White Mountain. We are driving now under its shadow with Mrs Stoutley's party, which, in addition to the Captain and Miss Gray, already mentioned, includes young Dr George Lawrence and Lewis, who are on horseback; also Mrs Stoutley's maid (Mrs Stoutley never travels without a maid), Susan Quick, who sits beside the Captain; and Gillie White, alias the Spider and the Imp, who sits beside the driver, making earnest but futile efforts to draw him into a conversation in English, of which language the driver knows next to nothing.

But to return: Mrs Stoutley and party are now in the very heart of scenery the most magnificent; they have penetrated to a great fountain-head of European waters; they are surrounded by the cliffs, the gorges, the moraines, and are not far from the snow-slopes and ice-fields, the couloirs, the seracs, the crevasses, and the ice-precipices and pinnacles of a great glacial world; but not one of the party betrays the smallest amount of interest, or expresses the faintest emotion of surprise, owing to the melancholy fact that all is shrouded in an impenetrable veil of mist through which a thick fine rain percolates as if the mountain monarch himself were bewailing their misfortunes.

"Isn't it provoking?" murmured Mrs Stoutley drawing her shawl closer.

"Very," replied Emma.

"Disgusting!" exclaimed Lewis, who rode at the side of the carriage next his cousin.

"It might be worse," said Lawrence, with a grim smile.

"Impossible," retorted Lewis.

"Come, Captain, have you no remark to make by way of inspiring a little hope?" asked Mrs Stoutley.

"Why, never havin' cruised in this region before," answered the Captain, "my remarks can't be of much value. Hows'ever, there is one idea that may be said to afford consolation, namely, that this sort o' thing can't last. I've sailed pretty nigh in all parts of the globe, an' I've invariably found that bad weather has its limits—that after rain we may look for sunshine, and after storm, calm."

"How cheering!" said Lewis, as the rain trickled from the point of his prominent nose.

At that moment Gillie White, happening to cast his eyes upward, beheld a vision which drew from him an exclamation of wild surprise.

They all looked quickly in the same direction, and there, through a rent in the watery veil, they beheld a little spot of blue sky, rising into which was a mountain-top so pure, so faint so high and inexpressibly far off, yet so brilliant in a glow of sunshine, that it seemed as if heaven had been opened, and one of the hills of Paradise revealed. It was the first near view that the travellers had obtained of these mountains of everlasting ice. With the exception of the exclamations "Wonderful!" "Most glorious!" they found no words for a time to express their feelings, and seemed glad to escape the necessity of doing so by listening to the remarks of their driver, as he went into an elaborate explanation of the name and locality of the particular part of Mont Blanc that had been thus disclosed.

The rent in the mist closed almost as quickly as it had opened, utterly concealing the beautiful vision; but the impression it had made, being a first and a very deep one, could never more be removed. The travellers lived now in the faith of what they had seen. Scepticism was no longer possible, and in this improved frame of mind they dashed into the village of Chamouni—one of the haunts of those whose war-cry is "Excelsior!"—and drove to the best hotel.

Their arrival in the village was an unexpected point of interest to many would-be mountaineers, who lounged about the place with macintoshes and umbrellas, growling at the weather. Any event out of the common forms a subject of interest to men who wait and have nothing to do. As the party passed them, growlers gazed and speculated as to who the new-comers might be. Some thought Miss Gray pretty; some thought otherwise—to agree on any point on such a day being, of course, impossible. Others "guessed" that the young fellows must be uncommonly fond of riding to "get on the outside of a horse" in such weather; some remarked that the "elderly female" seemed "used up," or "blasee," and all agreed—yes, they did agree on this point—that the thing in blue tights and buttons beside the driver was the most impudent-looking monkey the world had ever produced!

The natives of the place also had their opinions, and expressed them to each other; especially the bronzed, stalwart sedate-looking men who hung about in knots near the centre of the village, and seemed to estimate the probability of the stout young Englishmen on horseback being likely to require their services often—for these, said the driver, were the celebrated guides of Chamouni; men of bone and muscle, and endurance and courage; the leaders of those daring spirits who consider—and justly so—the ascent to the summit of Mont Blanc, or Monte Rosa, or the Matterhorn, a feat; the men who perform this feat it may be, two or three times a week—as often as you choose to call them to it, in fact— and think nothing of it; the men whose profession it is to risk their lives every summer from day to day for a few francs; who have become so inured to danger that they have grown quite familiar with it, insomuch that some of the reckless blades among them treat it now and then with contempt, and pay the penalty of such conduct with their lives.

Sinking into a couch in her private sitting-room, Mrs Stoutley resigned herself to Susan's care, and, while she was having her boots taken off, said with a sigh:—

"Well, here we are at last. What do you think of Chamouni, Susan?"

"Rather a wet place, ma'am; ain't it?"

With a languid smile, Mrs Stoutley admitted that it was, but added, by way of encouragement that it was not always so. To which Susan replied that she was glad to hear it, so she was, as nothink depressed her spirits so much as wet and clouds, and gloom.

Susan was a pretty girl of sixteen, tall, as well as very sedate and womanly, for her age. Having been born in one of the midland counties, of poor, though remarkably honest, parents, who had received no education themselves, and therefore held it to be quite unnecessary to bestow anything so useless on their daughter, she was, until very recently, as ignorant of all beyond the circle of her father's homestead as the daughter of the man in the moon—supposing no compulsory education-act to be in operation in the orb of night. Having passed through them, she now knew of the existence of France and Switzerland, but she was quite in the dark as to the position of these two countries with respect to the rest of the world, and would probably have regarded them as one and the same if their boundary-line had not been somewhat deeply impressed upon her by the ungallant manner in which the Customs officials examined the contents of her modest little portmanteau in search, as Gillie gave her to understand, of tobacco.

