Rivers of Ice

“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. Well, to continue, then there’s Missis Stoutley, she’s falled in love too.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, with wittles. The Count Hur—what’s-’is-name, who’s always doin’ the purlite when he’s not mopin’, says it’s the mountain hair as is agreein’ with her, but I think its the hair-soup. Anyhow she’s more friendly with her wittles here than she ever was in England. After comin’ in from that excursion where them two stout fellers carried her up the mountains, an’ all but capsized her and themselves, incloodin’ the chair, down a precipice, while passin’ a string o’ mules on a track no broader than the brim of Mister Slingsby’s wide-awake, she took to her wittles with a sort of lovin’ awidity that an’t describable. The way she shovelled in the soup, an’ stowed away the mutton chops, an’ pitched into the pease and taters, to say nothing of cauliflower and cutlets, was a caution to the billions. It made my mouth water to look at her, an’ my eyes too—only that may have had somethin’ to do with the keyhole, for them ’otels of Chamouni are oncommon draughty. Yes,” continued Gillie, slowly, as if he were musing, “she’s failed in love with wittles, an’ it’s by no means a misplaced affection. It would be well for the Count if he could fall in the same direction. Did you ever look steadily at the Count, Susan?”

“I can’t say I ever did; at least not more so than at other people. Why?”

“Because, if you ever do look at him steadily, you’ll see care a-sittin’ wery heavy on his long yeller face. There’s somethin’ the matter with that Count, either in ’is head or ’is stummick, I ain’t sure which; but, whichever it is, it has descended to his darter, for that gal’s face is too anxious by half for such a young and pretty one. I have quite a sympathy, a sort o’ feller-feelin’, for that Count. He seems to me the wictim of a secret sorrow.”

Susan looked at her small admirer with surprise, and then burst into a hearty laugh.

“You’re a queer boy, Gillie.”

To an unsophisticated country girl like Susan Quick, the London street-boy must indeed have seemed a remarkable being. He was not indeed an absolute “Arab,” being the son of an honest hardworking mother, but being also the son of a drunken, ill-doing father, he had, in the course of an extensive experience of bringing his paternal parent home from gin-palaces and low theatres, imbibed a good deal of the superficial part of the “waif” character, and, but for the powerful and benign influence of his mother, might have long ago entered the ranks of our criminal population. As it was, he had acquired a knowledge of “the world” of London—its thoughts, feelings, and manners—which rendered him in Susan’s eyes a perfect miracle of intelligence; and she listened to his drolleries and precocious wisdom with open-mouthed admiration. Of course the urchin was quite aware of this, and plumed himself not a little on his powers of attraction.

“Yes,” continued Gillie, without remarking on Susan’s observation that he was a “queer boy,” for he esteemed that a compliment “the Count is the only man among ’em who hasn’t falled in love with nothink or nobody. But tell me, Susan, is your fair buzzum free from the—the tender—you know what?”

“Oh! yes,” laughed the maid, “quite free.”

“Ah!” said Gillie, with a sigh of satisfaction, “then there’s hope for me.”

“Of course there is plenty of hope,” said Susan, laughing still more heartily as she looked at the thing in blue and buttons which thus addressed her.

“But now, tell me, where are they talking of going to-day?”

“To the Jardang,” replied Gillie. “It was putt off to please the young ladies t’other day, and now it’s putt on to please the Professor. It seems to me that the Professor has got well to wind’ard of ’em all—as the Cappen would say; he can twirl the whole bilin’ of ’em round his little finger with his outlandish talk, which I believe is more than half nonsense. Hows’ever, he’s goin’ to take ’em all to the Jardang, to lunch there, an’ make some more obserwations and measurements of the ice. Why he takes so much trouble about sitch a trifle, beats my understandin’. If the ice is six feet, or six hundred feet thick, what then? If it moves, or if it don’t move, wot’s the odds, so long as yer ’appy? If it won’t move, w’y don’t they send for a company of London bobbies and make ’em tell it to ‘move on,’ it couldn’t refuse, you know, for nothin’ can resist that. Hows’ever, they are all goin’ to foller the lead of the Professor again to-day—them that was with ’em last time—not the Count though, for I heard him say (much to the distress apperiently of his darter) that he was goin’ on business to Marteeny, over the Tait Nwar, though what that is I don’t know—a mountain, I suppose. They’re all keen for goin’ over things in this country, an’ some of ’em goes under altogether in the doin’ of it. If I ain’t mistaken, that pleasant fate awaits Lord what’s-’is-name an’ Mr Lumbard, for I heard the Cappen sayin’, just afore I come to see you, that he was goin’ to take his Lordship to the main truck of Mount Blang by way of the signal halliards, in preference to the regular road.”

