Rivers of Ice, Robert Michael Ballantyne [fun to read .txt] 📗

cast them there.

"To me there do seem something dreadful as well as grand in it," said Nita, as she sat down on a boulder beside Emma, near the lower end of the chaotic valley.

"It is, indeed, terrible," answered Emma, "and fills me with wonder when I think that frozen water possesses power so stupendous."

"And yet the same element," said the Professor, "which, when frozen, thus rends the mountains with force irresistible, when melted flows through the land in gentle fertilising streams. In both forms its power is most wonderful."

"Like that of Him who created it," said Emma, in a low tone.

The party stood on the margin of a little pond or lakelet that had collected in the midst of the _debris_, and which, by reflecting the clear sky and their figures, with several large boulders on its margin, gave point and a measure of softness to the otherwise confused and rugged scene. While they stood and sat rapt in silent contemplation of the tongue of the Mer de Glace, at whose tip was the blue ice-cave whence issued the Arveiron, a lordly eagle rose from a neighbouring cliff and soared grandly over their heads, while a bright gleam of the sinking sun shot over the white shoulders of Mont Blanc and lit up the higher end of the valley, throwing the lower part into deeper shade by contrast.

"There is a warning to us," said Lewis, whose chief interest in the scene lay in the reflection of it that gleamed from Nita Horetzki's eyes.

"Which is the warning," asked Slingsby, "the gleam of sunshine or the eagle?"

"Both, for while the sun is going to bed behind the snow, the eagle is doubtless going home to her eyrie, and Antoine tells me that it is full three miles from this spot to our hotel in Chamouni."

It did not take them long to traverse that space, and ere long, like the eagle and the sun, the whole party had retired to rest--the younger members, doubtless, to dreamless slumber; the Professor and the Captain, probably, to visions of theodolites and ice.

Although, however, these worthies must needs await the coming day to have their scientific hopes realised, it would be cruel to keep our patient reader in suspense. We may therefore note here that when, on the following day, the theodolite was re-fixed, and the man of science and his amateur friend had applied their respective eyes to the telescope, they were assured beyond a doubt that the stakes _had moved_, some more and some less, while the "Dook's nose," of course, remained hard and fast as the rock of which it was composed. The stakes had descended from about one to three feet during the twenty-four hours-- those near the edge having moved least and those near the centre of the ice-river's flow having moved farthest.

Of course there was a great deal of observing with the theodolite, and careful measuring as well as scrambling on the ice, similar to that of the previous day; but the end of the whole was that the glacier was ascertained to have flowed, definitely and observably down its channel, there could be no doubt whatever about that; the thing had been clearly proved, therefore the Professor was triumphant and the Captain, being a reasonable man, was convinced.


CHAPTER TWELVE.


IN WHICH GILLIE IS SAGACIOUS, AN EXCURSION IS UNDERTAKEN, WONDROUS SIGHTS ARE SEEN, AND AVALANCHES OF MORE KINDS THAN ONE ARE ENCOUNTERED.

"Susan," said Gillie, one morning, entering the private apartment of Mrs Stoutley's maid with the confidence of a privileged friend, flinging himself languidly into a chair and stretching out his little legs with the air of a rather used-up, though by no means discontented, man, "Susan, this is a coorious world--wery coorious--the most coorious I may say that I ever come across."

"I won't speak a word to you, Gillie," said Susan, firmly, "unless you throw that cigar out of the window."

"Ah, Susan, you would not rob me of my mornin' weed, would you?" remonstrated Gillie, puffing a long cloud of smoke from his lips as he took from between them the end of a cigar that had been thrown away by some one the night before.

"Yes, I would, child, you are too young to smoke."

"Child!" repeated Gillie, in a tone of reproach, "too young! Why, Susan, there's only two years between you an' me--that ain't much, you know, at _our_ time of life."

"Well, what then? _I_ don't smoke," said Susan.

"True," returned Gillie, with an approving nod, "and, to say truth, I'm pleased to find that you don't. It's a nasty habit in women."

"It's an equally nasty habit in boys. Now, do as I bid you directly."

"When a man is told by the girl he loves to do anythink, he is bound to do it--even if it wor the sheddin' of his blood. Susan, your word is law."

He turned and tossed the cigar-end out of the window. Susan laughingly stooped, kissed the urchin's forehead, and called him a good boy.

"Now," said she, "what do you mean by sayin' that this is a curious world? Do you refer to this part of it, or to the whole of it?"

"Well, for the matter of that," replied Gillie, crossing his legs, and folding his hands over his knee, as he looked gravely up in Susan's pretty face, "I means the whole of it, _this_ part included, and the people in it likewise. Don't suppose that I go for to exclude myself. We're all coorious, every one on us."

"What! me too?"

"You? w'y, you are the cooriousest of us all, Susan, seeing that you're only a lady's-maid when you're pretty enough to have been a lady--a dutchess, in fact, or somethin' o' that sort."