Mrs Stoutley had particularly small feet, a circumstance which might have induced her, more than other ladies, to wear easy boots; but owing to some unaccountable perversity of mental constitution, she deemed this a good reason for having her boots made unusually tight. The removal of these, therefore, afforded great relief, and the administration of a cup of tea produced a cheering reaction of spirits, under the influence of which she partially forgot herself, and resolved to devote a few minutes to the instruction of her interestingly ignorant maid.

"Yes," she said, arranging herself comfortably, and sipping her tea, while Susan busied herself putting away her lady's "things," and otherwise tidying the room, "it does not always rain here; there is a little sunshine sometimes. By the way, where is Miss Gray?"

"In the bedroom, ma'am, unpacking the trunks."

"Ah, well, as I was saying, they have a little sunshine sometimes, for you know, Susan, people must live, and grass or grain cannot grow without sunshine, so it has been arranged that there should be enough here for these purposes, but no more than enough, because Switzerland has to maintain its character as one of the great refrigerators of Europe."

"One of the what, ma'am?"

"Refrigerators," explained Mrs Stoutley; "a refrigerator, Susan, is a freezer; and it is the special mission of Switzerland to freeze nearly all the water that falls on its mountains, and retain it there in the form of ice and snow until it is wanted for the use of man. Isn't that a grand idea?"

The lecturer's explanation had conveyed to Susan's mind the idea of the Switzers going with long strings of carts to the top of Mont Blanc for supplies of ice to meet the European demand, and she admitted that it was a grand idea, and asked if the ice and snow lasted long into the summer.

"Long into it!" exclaimed her teacher. "Why, you foolish thing, its lasts all through it."

"Oh indeed, ma'am!" said Susan, who entertained strong doubts in her heart as to the correctness of Mrs Stoutley's information on this point.

"Yes," continued that lady, with more animation than she had experienced for many months past, so invigorating was the change of moral atmosphere induced by this little breeze of instruction; "yes, the ice and snow cover the hills and higher valleys for dozens and dozens of miles round here in all directions, not a few inches deep, such as we sometimes see in England, but with thousands and millions of tons of it, so that the ice in the valleys is hundreds of feet thick, and never melts away altogether, but remains there from year to year—has been there, I suppose, since the world began, and will continue, I fancy, until the world comes to an end."

Mrs Stoutley warmed up here, to such an extent that she absolutely flushed, and Susan, who had heretofore regarded her mistress merely as a weakish woman, now set her down, mentally, as a barefaced story-teller.

"Surely, ma'am," she said, with diffidence, "ice and snow like that doesn't fill all the valleys, else we should see it, and find it difficult to travel through 'em; shouldn't we, ma'am?"

"Silly girl!" exclaimed her preceptress, "I did not say it filled all the valleys, but the higher valleys—valleys such as, in England and Scotland, would be clothed with pasturage and waving grain, and dotted with cattle and sheep and smiling cottages."

Mrs Stoutley had by this time risen to a heroic frame, and spoke poetically, which accounts for her ascribing risible powers to cottages.

"And thus you see, Susan," she continued, "Switzerland is, as it were, a great ice-tank, or a series of ice-tanks, in which the ice of ages is accumulated and saved up, so that the melting of a little of it—the mere dribbling of it, so to speak—is sufficient to cause the continuous flow of innumerable streams and of great rivers, such as the Rhone, and the Rhine, and the Var."

The lecture received unexpected and appropriate illustration here by the sudden lifting of the mists, which had hitherto blotted out the landscape.

"Oh, aunt!" exclaimed Emma, running in at the moment, "just look at the hills. How exquisite! How much grander than if we had seen them quite clear from the first!"

Emma was strictly correct, for it is well known that the grandeur of Alpine scenery is greatly enhanced by the wild and weird movements of the gauze-like drapery with which it is almost always partially enshrouded.

As the trio stood gazing in silent wonder and admiration from their window, which, they had been informed, commanded a view of the summit of Mont Blanc, the mist had risen like a curtain partially rolled up. All above the curtain-foot presented the dismal grey, to which they had been too long accustomed, but below, and, as it were, far behind this curtain, the mountain-world was seen rising upwards.

So close were they to the foot of the Great White Monarch, that it seemed to tower like a giant-wall before them; but this wall was varied and beautiful as well as grand. Already the curtain had risen high enough to disclose hoary cliffs and precipices, with steep grassy slopes between, and crowned with fringes of dark pines; which latter, although goodly trees, looked like mere shrubs in their vast setting. Rills were seen running like snowy veins among the slopes, and losing themselves in the masses of debris at the mountain-foot. As they gazed, the curtain rose higher, disclosing new and more rugged features, on which shone a strange, unearthly light—the result of shadow from the mist and sunshine behind it—while a gleam of stronger light tipped the curtain's under-edge in one direction. Still higher it rose! Susan exclaimed that the mountain was rising into heaven; and Emma and Mrs Stoutley, whose reading had evidently failed to impress them with a just conception of mountain-scenery, stood with clasped hands in silent expectancy and admiration. The gleam of stronger light above referred to, widened, and Susan almost shrieked with ecstasy when the curtain seemed to rend, and the gleam resolved itself into the great Glacier des Bossons, which, rolling over the mountain-brow like a very world of ice, thrust its mighty tongue down into the valley.

From that moment Susan's disbelief in her lady's knowledge changed into faith, and deepened into profound veneration.

It was, however, only a slight glimpse that had been thus afforded of the ice-world by which they were surrounded. The great ice-fountain of those regions, commencing at the summit of Mont Blanc, flings its ample waves over mountain and vale in all directions, forming a throne on which perpetual winter reigns, and this glacier des Bossons, which filled the breasts of our travellers with such feelings of awe, was but one of the numerous rivers which flow from the fountain down the gorges and higher valleys of the Alps, until they reach those regions where summer heat asserts itself, and checks their further progress in the form of ice by melting them.

"Is it possible," said Emma, as she gazed at the rugged and riven mass of solid ice before her, "that a glacier really flows?"

"So learned men tell us, and so we must believe," said Mrs Stoutley.

