Rivers of Ice

So saying, the doctor rose and took his leave. Mrs Stoutley and her niece immediately began to discuss the subject of Switzerland—the one languidly, the other with animation. It was plain enough that, although the invalid protested to the doctor her inability to travel, she really had no objection, perhaps felt some desire, to go abroad, for when Miss Gray mentioned the fact that there was a difficulty in the shape of insufficient funds, she replied with more warmth than usual—

“Now, Emma, what is the use of always bringing up that ridiculous idea?”

“No doubt, auntie,” the maiden replied, “it is a little ridiculous to run short of ready money, considering the style in which we live; but it would be still more ridiculous, you know, to go to Switzerland without the means of paying our expenses while there.”

“What’s that you say about expenses, cousin?” exclaimed a tall handsome stripling who entered at the moment, and seated himself on the sofa at his mother’s feet.

“Oh, bother the expense!” he exclaimed, when the difficulty had been explained to him, “it can’t cost so much to spend a few months in Switzerland,—besides, we can do it cheap, you know. Didn’t Mr What’s-his-name, our man of business, say that there was a considerable balance at the banker’s, and that if the What-d’ee-call-’em mines paid a reasonable dividend, we should easily get over our difficulties?”

“He said something of that sort, I believe,” replied Mrs Stoutley, with a sigh.

“I rather think, cousin Lewis,” said Emma, endeavouring to repress a smile, “that he said there was an inconsiderable balance at the bankers, and that unless the Gorong mine paid a reasonable dividend, we shouldn’t easily get over our difficulties.”

Both Lewis and his mother laughed at the quiet way in which this was said, but, while both admitted that Emma’s view of the matter might perhaps be correct, Lewis held that there was no good reason for supposing there would be any difficulty in the meantime in obtaining from their “man-of-business” the paltry sum that was required for a short tour on the Continent. Indeed Mrs Stoutley regarded this man-of-business as a mere sponge, who required only to be squeezed in order to the production of what was desired, and the man-of-business himself found it no easy matter to convince her that she held erroneous views on this subject, and that at her present rate of progress, she would, to use the doctor’s glacial simile, very soon topple from the pinnacle of fashion, on which she sat, and fall with the crash of a social avalanche into the moraine of ruin.

“What a wise little woman you are, cousin Emma,” said Lewis, gaily. “You ought to have been bred to the law, or trained an accountant. However, we won’t be guided by your advice just now, first, because the doctor has ordered mother abroad for her health, which is our chief consideration; and, second, because I wish of all things to see Switzerland, and climb Mont Blanc. Besides, we are not so poor as you think, and I hope to add a little to our general funds in a day or two. By the way, can you lend me ten pounds just now, mother?”

“Why do you want it?” asked Mrs Stoutley, sternly, as if she meant to refuse, but at the same time opening her purse.

“Don’t ask me just now. I will repay you tomorrow, with interest and shall then explain.”

With an easy, languid smile, the carelessly amiable invalid handed her last ten-pound note to her hopeful son, who had just transferred it to his pocketbook, when a footman entered and presented a scrap of dirty paper, informing his lady that the person who sent up the “card” desired to see her.

“What is this?” said Mrs Stoutley, holding the paper gingerly with the tips of her fingers, “Wip—Wap—Wopper! What is Wopper? Is the person a man or a woman?”

The footman, who, although well-bred, found it difficult to restrain a smile, intimated that the person was a man, and added, that he said he had come from California, and wanted to see Mrs Stoutley very particularly.

On hearing this, the lady’s manner changed at once, and, with more animation than she had yet exhibited, she desired that he should be shown in.

With his large wide-awake in one hand, and a canvas bag in the other, Captain Wopper entered the drawing-room, and looked around him with a beaming and rather bashful smile.

“Mrs Stoutley, I believe,” he said, advancing, “and Miss Emma Gray, I suppose,” he added, turning with a beaming glance towards the young lady.

Mrs Stoutley admitted that he was right, and expressed some surprise that he, a perfect stranger, should be so well acquainted with their names.

“I am indeed a stranger personally, ma’am,” said Captain Wopper, smoothing the hair down on his rugged brow, “but I may be said to know you pretty well, seeing that I have for many years been the friend and messmate of your late husband’s brother in Californy.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed Mrs Stoutley, with increasing animation, as she rose and held out her hand; “any friend of my brother-in-law is heartily welcome. Be seated, Mr Wopper, and let me hear about him. He was very kind to my dear husband during his last illness—very kind. I shall never forget him.”

