Rivers of Ice by Robert Michael Ballantyne (books to read to improve english TXT) 📖

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