"Flows, ma'am?" exclaimed Susan, in surprise.

"Yes, so it is said," replied Mrs Stoutley, with a smile.

"But we can see, ma'am, by lookin' at it, that it don't flow; can't we, ma'am?" said Susan.

"True, Susan, it does not seem to move; nevertheless scientific men tell us that it does, and sometimes we are bound to believe against the evidence of our senses."

Susan looked steadily at the glacier for some time; and then, although she modestly held her tongue, scientific men fell considerably in her esteem.

While the ladies were thus discussing the glacier and enlightening their maid, Lewis, Lawrence, and the Captain, taking advantage of the improved state of the weather, had gone out for a stroll, partly with a view, as Lewis said, to freshen up their appetites for dinner—although, to say truth, the appetites of all three were of such a nature as to require no freshening up. They walked smartly along the road which leads up the valley, pausing, ever and anon, to look back in admiration at the wonderful glimpses of scenery disclosed by the lifting mists. Gradually these cleared away altogether, and the mountain summits stood out well defined against the clear sky. And then, for the first time, came a feeling of disappointment.

"Why, Lawrence," said Lewis, "didn't they tell us that we could see the top of Mont Blanc from Chamouni?"

"They certainly did," replied Lawrence, "but I can't see it."

"There are two or three splendid-looking peaks," said Lewis, pointing up the valley, "but surely that's not the direction of the top we look for."

"No, my lad, it ain't the right point o' the compass by a long way," said the Captain; "but yonder goes a strange sail a-head, let's overhaul her."

"Heave a-head then, Captain," said Lewis, "and clap on stun's'ls and sky-scrapers, for the strange sail is making for that cottage on the hill, and will get into port before we overhaul her if we don't look sharp."

The "strange sail" was a woman. She soon turned into the cottage referred to, but our travellers followed her up, arranging, as they drew near, that Lawrence, being the best French scholar of the three (the Captain knowing nothing whatever of the language), should address her.

She turned out to be a very comely young woman, the wife, as she explained, of one of the Chamouni guides, named Antoine Grennon. Her daughter, a pretty blue-eyed girl of six or so, was busy arranging a casket of flowers, and the grandmother of the family was engaged in that mysterious mallet-stone-scrubbing-brush-and-cold-water system, whereby the washerwomen of the Alps convert the linen of tourists into shreds and patches in the shortest possible space of time.

After some complimentary remarks, Lawrence asked if it were possible to see the summit of Mont Blanc from where they stood.

Certainly it was; the guide's pretty wife could point it out and attempted to do so, but was for a long time unsuccessful, owing to the interference of preconceived notions—each of our travellers having set his heart upon beholding a majestic peak of rugged rock, mingled, perhaps, with ice-blocks and snow.

"Most extraordinary," exclaimed the puzzled Captain, "I've squinted often enough at well-known peaks when on the look-out for landmarks from the sea, an' never failed to make 'em out. Let me see," he added, getting behind the woman so as to look straight along her outstretched arm, "no, I can't see it. My eyes must be giving way."

"Surely," said Lawrence, "you don't mean that little piece of smooth snow rising just behind the crest of yonder mountain like a bit of rounded sugar?"

"Oui, monsieur"—that was precisely what she meant; that was the summit of Mont Blanc.

And so, our three travellers—like many hundreds of travellers who had gone before them, and like many, doubtless, who shall follow—were grievously disappointed with their first view of Mont Blanc! They lived, however to change their minds, to discover that the village of Chamouni lies too close to the toe of the Great White Mountain to permit of his being seen to advantage. One may truly see a small scrap of the veritable top from Chamouni, but one cannot obtain an idea of what it is that he sees. As well might a beetle walk close up to the heel of a man, and attempt from that position to form a correct estimate of his size; as well might one plant himself two inches distant from a large painting and expect to do it justice! No, in order to understand Mont Blanc, to "realise" it, to appreciate it adequately, it requires that we should stand well back, and get up on one of the surrounding heights, and make the discovery that as we rise he rises, and looks vaster and more tremendous the further off we go and the higher up we rise, until, with foot planted on the crest of one of the neighbouring giants, we still look up, as well as down, and learn—with a feeling of deeper reverence, it may be, for the Maker of the "everlasting hills"—that the grand monarch with the hoary head does in reality tower supreme above them all.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

INTRODUCES THE READER TO VARIOUS PERSONAGES, AND TOUCHES ON GLACIERS.

At this time our travellers, having only just been introduced to the mountain, had a great deal to hear and see before they understood him. They returned to the hotel with the feeling of disappointment still upon them, but with excellent appetites for dinner.

In the Salle a manger they met with a miscellaneous assortment of tourists. These, of whom there were above thirty, varied not only as to size and feature, but as to country and experience. There were veteran Alpine men—steady, quiet, bronzed-looking fellows, some of them—who looked as if they had often "attacked" and conquered the most dangerous summits, and meant to do so again. There were men, and women too, from England, America, Germany, France, and Russia. Some had been at Chamouni before, and wore the self-possessed air of knowledge; others had obviously never been there before, and were excited. Many were full of interest and expectation, a few, chiefly very young men, wore a blase, half-pitiful, half-patronising air, as though to say, "that's right, good people, amuse yourselves with your day-dreams while you may. We have tried a few weeks of this sort of thing, and have done a summit or two; in imagination we have also been up Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa, and the Matterhorn, and a few of the Hymalaya peaks, and most of the mountains in the moon, and several of the fixed stars, and—haw—are now rather boa-ord with it all than otherwise!" There were men who had done much and who said little, and men who had done little and who spoke much. There were "ice-men" who had a desire to impart their knowledge, and would-be ice-men who were glad to listen. Easy-going men and women there were, who flung the cares of life behind them, and "went in," as they said, for enjoyment; and who, with abounding animal spirits, a dash of religious sentiment, much irrepressible humour and fun, were really pleasant objects to look at, and entertaining companions to travel with. Earnest men and women there were, too, who gathered plants and insects, and made pencil-sketches and water-colour drawings during their rambles among mountains and valleys, and not a few of whom chronicled faithfully their experiences from day to day. There was a Polish Count, a tall, handsome, middle-aged, care-worn, anxious-looking man, who came there, apparently in search of health, and who was cared for and taken care of by a dark-eyed little daughter. This daughter was so beautiful, that it ought to have made the Count well—so thought most of the young men— simply to look at her! There was a youthful British Lord, who had come to "do" Mont Blanc and a few other peaks. He was under charge of a young man of considerable experience in mountaineering, whose chief delight seemed to be the leading of his charge to well-known summits by any other and more difficult tracks than the obvious and right ones, insomuch that Lewis Stoutley, who had a tendency to imprudent remark, said in his hearing that he had heard of men who, in order to gain the roof of a house, preferred to go up by the waterspout rather than the staircase. There was an artist, whom Lewis—being, as already observed, given to insolence—styled the mad artist because he was enthusiastic in his art, galvanic in his actions, and had large, wild eyes, with long hair, and a broad-brimmed conical hat. Besides these, there was a Russian Professor, who had come there for purposes of scientific investigation, and a couple of German students, and a Scotch man of letters, whose aim was general observation, and several others, whose end was simply seeing the world.