“No doubt he was,” said the Captain, accepting the chair which Emma Gray handed to him, with looks of great interest. “Thank ’ee, Miss. Willum Stout—excuse my familiarity, ma’am, I always called him Willum, because we was like brothers—more than brothers, I may say, an’ very friendly. Yes, Willum Stout was kind to his brother in his last days. It would have bin shame to him if he hadn’t for your husband, ma’am, was kind to Willum, an’ he often said to me, over the camp-fires in the bush, that he’d never forget his kindness. But it’s over now,” continued the seaman in a sad tone, “an’ poor Willum is left alone.”

“Is my uncle very poor?” asked Lewis, who had been paying more attention to the appearance of their rugged visitor than to what he had said.

“Ay, very poor,” replied the seaman, “as regards near relations, leastwise such as he has seen and known in former days, but he an’t poor as regards gold. He’s got lots of that. He and I worked not far from each other for years, an’ he used to hit upon good claims somehow, and shovelled up the nuggets like stones.”

“Indeed! I wish he’d send a few of them this way,” exclaimed Lewis, with a careless laugh.

“No doubt he might do so, young man, if he knew you were in need of ’em, but your father gave him to understand that his family was rich.”

“Rich!” exclaimed Lewis, with a smile, in which there was a touch of contempt. “Well, yes, we were rich enough once, but when my father was away these wretched mines became—”

“Lewie!” exclaimed his mother, hastily, “what nonsense you do talk! Really, one would think from your account that we were paupers.”

“Well, mother, so we are—paupers to this extent at least, that we can’t afford to take a run to Switzerland, though ordered to do so for your health, because we lack funds.”

Lewis said this half petulantly, for he had been a “spoilt child,” and might probably have been by that time a ruined young man, but for the mercy of his Creator, who had blessed him with an amiable disposition. He was one of those youths, in short, of whom people say that they can’t be spoiled, though fond and foolish parents do their best to spoil them.

“You mis-state the case, naughty boy,” said Mrs Stoutley, annoyed at being thus forced to touch on her private affairs before a stranger. “No doubt our ready cash is what our man-of-business calls ‘locked up,’ but that, you know, is only a matter of temporary inconvenience, and cannot last long.”

As Mrs Stoutley paused and hesitated, their visitor placed on the table a canvas bag, which, up to this point he had rested on one knee.

“This bag,” he said, “of nuggets, is a gift from Willum. He desired me to deliver it to you, Miss Gray, as a small acknowledgment of your kindness in writin’ so often to him. He’d have bought you a silk gown, or a noo bonnet, so he said, but wasn’t sure as to your taste in such matters, and thought you’d accept the nuggets and buy it for yourself. Leastwise, that’s somethin’ like the speech Willum tried to tell me to deliver, but he warn’t good at speech-makin’ no more than I at remembrin’, and hoped you’d take the will for the deed.”

With a flush of surprise and pleasure, Emma Gray accepted both the will and the deed, with many expressions of gratitude, and said, that as she did not require either a silk dress or a bonnet just then, she would invest her little fortune; she would lend it at high interest, to a lady under temporary inconvenience, who was ordered by her doctor to Switzerland for the benefit of her health. To this Mrs Stoutley protested very earnestly that the lady in question would not accept the loan on any consideration; that it must not be diverted from its destined use, but be honestly expended on silk-dresses and new bonnets. To which Emma replied, that the destiny of the gift, with interest (she was very particular on that head), should be fulfilled in good time, but that meanwhile it must be lent out.

In the midst of a cross-fire of this kind the bag was opened, and its contents poured on the table, to the immense admiration of all the company, none of whom had, until that day, beheld gold in its native condition.

“How much may it be worth, Mr Wopper?” asked Lewis, weighing one of the largest lumps.

“About two hundred pound, I should say, more or less,” replied the seaman.

“Indeed!” exclaimed the youth in surprise—an exclamation which was echoed by his mother and cousin in modified tones.