“Are the young ladies going?” asked Susan.

“Of course they are, from w’ich it follers that Mr Lewis an’ the mad artist are goin’ too.”

“And Mrs Stoutley?” asked Susan.

“No; it’s much too far and difficult for her.”

“Gillie, Gillie!” shouted a stentorian voice at this point in the conversation.

“Ay, ay, Cappen,” yelled Gillie, in reply. Rising and thrusting his hands into his pockets, he sauntered leisurely from the room, recommending the Captain, in an undertone, to save his wind for the mountainside.

Not long afterwards, the same parties that had accompanied the Professor to the Montanvert were toiling up the Mer de Glace, at a considerable distance above the scene of their former exploits, on their way to the Jardin.

The day was all that could be desired. There were a few clouds, but these were light and feathery; clear blue predominated all over the sky. Over the masses of the Jorasses and the peaks of the Géant, the Aiguille du Dru, the slopes of Mont Mallet, the pinnacles of Charmoz, and the rounded white summit of Mont Blanc—everywhere—the heavens were serene and beautiful.

The Jardin, towards which they ascended, lies like an island in the midst of the Glacier du Talèfre. It is a favourite expedition of travellers, being a verdant gem on a field of white—a true oasis in the desert of ice and snow—and within a five hours’ walk of Chamouni.

Their route lay partly on the moraines and partly over the surface of the glacier. On their previous visit to the Mer de Glace, those of the party to whom the sight was new imagined that they had seen all the wonders of the glacier world. They were soon undeceived. While at the Montanvert on their first excursion, they could turn their eyes from the sea of ice to the tree-clad slopes behind them, and at the Chapeau could gaze on a splendid stretch of the Vale of Chamouni to refresh their eyes when wearied with the rugged cataract of the Glacier des Bois; but as they advanced slowly up into the icy solitudes, all traces of the softer world were lost to view. Only ice and snow lay around them. Ice under foot, ice on the cliffs, ice in the mountain valleys, ice in the higher gorges, and snow on the summits,—except where these latter were so sharp and steep that snow could not find a lodgment. There was nothing in all the field of vision to remind them of the vegetable world from which they had passed as if by magic. As Lewis remarked, they seemed to have been suddenly transported to within the Arctic circle, and got lost among the ice-mountains of Spitzbergen or Nova Zembla.

“It is magnificent!” exclaimed Nita Horetzki with enthusiasm, as she paused on the summit of an ice-ridge, up the slippery sides of which she had been assisted by Antoine Grennon, who still held her little hand in his.

Ah, thoughtless man! he little knew what daggers of envy were lacerating the heart of the mad artist who would have given all that he possessed—colour-box and camp-stool included—to have been allowed to hold that little hand even for a few seconds! Indeed he had, in a fit of desperation, offered to aid her by taking the other hand when half-way up that very slope, but had slipped at the moment of making the offer and rolled to the bottom. Lewis, seeing the fate of his rival, wisely refrained from putting himself in a false position by offering any assistance, excusing his apparent want of gallantry by remarking that if he were doomed to slip into a crevasse he should prefer not to drag another along with him. Antoine, therefore, had the little hand all to himself.

The Professor, being a somewhat experienced ice-man, assisted Emma in all cases of difficulty. As for the Captain, Gillie, and Lawrence, they had quite enough to do to look after themselves.

“How different from what I had expected,” said Emma, resting a hand on the shoulder of Nita; “it is a very landscape of ice.”

Emma’s simile was not far-fetched. They had reached a part of the glacier where the slope and the configuration of the valley had caused severe strains on the ice in various directions, so that there were not only transverse crevasses but longitudinal cracks, which unitedly had cut up the ice into blocks of all shapes and sizes. These, as their position shifted, had become isolated, more or less,—and being partially melted by the sun, had assumed all sorts of fantastic shapes. There were ice-bridges, ice-caves, and ice obelisks and spires, some of which latter towered to a height of fifty feet or more; there were also forms suggestive of cottages and trees, with here and there real rivulets rippling down their icy beds, or leaping over pale blue ledges, or gliding into blue-green lakes, or plunging into black-blue chasms. The sun-light playing among these silvery realms—glinting over edges and peaks, blazing on broad masses, shimmering through semi-transparent cliffs, and casting soft grey shadows everywhere—was inexpressibly beautiful, while the whole, looming through a thin golden haze, seemed to be of gigantic proportions.