In the arrangements of the table, Captain Wopper found himself between Emma Gray and the Polish Count, whose name was Horetzki. Directly opposite to him sat Mrs Stoutley, having her son Lewis on her right, and Dr Lawrence on her left. Beside the Count sat his lovely little daughter Nita, and just opposite to her was the mad artist. This arrangement was maintained throughout the sojourn of the various parties during their stay at Chamouni. They did, indeed, shift their position as regarded the table, according to the arrival or departure of travellers, but not in regard to each other.

Now it is an interesting, but by no means surprising fact, that Cupid planted himself in the midst of this party, and, with his fat little legs, in imminent danger of capsizing the dishes, began to draw his bow and let fly his arrows right and left. Being an airy sprite, though fat, and not at any time particularly visible, a careless observer might have missed seeing him; but to any one with moderate powers of observation, he was there, straddling across a dish of salad as plain as the salt-cellar before Captain Wopper's nose. His deadly shafts, too, were visibly quivering in the breasts of Lewis Stoutley, George Lawrence, and the mad artist. Particularly obvious were these shafts in the case of the last, who was addicted to gazing somewhat presumptuously on "lovely woman" in general, from what he styled an artistic point of view—never from any other point of view; of course not.

Whether or not Cupid had discharged his artillery at the young ladies, we cannot say, for they betrayed no evidence of having been wounded. In their case, he must either have missed his aim, or driven his shafts home with such vigour, that they were buried out of sight altogether in their tender hearts. It is probable that not one member of that miscellaneous company gave a thought at that time to the wounded men, except the wounded men themselves, so absorbing is the love of food! The wounded were, however, sharp-set in all respects. They at once descried each other's condition, and, instead of manifesting sympathy with each other, were, strange to say, filled with intense jealousy. This at least is true of the younger men. Lawrence, being somewhat older, was more secretive and self-possessed.

At first Captain Wopper, having declined a dish of cauliflower because it was presented alone, and having afterwards accepted a mutton chop alone, with feelings of poignant regret that he had let the cauliflower go by, was too busy to observe what the heathen-mythological youngster was doing. Indeed, at most times, the said youngster might have discharged a whole quiver of arrows into the Captain's eyes without his being aware of the attack; but, at the present time, the Captain, as the reader is aware, was up to the eyes in a plot in which Cupid's aid was necessary; he had, as it were, invoked the fat child's presence. When, therefore, he had got over the regrets about the cauliflower, and had swallowed the mutton-chop, he began to look about him—to note the converse that passed between the young men, and the frequent glances they cast at the young women.

It was not the first time that the Captain had, so to speak, kept his weather-eye open in regard to the affection which he had made up his mind must now have been awakened in the breasts of George Lawrence and Emma Gray; but hitherto his hopes, although sanguine, had not received encouragement. Though polite and respectful to each other, they were by no means tender; altogether, they acted quite differently from what the Captain felt that he would have done in similar circumstances. A suspicion had even crossed the poor seaman's mind that Emma was in love with her handsome and rattling cousin Lewis; but anxiety on this head was somewhat allayed by other and conflicting circumstances, such as occasional remarks by Lewis, to the effect that Emma was a goose, or a pert little monkey, or that she knew nothing beyond house-keeping and crochet, and similar compliments. Now, however, in a certain animated conversation between Lawrence and Emma, the designing seaman thought he saw the budding of his deep-laid plans, and fondly hoped ere long to behold the bud developed into the flower of matrimony. Under this conviction he secretly hugged himself, but in the salon, that evening, he opened his arms and released himself on beholding the apparently fickle Lawrence deeply engaged in converse with the Count Horetzki, to whose pretty daughter, however, he addressed the most of his remarks.

The Captain, being a blunt honest, straightforward man, could not understand this state of matters, and fell into a fit of abstracted perplexity on the sofa beside Mrs Stoutley, who listened listlessly to the Russian Professor as he attempted to explain to her and Emma the nature of a glacier.

"Well, I don't understand it at all," said Mrs Stoutley, at the end of one of the Professor's most lucid expositions.

We may remark, in passing, that the Professor, like many of his countrymen, was a good linguist and spoke English well.

"Not understand it!" he exclaimed, with a slight elevation of his eyebrows. "My dear madam, it is most plain, but I fear my want of good English does render me not quite intelligible."

"Your English is excellent," replied Mrs Stoutley, with a smile, "but I fear that my brain is not a sufficiently clear one on such matters, for I confess that I cannot understand it. Can you, Captain Wopper?"

"Certainly not, ma'am," answered the Captain, thinking of the fickle Lawrence; "it takes the wind out of my sails entirely."