While they sat thus toying with the lumps of gold, the conversation reverted to the sender of it, and the Captain told such entertaining anecdotes of bush life, in all of which “Uncle Willum” had been an actor, that the afternoon arrived before Mrs Stoutley had time to wish for it. They also talked of the last illness of the deceased father of the family; and when it came out that Captain (they had found out by that time that their visitor had been a skipper, and, by courtesy, a captain), had assisted “Willum” in nursing Mr Stoutley, and had followed him to the grave, Mrs Stoutley’s gratitude was such that she insisted on her visitor staying to dinner.

“Thank ’ee, ma’am,” he said, “I’ve dined. I always dines at one o’clock if I can manage it.”

“But we don’t dine till eight,” said the lady, “so it will just suit for your supper.”

“Do come,” said Emma Gray, “we shall be quite alone, and shall have a great spinning of yarns over Uncle William and the gold-fields.”

“Well, I don’t mind if I do,” said the Captain, “but before supper I must go to the docks for my kit and settle my lodgings.”

“I am going to the Strand, and shall be happy to give you a lift,” said Lewis.

The Captain accepted the offer, and as they drove along, he and his young friend became very intimate, insomuch that Lewis, who was lighthearted, open, and reckless, let him into his confidence, and spoke quite freely about his mother’s difficulties. It is only justice to add that the Captain did not encourage him in this. When, however, the youth spoke of himself, he not only encouraged him, but drew him out. Among other things, he drew out of him the fact that he was in the habit of gambling, and that he fully expected—if his usual luck attended him—to assist in adding to the fund which was to take the family abroad.

The Captain looked at the handsome stripling for a few seconds in silent surprise.

“You don’t mean to tell me,” he said slowly, “that you gamble?”

“Indeed I do,” replied Lewis, with a bland smile, and something of a twinkle in his eye.

“For money?” asked the Captain.

“For money,” assented the youth; “what have you to say against it?”

“Why, I’ve to say that it’s mean.”

“That’s strong language,” said Lewis, flushing.

“It an’t strong enough by a long way,” returned the Captain, with indignation, “it’s more than mean, it’s contemptible; it’s despicable.”

The flush on Lewis’s face deepened, and he looked at his companion with the air of one who meditates knocking another down. Perhaps the massive size and strength of the Captain induced him to change his mind. It may be that there occurred to him the difficulty—if not impossibility—of knocking down a man who was down already, and the want of space in a cab for such violent play of muscle. At all events he did nothing, but looked “daggers.”

“Look ’ee here, my lad,” continued the Captain, laying his huge hand on his companion’s knee, and gazing earnestly into his face, “I don’t mean for to hurt your feelin’s by sayin’ that you are mean, or contemptible, or despicable, for I don’t suppose you’ve thought much about the matter at all, and are just following in the wake of older men who ought to know better; but I say that the thing—gambling for money—is the meanest thing a man can do, short of stealing. What does it amount to? Simply this—I want another man’s money, and the other man wants mine. We daren’t try open robbery, we would be ashamed of that; we’re both too lazy to labour for money, and labour doesn’t bring it in fast enough, therefore we’ll go play for it. I’ll ask him to submit to be robbed by me on condition that I submit to be robbed by him; and which is to be the robbed, and which the robber, shall depend on the accidental turn of a dice, or something equally trifling—”

“But I don’t gamble by means of dice,” interrupted Lewis, “I play, and bet, on billiards, which is a game of skill, requiring much practice, judgment, and thought.”

“That makes no odds, my lad,” continued the Captain. “There is no connection whatever between the rolling of a ball and the taking away of a man’s money, any more than there is between the turning of a dice and the taking of a man’s money. Both are dishonourable subterfuges. They are mere blinds put up to cover the great and mean fact, which is, that I want to get possession of my neighbour’s cash.”

“But, Captain,” retorted Lewis, with a smile—for he had now entered into the spirit of the argument—“you ignore the fact that while I try to win from my friend, I am quite willing that my friend should try to win from me.”

“Ignore it? no!” cried Captain Wopper. “Putt it in this way. Isn’t it wrong for me to have a longing desire and itching fingers to lay hold of your cash?”

“Well, put in that simple form,” said Lewis, with a laugh, “it certainly is.”

“And isn’t it equally wrong for you to have a hungering and thirsting after my cash?”

“Of course that follows,” assented Lewis.

“Well, then,” pursued the Captain, “can any agreement between you and me, as to the guessing of black or white or the turning of dice or anything else, make a right out of two wrongs?”