It seemed as if the region of ice around them must at one time have been in tremendous convulsions, but the Professor assured them that this was not the case, that the formation of crevasses and those confused heaps of ice called seracs was a slow and prolonged process. “Doubtless,” he said, “you have here and there the wild rush of avalanches, and suchlike convulsions, but the rupture of the great body of the ice is gradual. A crevasse is an almost invisible crack at first. It yawns slowly and takes a long time to open out to the dimensions and confusion which you see around.”

“What are those curious things?” asked Nita, pointing to some forms before her.

“They look like giant mushrooms,” said Captain Wopper.

“They are ice-tables,” answered Antoine.

“Blocks of stone on the top of cones of ice,” said the Professor. “Come, we will go near and examine one.”

The object in question was well suited to cause surprise, for it was found to be an enormous flat mass of rock, many tons in weight, perched on a pillar of ice and bearing some resemblance to a table with a central leg.

“Now,” said Captain Wopper emphatically, “that is a puzzler. How did it ever get up there?”

“I have read of such tables,” said Lawrence.

“They are the result of the sun’s action, I believe.”

“Oh, it’s all very well, Lawrence,” said Lewis, with a touch of sarcasm, “to talk in a vague way about the sun’s action, but it’s quite plain, even to an unphilosophical mind like mine, that the sun can’t lift a block of stone some tons in weight and clap it on the top of a pillar of ice about ten feet high.”

“Nevertheless the sun has done it,” returned Lawrence. “Am I not right Professor?”

The man of science, who had listened with a bland smile on his broad countenance, admitted that Lawrence was right.

“At first,” he said, “that big stone fell from the cliffs higher up the valley, and it has now been carried down thus far by the ice. During its progress the sun has been shining day by day and melting the surface of the ice all round, with the exception of that part which was covered by the rock. Thus the general level of the ice has been lowered and the protected portion left prominent with its protector on the top. The sides of the block of ice on which the rock has rested have also melted slowly, reducing it to the stalk or pillar which you now see. In time it will melt so much that the rock will slide off, fall on another part of the ice, which it will protect from the sun as before until another stem shall support it, and thus it will go on until it tumbles into a crevasse, reaches the under part of the glacier, perhaps there gets rolled and rounded into a boulder, and finally is discharged, many years hence, it may be, into the terminal moraine; or, perchance, it may get stranded on the sides of the valley among the débris or rubbish which we call the lateral moraine.”

As the party advanced, new, and, if possible; still more striking objects met the eye, while mysterious sounds struck the ear. Low grumbling noises and gurglings were heard underfoot, as if great boulders were dropping into buried lakes from the roofs of sub-glacial caverns, while, on the surface, the glacier was strewn here and there with débris which had fallen from steep parts of the mountains that rose beside them into the clouds. Sudden rushing sounds—as if of short-lived squalls, in the midst of which were crashes like the thunder of distant artillery—began now to attract attention, and a feeling of awe crept into the hearts of those of the party who were strangers to the ice-world. Sounds of unseen avalanches, muffled more or less according to distance, were mingled with what may be called the shots of the boulders, which fell almost every five minutes from the Aiguille Verte and other mountains, and there was something deeply impressive in the solemn echoes that followed each deep-toned growl, and were repeated until they died out in soft murmurs.

As the party crossed an ice-plain, whose surface was thickly strewn with the wreck of mountains, a sense of insecurity crept into the feelings of more than one member of it but not a word was said until a sudden and tremendous crash, followed by a continuous roar, was heard close at hand.

“An avalanche!” shouted Slingsby, pointing upwards, and turning back with the evident intention to fly.

It did indeed seem the wisest thing that man or woman could do in the circumstances, for, high up among the wild cliffs, huge masses of rock, mingled with ice, dirt, water, and snow, were seen rushing down a “couloir,” or steep gully, straight towards them.

“Rest tranquil where you are,” said the guide, laying his hand on the artist’s arm; “the couloir takes a bend, you see, near the bottom. There is no danger.”

Thus assured, the whole of the party stood still and gazed upward.

Owing to the great height from which the descending mass was pouring, the inexperienced were deceived as to the dimensions of the avalanche. It seemed at first as if the boulders were too small to account for the sounds created, but in a few seconds their real proportions became more apparent, especially when the whole rush came straight towards the spot on which the travellers stood with such an aspect of being fraught with inevitable destruction, that all of them except the guide shrank involuntarily backwards. At this crisis the chaotic mass was driven with terrible violence against the cliffs to the left of the couloir, and bounding, we might almost say fiercely, to the right, rushed out upon the frozen plain about two hundred yards in advance of the spot on which they stood.