"Indeed!" said the Professor. "Well, do permit me to try again. You understand that all the mountain-tops and elevated plateaus, for many miles around here, are covered with ice and snow."

"Oh!" exclaimed the Captain, awaking to the fact that his answer was not relevant; "may I ax what is the particular pint that puzzles you, ma'am?"

Emma laughed aloud at this, and coughed a little to conceal the fact. She was rather easily taken by surprise with passing touches of the ludicrous, and had not yet acquired the habit of effectually suppressing little explosions of undertoned mirth.

"The thing that puzzles me," said Mrs Stoutley, "is, that glaciers should flow, as I am told they do, and yet that they should be as hard and brittle as glass."

"Ah, well, yes, just so, h'm!" said the Captain, looking very wise; "that is exactly the pint that I want to know myself; for no man who looks at the great tongue of that glacier day Bossung—"

"Des Bossons," said the Professor, with a bland smile.

"Day Bossong," repeated the Captain, "can deny that it is marked with all the lines, and waves, an eddies of a rollin' river, an' yet as little can they deny that it seems as hard-and-fast as the rock of Gibraltar."

The Professor nodded approvingly.

"You are right, Captain Whipper—"

"Wopper," said the Captain, with a grave nod.

"Wopper," repeated the Professor, "the glacier des Bossons, like all the other glaciers, seems to remain immovable, though in reality it flows— ever flows—downward; but its motion is so slow, that it is not perceptible to the naked eye. Similarly, the hour-hand of a watch is to appearance motionless. Do you want proof? Mark it just now; look again in quarter of an hour, and you see that it has moved. You are convinced. It is so with the glacier. Mark him to-day, go back to-morrow—the mark has changed. Some glaciers flow at the rate of two and three feet in the twenty-four hours."

"Yes, but how do they flow, being so brittle?" demanded Mrs Stoutley.

"Ay, that's the pint, Professor," said the Captain, nodding, "how do they flow, bein' made of hard and brittle ice?"

"Why, by rolling higgledy-piggledy over itself of course," said Lewis, flippantly, as he came up and sat down on the end of the sofa, being out of humour with himself and everybody in consequence of having utterly failed to gain the attention of Nita Horetzki, although he had made unusually earnest efforts to join in conversation with her father. Owing to somewhat similar feelings, the artist had flung himself into a chair, and sat glaring at the black fireplace with a degree of concentration that ought to have lighted the firewood therein.

"The cause of a glacier flowing," said the Professor, "has long been a disputed point. Some men of science have held that it is the pressure of ice and snow behind it which causes it to flow. They do not think that it flows like water, but say it is forced from behind, and crushed through gorges and down valleys, as it were, unwillingly. They say that, if left alone, as they now are, without additions, from this time forward, glaciers would no longer move; they would rest, and slowly melt away; that their motion is due to the fact that there are miles and miles of snow-fields, thousands of feet deep, on the mountain-tops and in the gorges, to which fresh snows are added every winter, so that the weight of what is behind, slipping off the slopes and falling from the cliffs, crushes down and forward that which is below; thus glaciers cannot choose but advance."

"Ay, ay," said the Captain, "no doubt no doubt that may be so; but why is it that, bein' as brittle as glass, a glacier don't come rumblin' and clatterin' down the valleys in small hard bits, like ten thousand millions of smashed-up chandeliers?"

"Ay, there's the rub," exclaimed Lewis; "what say you to that?"

"Ha!" exclaimed the Professor, again smiling blandly, "there you have touched what once was, and, to some philosophers it seems, still is, the great difficulty. By some great men it has been held that glacier ice is always in a partially soft, viscid, or semi-fluid condition, somewhat like pitch, so that, although apparently a solid, brittle, and rigid body, it flows sluggishly in reality. Other philosophers have denied this theory, insisting that the ice of glaciers is not like pitch, but like glass, and that it cannot be squeezed without being broken, nor drawn without being cracked. These philosophers have discovered that when ice is subjected to great pressure it melts, and that, when the pressure is removed, the part so melted immediately freezes again—hence the name regelation, or re-freezing, is given to the process. Thus a glacier, they say, is in many places being continually melted and continually and instantaneously re-frozen, so that it is made to pass through narrow gorges, and to open out again when the enormous pressure has been removed. But this theory of regelation, although unquestionably true, and although it exercises some influence on glacier motion, does not, in my opinion, alone account for it. The opinion which seems to be most in favour among learned men—and that which I myself hold firmly—is, the theory of the Scottish Professor Forbes, namely, that a glacier is a semi-fluid body, it is largely impregnated throughout its extent with water, its particles move round and past each other—in other words, it flows in precisely the same manner as water, the only difference being that it is not quite so fluid; it is sluggish in its flow, but it certainly models itself to the ground over which it is forced by its own gravity, and it is only rent or broken into fragments when it is compelled to turn sharp angles, or to pass over steep convex slopes. Forbes, by his careful measurements and investigations, proved incontestably that in some glaciers the central portion travelled down its valley at double or treble the rate of its sides, without the continuity of the mass being broken. In small masses, indeed, glacier-ice is to all appearance rigid, but on a large scale it is unquestionably ductile."

"Has the theory of regelation been put to the proof?" asked Lewis, with a degree of interest in glaciers which he had never before felt.

"It has," answered the Professor. "An experimentalist once cut a bar of solid ice, like to a bar of soap in form and size, from a glacier. To this an iron weight of several pounds was suspended by means of a very fine wire, which was tied round the bar. The pressure of the wire melted the ice under it; as the water escaped it instantly re-froze above the wire; thus the wire went on cutting its way through the bar, and the water went on freezing, until at last the weight fell to the ground, and left the bar as solid and entire as if it had never been cut."

"Well, now," said Captain Wopper, bringing his hand down on his thigh with a slap that did more to arouse Mrs Stoutley out of her languor than the Professor's lecture on glacier ice, "I've sailed round the world, I have, an' seen many a strange sight, and what I've got to say is that I'll believe that when I see it."