“Still,” said Lewis, a little puzzled, “there is fallacy somewhere in your argument. I cannot see that gambling is wrong.”

“Mark me, my lad,” returned the Captain, impressively, “it is no sufficient reason for the doing of a thing that you cannot see it to be wrong. You are not entitled to do anything unless you see it to be right. But there are other questions connected with gambling which renders it doubly mean—the question, for instance, whether a man is entitled to risk the loss of money which he calls his own, but which belongs to his wife and children as much as to himself. The mean positions, too, in which a gambler places himself, are numerous. One of these is, when a rich man wins the hard-earned and much-needed gains of a poor one.”

“But one is not supposed to know anything about the affairs of those from whom one wins,” objected Lewis.

“All the more reason,” replied Captain Wopper, “why a man should never gamble, lest, unwittingly, he should become the cause of great suffering—it might be, of death.”

Still Lewis “could not see” the wrong of gambling, and the discussion was cut short by the sudden stopping of the cab at a door in the Strand, over which hung a lamp, on which the Captain observed the word “Billiards.”

“Well, ta-ta, old fellow,” said Lewis, gaily, as he parted from his new friend, “we’ll finish the argument another day. Meanwhile, don’t forget the hour—eight, sharp.”

Chapter Four.

Shows how the Captain came to an Anchor, and conceived a Deep Design

When Captain Wopper parted from his young friend, he proceeded along the Strand in an unusually grave mood, shaking his head to such a degree, as he reflected on the precocious wickedness of the rising generation, that a very ragged and pert specimen of that generation, observing his condition, gravely informed him that there was an hospital for incurables in London, which took in patients with palsy and St. Wituses’ dance werry cheap.

This recalled him from the depths of sorrowful meditation, and induced him to hail a cab, in which he drove to the docks, claimed his chest—a solid, seamanlike structure, reminding one of the wooden walls of Old England—and returned with it to the head of the lane leading to Grubb’s Court. Dismissing the cab, he looked round for a porter, but as no porter appeared, the Captain, having been accustomed through life to help himself, and being, as we have said, remarkably strong, shouldered the nautical chest, and bore it to the top of Mrs Roby’s staircase.

Here he encountered, and almost tumbled over, Gillie White, who saluted him with—

“Hallo! ship aho–o–oy! starboard hard! breakers ahead! Why, Capp’n, you’ve all but run into me!”

“Why don’t you show a light then,” retorted the Captain, “or blow your steam-whistle, in such a dark hole? What’s that you’ve got in your arms?”

“The baby,” replied Gillie.

“What baby?” demanded the Captain.

“Our baby, of course,” returned the imp, in a tone that implied the non-existence of any other baby worth mentioning. “I brought it up to show it to the sick ’ooman next door but one to Mrs Roby’s cabin. She’s very sick, she is, an’ took a great longing to see our baby, cos she thinks it’s like what her son was w’en he was a baby. If he ever was, he don’t look much like one now, for he’s six-feet nothin’ in his socks, an’ drinks like a fish, if he don’t do nothin’ wuss. Good-night Capp’n. Baby’ll ketch cold if I keep on jawin’ here. Mind your weather eye, and port your helm when you reach the landin’. If you’ll take the advice of a young salt, you’ll clew up your mainsail an’ dowse some of your top-hamper—ah! I thought so!”

This last remark, delivered with a broad grin of delight, had reference to the fact that the Captain had run the corner of his chest against the low roof of the passage with a degree of violence that shook the whole tenement.

Holding his breath in hopeful anticipation, and reckless of the baby’s “ketching cold,” the small boy listened for more. Nor was he disappointed. In his progress along the passage Captain Wopper, despite careful steering, ran violently foul of several angles and beams, each of which mishaps sent a quiver through the old house, and a thrill to the heart of Gillie White. In his earnest desire to steer clear of the sick woman’s door, the luckless Captain came into collision with the opposite wall, and anxiety on this point causing him to forget the step on which he had “struck” once before, he struck it again, and was precipitated, chest and all, against Mrs Roby’s door, which, fortunately for itself, burst open, and let the avalanche of chest and man descend upon Mrs Roby’s floor.