"You are an impudent little thing," retorted Susan, with a laugh; "but tell me, what do you find so curious about the people up-stairs?"

"Why, for one thing, they seem all to have falled in love."

"That's not very curious is it?" said Susan, quietly; "it's common enough, anyhow."

"Ah, some kinds of it, yes," returned Gillie, with the air of a philosopher, "but at Chamouni the disease appears to have become viroolent an' pecoolier. There's the Capp'n, _he's_ falled in love wi' the Professor, an' it seems to me that the attachment is mootooal. Then Mister Lewis has falled in love with Madmysell Nita Hooray-tskie (that's a sneezer, ain't it), an' the mad artist, as Mister Lewis call him, has falled in love with her too, poor feller, an' Miss Nita has falled in love with Miss Emma, an Miss Emma, besides reciprocatin' that passion, has falled in love with the flowers and the scenery--gone in for it wholesale, so to speak--and Dr Lawrence, _he_ seems to have falled in love with everybody all round; anyhow everybody has falled in love with _him_, for he's continually goin' about doin' little good turns wherever he gits the chance, without seemin' to intend it, or shovin' hisself to the front. In fact I do think he _don't_ intend it, but only can't help it; just the way he used to be to my old mother and the rest of us in Grubb's Court. And I say, Susan," here Gillie looked very mysterious, and dropped his voice to a whisper, "Miss Emma has falled in love with _him_."

"Nonsense, child! how is it possible that _you_ can tell that?" said Susan.

The boy nodded his head with a look of preternatural wisdom, and put his forefinger to the side of his nose.

"Ah," said he, "yes, I can't explain _how_ it is that I knows it, but I _do_ know it. Bless you, Susan, I can see through a four-inch plank in thick weather without the aid of a gimlet hole. You may believe it or not, but I know that Miss Emma has falled in love with Dr Lawrence, but whether Dr Lawrence has failed in love with Miss Emma is more than I can tell. That plank is at least a six-inch one, an' too much for my wision. But have a care, Susan, don't mention wot I've said to a single soul--livin' or dead. Miss Emma is a modest young woman, she is, an' would rather eat her fingers off, rings and all, than let her feelin's be known. I see that 'cause she fights shy o' Dr Lawrence, rather too shy of 'im, I fear, for secrecy. Why he doesn't make up to _her_ is a puzzle that _I_ don't understand, for she'd make a good wife, would Miss Emma, an' Dr Lawrence may live to repent of it, if he don't go in and win."

Susan looked with mingled surprise and indignation at the precocious little creature who sat before her giving vent to his opinions as coolly as if he were a middle-aged man. After contemplating him for a few moments in silence, she expressed her belief that he was a conceited little imp, to venture to speak of his young mistress in that way.

"I wouldn't do it to any one but yourself, Susan," he said, in no wise abashed, "an' I hope you appreciate my confidence."

"Don't talk such nonsense, child, but go on with what you were speaking about," rejoined Susan, with a smile, to conceal which she bent down her head as she plied her needle briskly on one of Emma's mountain-torn dresses.

"Well, where was I?" continued Gillie, "ah, yes. Then, Lord what's-'is-name, _he's_ falled in love with the mountain-tops, an' is for ever tryin' to get at 'em, in which he would succeed, for he's a plucky young feller, if it worn't for that snob--who's got charge of 'im--Mister Lumbard--whose pecooliarity lies in preferrin' every wrong road to the right one. As I heard Mr Lewis say the other day, w'en I chanced to be passin' the keyhole of the sallymanjay, `he'd raither go up to the roof of a 'ouse by the waterspout than the staircase,' just for the sake of boastin' of it."

"And is Mr Lumbard in love with any one?" asked Susan.

"Of course he is," answered Gillie, "he's in love with hisself. He's always talkin' of hisself, an' praisin' hisself, an' boastin' of hisself an' what he's done and agoin' to do. He's plucky enough, no doubt, and if there wor a lightnin'-conductor runnin' to top of Mount Blang, I do b'lieve he'd try to--to--lead his Lordship up _that_; but he's too fond of talkin' an' swaggerin' about with his big axe, an' wearin' a coil of rope on his shoulder when he ain't goin' nowhere. Bah! I don't like him. What do you think, Susan, I met him on the road the other evenin' w'en takin' a stroll by myself down near the Glassyer day Bossong, an' I says to him, quite in a friendly way, `bong joor,' says I, which is French, you know, an' what the natives here says when they're in good humour an' want to say `good-day,' `all serene,' `how are you off for soap?' an' suchlike purlitenesses. Well, would you believe it, he went past without takin' no notice of me whatsumdever."

"How _very_ impolite," said Susan, "and what did you do?"

"Do," cried Gillie, drawing himself up, "why, I cocked my nose in the air and walked on without disdainin' to say another word--treated 'im with suvrin contempt. But enough of _him_--an' more than enough.