"You shall see it soon then, I hope," said the Professor, more blandly than ever, "for I intend to verify this experiment along with several others. I go to the Mer de Glace, perhaps as far as the Jardin, to-morrow. Will you come?"

"What may the Jardang be?" asked the Captain.

"Hallo! monkey, what's wrong?" said Lewis to Emma, referring to one of the undertoned safety-valves before mentioned.

"Nothing," replied Emma, pursing her little lips till they resembled a cherry.

"The Jardin, or garden," said the Professor, "is a little spot of exquisite beauty in the midst of the glaciers, where a knoll of green grass and flowers peeps up in the surrounding sterility. It is one of the regular excursions from Chamouni."

"Can ladies go?" asked Lewis.

"Young and active ladies can," said the Professor, with his blandest possible smile, as he bowed to Emma.

"Then, we'll all go together," cried Lewis, with energy.

"Not all," said Mrs Stoutley, with a sigh, "I am neither young nor active."

"Nonsense, mother, you're quite young yet, you know, and as active as a kitten when you've a mind to be. Come, we'll have a couple of porters and a chair to have you carried when you knock up."

Notwithstanding the glowing prospects of ease and felicity thus opened up to her, Mrs Stoutley resolutely refused to go on this excursion, but she generously allowed Emma to go if so disposed. Emma, being disposed, it was finally arranged that, on the following day, she, the Captain, Lewis, and Lawrence, with Gillie White as her page, should proceed up the sides of Mont Blanc with the man of science, and over the Mer de Glace to the Jardin.



CHAPTER NINE.

A SOLID STREAM.

There is a river of ice in Switzerland, which, taking its rise on the hoary summit of Mont Blanc, flows through a sinuous mountain-channel, and terminates its grand career by liquefaction in the vale of Chamouni. A mighty river it is in all respects, and a wonderful one—full of interest and mystery and apparent contradiction. It has a grand volume and sweep, varying from one to four miles in width, and is about twelve miles long, with a depth of many hundreds of feet. It is motionless to the eye, yet it descends into the plain continually. It is hard and unyielding in its nature, yet it flows as really and steadily, if not with as lithe a motion, as a liquid river. It is not a half solid mass like mud, which might roll slowly down an incline; it is solid, clear, transparent, brittle ice, which refuses to bend, and cracks sharply under a strain; nevertheless, it has its waves and rapids, cross-currents, eddies, and cascades, which, seen from a moderate distance, display all the grace and beauty of flowing water—as if a grand river in all its varied parts, calm and turbulent, had been actually and suddenly arrested in its course and frozen to the bottom.

It is being melted perpetually too. The fierce sun of summer sends millions of tiny streamlets down into its interior, which collect, augment, cut channels for themselves through the ice, and finally gush into the plain from its lower end in the form of a muddy river. Even in winter this process goes on, yet the ice-river never melts entirely away, but holds on its cold, stately, solemn course from year to year— has done so for unknown ages, and will probably do so to the end of time. It is picturesque in its surroundings, majestic in its motion, tremendous in its action, awful in its sterility, and, altogether, one of the most impressive and sublime works of God.

This gigantic glacier, or stream of ice, springing, as it does, from the giant-mountain of Europe, is appropriately hemmed in, and its mighty force restrained, by a group of Titans, whose sharp aiguilles, or needle-like peaks, shoot upward to a height little short of their rounded and white-headed superior, and from whose wild gorges and riven sides tributary ice-rivers flow, and avalanches thunder incessantly. Leaving its cradle on the top of Mont Blanc, the great river sweeps round the Aiguille du Geant; and, after receiving its first name of Glacier du Geant from that mighty obelisk of rock, which rises 13,156 feet above the sea, it passes onward to welcome two grand tributaries, the Glacier de Lechaud, from the rugged heights of the Grandes Jorasses, and the Glacier du Talefre from the breast of the Aiguille du Talefre and the surrounding heights. Thus augmented, the river is named the Mer de Glace, or sea of ice, and continues its downward course; but here it encounters what may be styled "the narrows," between the crags at the base of the Aiguille Charmoz and Aiguille du Moine, through which it steadily forces its way, though compressed to much less than half its width by the process. In one place the Glacier du Geant is above eleven hundred yards wide; that of the Lechaud is above eight hundred; that of Talefre above six hundred—the total, when joined, two thousand five hundred yards; and this enormous mass of solid ice is forced through a narrow neck of the valley, which is, in round numbers, only nine hundred yards wide! Of course the ice-river must gain in depth what it loses in breadth in this gorge, through which it travels at the rate of twenty inches a day. Thereafter, it tumbles ruggedly to its termination in the vale of Chamouni, under the name of the Glacier des Bois.

The explanation of the causes of the rise and flow of this ice-river we will leave to the genial and enthusiastic Professor, who glories in dilating on such matters to Captain Wopper, who never tires of the dilations.

Huge, however, though this glacier of the Mer de Glace be, it is only one of a series of similar glaciers which constitute the outlets to that vast reservoir of ice formed by the wide range of Mont Blanc, where the snows of successive winters are stored, packed, solidified, and rendered, as it were, self-regulating in their supplies of water to the plains. And the Mont Blanc range itself is but a portion of the great glacial world of Switzerland, the area occupied by which is computed at 900 square miles. Two-thirds of these send their waters to the sea through the channel of the Rhine. The most extensive of these glaciers is the Aletsch glacier, which is fifteen miles in length. It is said that above six hundred distinct glaciers have been reckoned in Switzerland.

This, good reader, is but a brief reference to the wonders of the glacial world. It is but a scratching of the surface. There is a very mine of interesting, curious, and astonishing facts below the surface. Nature is prodigal of her information to those who question her closely, correctly, and perseveringly. Even to those who observe her carelessly, she is not altogether dumb. She is generous; and the God of Nature has caused it to be written for our instruction that, "His works are wonderful, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein."