Knowing that the climax was now reached, the imp descended the stair filled with a sort of serene ecstasy, while Captain Wopper gathered himself up and sat down on his nautical portmanteau.

“I tell ’ee what it is, old ’ooman,” said he, stroking his beard, “the channel into this port is about the wust I ever had the ill-luck to navigate. I hope I didn’t frighten ’ee?”

“Oh, dear no!” replied Mrs Roby, with a smile.

To say truth, the old woman seemed less alarmed than might have been expected. Probably the noise of the Captain’s approach, and previous experience, had prepared her for some startling visitation, for she was quite calm, and a humorous twinkle in her eyes seemed to indicate the presence of a spirit somewhat resembling that which actuated Gillie White.

“Well, that’s all right,” said the Captain, rising and pushing up the trap-door that led to his private berth in the new lodging; “and now, old lady, havin’ come to an anchor, I must get this chest sent aloft as fast as I can, seein’ that I’ve to clean myself an’ rig out for a dinner at eight o’clock at the west end.”

“Dear me,” said Mrs Roby, in surprise, “you must have got among people of quality.”

“It won’t be easy to hoist it up,” said the Captain, ignoring the remark, and eyeing the chest and trap-door in the roof alternately.

Just then a heavy step was heard in the passage; and a young man of large and powerful frame, with a gentle as well as gentlemanly demeanour, appeared at the door.

“Come in—come in,” said Mrs Roby, with a bright look, “this is only my new lodger, a friend of dear Wil—”

“Why, bless you, old ’ooman,” interrupted Captain Wopper, “he knows me well enough. I went to him this morning and got Mrs Stoutley’s address. Come in, Dr Lawrence. I may claim to act the host here now in a small way, perhaps, and bid visitors welcome—eh! Mrs Roby?”

“Surely, surely,” replied the old woman.

“Thank you both for the welcome,” said the visitor with a pleasant smile, as he shook hands with Mrs Roby. “I thought I recognised your voice, Captain Wopper, as you passed Mrs Leven’s door, and came out to see how you and my old friend here get on together.”

“Is she any better to-night, sir?” asked Mrs Roby, anxiously.

Lawrence shook his head sadly and said she was no better, and that he feared she had little chance of getting better while her dissipated son dwelt under the same roof with her. “It is breaking her heart,” he added, “and, besides that, the nature of her disease is such that recovery is impossible unless she is fed on the most generous diet. This of course she cannot have, because she has no means of her own. Her son gambles away nearly all his small salary, and she refuses to go to an hospital lest her absence should be the removal of the last restraining link between him and destruction. It is a very sad case—very.”

Captain Wopper was struck with this reference to gambling coming so soon after his recent conversation on that subject, and asked if there were no charitable societies or charitable people in London who would help in a case so miserable.

Yes, there were plenty of charitable institutions, Lawrence told him, but he feared that this woman had no special claim on any of them, and her refusal to go to an hospital would tell against her. There were also, he said, plenty of charitable people, but all of those he happened to be acquainted with had been appealed to by him so often that he felt ashamed to try them again. He had already given away as much of his own slender means as he could well spare, so that he saw no way out of the difficulty; but he had faith in Providential supervision of human affairs, and he believed that a way would yet be opened up.

“You’re right, sir—right,” said Captain Wopper, with emphasis, while he looked earnestly into the face of the young doctor. “This world wasn’t made to be kicked about like a foot-ball by chance, or circumstances, or anything of the sort. Look ’ee here, sir; it has bin putt into my heart to feel charitable leanings, and a good bit o’ cash has bin putt into my pocket, so that, bein’ a lone sort o’ man, I don’t have much use for it. That’s on the one hand. On the other hand, here are you, sir, the son of a friend o’ my chum Willum Stout, with great need of aid from charitable people, an’ here we two are met together—both ready for action. Now, I call that a Providential arrangement, so please putt me down as one of your charitable friends. It’s little I can boast of in that way as yet but it’s not too late to begin. I’ve long arrears to pull up, so I’ll give you that to begin with. It’ll help to relieve Mrs Leven in the meantime.”

As he spoke, the Captain drew a black pocketbook from his breast pocket and, taking a piece of paper therefrom, placed it in the doctor’s hands.

“This is a fifty-pound note!” said Lawrence, in surprise.

“Well, what then?” returned the Captain. “You didn’t expect a thousand-pound note, did you?”