We may not, however, prolong our remarks on the subject of ice-rivers at this time. Our travellers at Chamouni are getting ready to start, and it is our duty at present to follow them.



CHAPTER TEN.

THE FIRST EXCURSION.

"A Splendid morning!" exclaimed Dr George Lawrence, as he entered the Salle a manger with an obviously new alpenstock in his hand.

"Jolly!" replied Lewis Stoutley, who was stooping at the moment to button one of his gaiters.

Lewis was addicted to slang, not by any means an uncommon characteristic of youth!

"The man," he said, with some bitterness, "who invented big buttons and little button-holes should have had his nose skewered with a button-hook. He was an ass!"

In order to relieve his feelings and accomplish his ends, Lewis summarily enlarged the holes with his penknife.

"And round buttons, too," he said, indignantly; "what on earth was the use of making round buttons when flat ones had been invented? A big hole and a flat button will hold against anything—even against Scotch whins and heather. There, now, that abominable job is done."

"You are fond of strong language, Lewie," said Lawrence, as he examined the spike at the end of his alpenstock.

"I am. It relieves my feelings."

"But don't you think it weakens your influence on occasions when nothing but strong language will serve? You rob yourself of the power, you know, to increase the force of it."

"Oh bother! don't moralise, man, but let's have your opinion of the weather, which is an all-important subject just now."

"I have already given my opinion as to that," said Lawrence, "but here comes one who will give us an opinion of value.—He is in capital time."

"Good morning, Antoine."

Their guide for the day, Antoine Grennon, a fine stalwart specimen of his class, returned the salutation, and added that it was a very fine morning.

"Capital, isn't it?" cried Lewis, cheerfully, for he had got over the irritation caused by the buttons. "Couldn't be better; could it?"

The guide did not admit that the weather could not be better.

"You look doubtful, Antoine," said Lawrence. "Don't you think the day will keep up?"

"Keep up!" exclaimed Lewis; "why, the sky is perfectly clear. Of course it will. I never saw a finer day, even in England. Why do you doubt it, Antoine?"

The guide pointed to a small cloud that hung over the brow of one of the higher peaks.

"Appearances are sometimes deceitful in this country," he said. "I don't doubt the fineness of the day at present, but—"

He was interrupted here by the sudden and noisy entrance of Captain Wopper and the Professor, followed by the mad artist, whose name, by the way, was Slingsby.

"No, no," said the Captain to the Professor, with whom he had already become very intimate, "it won't do to part company. If the Jardang is too far for the ladies, we will steer for the Mairdyglass, an' cross over to the what's-'is-name—"

"Chapeau," said the Professor.

"Ah! the shappo," continued the Captain, "and so down by the glacier dez boys—"

"The what?" asked Lewis, with a half-suppressed smile.

"The glacier dez boys, youngster," repeated the Captain, stoutly.

"Oh, I see; you mean the Glacier des Bois?" said Lewis, suppressing the smile no longer.

"What I mean, young man," said the Captain, sternly, "is best known to myself. You and other College-bred coxcombs may call it day bwa, if you like, but I have overhauled the chart, and there it's spelt d-e-s, which sounds dez, and b-o-i-s, which seafarin' men pronounce boys, so don't go for to cross my hawse again, but rather join me in tryin' to indooce the Professor to putt off his trip to the Jardang, an' sail in company with us for the day."

"I will join you heartily in that," said Lewis, turning to the man of science, who stood regarding the Captain with an amiable smile, as a huge Newfoundland dog might regard a large mastiff; "but why is our proposed excursion to the Jardin to be altered?"

"Because," said the Professor, "your amiable sister—I beg pardon, cousin—with that irresistible power of suasion which seems inherent in her nature, has prevailed on Mademoiselle Horetzki to join the party, and Mademoiselle is too delicate—sylph-like—to endure the fatigues of so long an excursion over the ice. Our worthy guide suggests that it would afford more pleasure to the ladies—and of course, therefore, to the gentlemen—if you were to make your first expedition only to the Montanvert which is but a two hours' climb from Chamouni, picnic there, cross the Mer de Glace, which is narrow at that point, and descend again to Chamouni by the side of the Glacier des Bois, where you can behold the great moraines, and also the source of the river Arveiron. This would be a pleasant and not too fatiguing round, and I, who might perhaps be an encumbrance to you, will prosecute my inquiries at the Jardin alone."

"Impossible," exclaimed Lewis, "the Captain is right when he observes that we must not part company. As my mother says, we are a giddy crew, and will be the better of a little scientific ballast to keep us from capsizing into a crevasse. Do come, my dear sir, if it were only out of charity, to keep us in order."

To this entreaty Lawrence and the artist added their persuasions, which were further backed by the eloquence of Emma Gray and Nita Horetzki, who entered at the moment radiant with the flush of life's dawning day, and irresistible in picturesque mountain attire, the chief characteristics of which consisted in an extensive looping up of drapery, and an ostentatious display of those staffs called alpenstocks, five feet long, tipped with chamois horn, which are an indispensable requisite in Alpine work.

"Oh! you muss go," said Nita, in silvery tones and disjointed English. "If you go not, monsieur, I go not!"

"That of course decides the question, Mademoiselle," said the gallant Professor, with one of his blandest smiles, "I shall accompany you with pleasure. But I have one little request to make. My time at Chamouni is short; will you permit me, on arriving at the Mer de Glace, to prosecute my inquiries? I am here to ask questions of Nature, and must do so with perseverance and patience. Will you allow me to devote more of my attention to her than to yourself?"

"H'm! well—what you say, Mademoiselle Gray?" demanded Nita, with an arch look at her companion. "Is the Professor's request reasonable?"

To this Emma replied that as Nature was, upon the whole, a more important lady than either of them, she thought it was reasonable; whereupon the Professor agreed to postpone his visit to the Jardin, and devote his day to fixing stakes and making observations on the Mer de Glace, with a view to ascertaining the diurnal rate of speed at which the glacier flowed.

"You spoke of putting certain questions to Nature, Professor," said Lawrence, when the party were slowly toiling up the mountain-side. "Have they not already been put to her, and satisfactorily answered some time ago?"

"They have been put," replied the Professor, "by such learned men as Saussure, Agassiz, Rendu, Charpentier, and by your own countryman Forbes, and others, and undoubtedly their questions have received distinct answers, insomuch that our knowledge of the nature and action of glacial ice is now very considerable. But, my dear sir, learned men have not been agreed as to what Nature's replies mean, nor have they exhausted the subject; besides, no true man of science is quite satisfied with merely hearing the reports of others, he is not content until he has met and conversed with Nature face to face. I wish, therefore, to have a personal interview with her in these Alps, or rather," continued the Professor, in a more earnest tone, "I do wish to see the works of my Maker with my own eyes, and to hear His voice with the ears of my own understanding."

"Your object, then, is to verify, not to discover?" said Lawrence.

"It is both. Primarily to verify; but the man of science always goes forth with the happy consciousness that the mine in which he proposes to dig is rich in gems, and that, while seeking for one sort, he may light upon another unexpectedly."

"When Captain Wopper turned up yonder gem, he lit on one which, if not of the purest water, is unquestionably a brilliant specimen of the class to which it belongs," said Lewis, coming up at that moment, and pointing to a projection in the somewhat steep part of the path up which they were winding.

The gem referred to was no other than our friend Gillie White. That hilarious youth, although regenerated outwardly as regards blue cloth and buttons, had not by any means changed his spirit since fortune began to smile on him. Finding that his mistress, being engaged with her dark-eyed friend, did not require his services, and observing that his patron, Captain Wopper, held intercourse with the guide—in broken English, because he, the guide, also spoke broken English—that Lawrence and the Professor seemed capable of entertaining each other, that Lewis and the artist, although dreadfully jealous of each other, were fain to hold social intercourse, the ladies being inseparable, and that he, Gillie, was therefore left to entertain himself he set about amusing himself to the best of his power by keeping well in rear of the party and scrambling up dangerous precipices, throwing stones at little birds, charging shrubs and stabbing the earth with Emma's alpenstock, immolating snails, rolling rocks down precipitous parts of the hill, and otherwise exhibiting a tendency to sport with Nature—all of which he did to music whistled by himself, and in happy forgetfulness of everything save the business in hand. He was engaged in some apparently difficult piece of fancy work, involving large boulders, when Lewis drew attention to him.

"What can the imp be up to?" he said.

"Most likely worrying some poor reptile to death," said the artist, removing his conical wideawake and fanning himself therewith. (Mr Slingsby was very warm, his slender frame not being equal to his indomitable spirit.)

"I think he is trying to break your alpenstock, Emma," observed Lewis.

There seemed to be truth in this, for Gillie, having fixed the staff as a lever, was pulling at it with all his might. The projection of rock on which he stood, and which overhung the zigzag road, was partially concealed by bushes, so that the precise intention of his efforts could not be discovered.

At that moment Antoine, the guide, turned to see what detained the party, and instantly uttered a loud shout of alarm as he ran back to them.

The warning or remonstrance came too late. Gillie had loosened an enormous rock which had been on the point of falling, and with a throb of exultation, which found vent in a suppressed squeal, he hurled a mass, something about the size and weight of a cart of coals, down the precipice.

But the current of Gillie's feelings was rudely changed when a shriek from the ladies, and something between a roar and a yell from the gentlemen, told that they had observed a man with a mule, who, in ascending from the valley, had reached a spot which lay in the direct line of the miniature avalanche; and when the muleteer, also observing the missile, added a hideous howl to the chorus, the poor urchin shrank back appalled. The rock struck the track directly behind the mule with a force which, had it been expended only six inches more to the right, would have driven that creature's hind legs into the earth as if they had been tenpenny nails; it then bounded clear over the next turning of the track, crashed madly through several bushes, overturned five or six trees, knocked into atoms a sister rock which had taken the same leap some ages before, and finally, leaving behind it a grand tail of dust and debris, rolled to its rest upon the plain.

At the first symptom of the danger, Captain Wopper had rushed towards the culprit.

"Rascal!" he growled between his teeth, as he seized Gillie by the nape of the neck, lifted him almost off his legs, and shook him, "d'ee see what you've done?"

He thrust the urchin partially over the precipice, and pointed to the man and the mule.

"Please, I haven't done it," pleaded Gillie.

"But you did your best to—you—you small—there!"

He finished off the sentence with an open-handed whack that aroused the echoes of Mont Blanc, and cast the culprit adrift.

"Now, look 'ee, lad," said the Captain, with impressive solemnity, "if you ever go to chuck stones like that over the precipices of this here mountain again, I'll chuck you over after 'em. D'ee hear?"

"Yes, Cappen," grumbled Gillie, rubbing himself, "but if you do, it's murder. No jury of Englishmen would think of recommendin' you to mercy in the succumstances. You'd be sure to swing—an' I—I could wish you a better fate."

The Captain did not wait to hear the boy's good wishes, but hastened to rejoin his friends, while Gillie followed in rear, commenting audibly on the recent incident.

"Well, well," he said, thrusting both hands deep into bush trouser-pockets, according to custom when in a moralising frame of mind, "who'd a thought it, Gillie White, that you'd 'ave bin brought all the way from London to the Halps to make such a close shave o' committin' man-slaughter to say nothin' of mule-slaughter, and to git whacked by your best friend? Oh! Cappen, Cappen, I couldn't 'ave believed it of you if I 'adn't felt it. But, I say, Gillie, wasn't it a big 'un? Ha! ha! The Cappen threatened to chuck me over the precipice, but I've chucked over a wopper that beats him all to sticks. Hallo! I say that's worthy of Punch. P'r'aps I'll be a contributor to it w'en I gets back from Zwizzerland, if I ever does get back, vich is by no means certain. Susan, my girl, I'll 'ave summat to enliven you with this evenin'."