Chapter Twenty.Records a Serious Event.Our ramblers had now reached a place where a great expanse of rock surface was exposed, and the temptation to dilate on the action of glaciers proved too strong for the Professor. He therefore led those who were willing to follow to a suitable spot and pointed out the striations, flutings, and polishings of the granite, which showed that in former ages the glacier had passed there, although at that time it was far below in the valley. The polishings, he said, were caused by the ice slowly grinding over the surface of the rock, and the flutings and groovings were caused, not by the ice itself, but by stones which were embedded in its under surface, and which cut the solid granite as if with chisels.Meanwhile, Lewis and Emma, having taken the opportunity to search for plants, had wandered on a little in advance, and had come to another steep slope, which was, however, covered with snow at its upper part. Below, where it became steeper, there was no snow, only pure ice, which extended downwards to an immense distance, broken only here and there by a few rocks that cropped through its surface. It terminated in a rocky gorge, which was strewn thickly withdébrisfrom above.“Let us cross this,” said Emma, with a look of glee, for she possessed an adventurous spirit.“We’d better not,” answered Lewis. “The slope is very steep.”“True, O cautious cousin,” retorted Emma, with a laugh, “but it is covered here with snow that is soft and probably knee-deep. Go on it, sir, and try.”Thus commanded, Lewis obeyed, and found that the snow was indeed knee-deep, and that there was no possibility of their either slipping or falling, unless one were unusually careless, and even in that case the soft snow would have checked anything like an involuntary glissade.“Let me go first,” said Lewis.“Nay, I will go first,” returned Emma, “you will follow and pick me up if I should fall.”So saying, she stepped lightly into the snow and advanced, while her companion stood looking at her with a half-amused, half-anxious smile.She had not made six steps, and Lewis was on the point of following, when he observed that there was a crack across the snow just above where he stood, and the whole mass began to slide. For a moment he was transfixed with horror. The next he had sprung to his cousin’s side and seized her arm, shouting—“Emma! Emma! come back. Quick! It moves.” But poor Emma could not obey. She would as soon have expected the mountain itself to give way as the huge mass of snow on which she stood. At first its motion was slow, and Lewis struggled wildly to extricate her, but in vain, for the snow avalanche gathered speed as it advanced, and in its motion not only sank them to their waists, but turned them helplessly round, thus placing Lewis farthest from the firm land. He shouted now with all the power of his lungs for help, while Emma screamed from terror.Lawrence chanced to be nearest to them. He saw at a glance what had occurred, and dashed down the hill-side at headlong speed. A wave was driving in front of the couple, who were now embedded nearly to their armpits, while streams of snow were hissing all round them, and the mass was beginning to rush. One look sufficed to show Lawrence that rescue from the side was impossible, but, with that swift power of perception which is aroused in some natures by the urgent call to act, he observed that some yards lower down—near the place where the ice-slope began—there was a rock near to the side in the track of the avalanche, which it divided. Leaping down to this, he sprang into the sliding flood a little above it, and, with a powerful effort, caught the rock and drew himself upon it. Next moment Emma was borne past out of reach of his hand. Lawrence rushed deep into the snow and held out his alpenstock. Emma caught it. He felt himself turned irresistibly round, and a sick feeling of despair chilled his life-blood. At the same moment a powerful hand grasped his collar.“Hold on, Monsieur,” cried Antoine, in a deep, yet encouraging voice, “I’ve got you safe.”As he spoke, Emma shrieked, “I cannot hold on!”No wonder! She had not only to resist the rushing snow, but to sustain the drag of Lewis, who, as we have said, had been carried beyond his cousin, and whose only chance now lay in his retaining hold of her arm. Ere the words had quite left her lips, Lewis was seen deliberately to let go his hold and throw up his arm—it seemed as if waving it.Next moment Emma was dragged on the rock, where she and her companions stood gazing in horror as their companion was swept upon the ice-slope and carried down headlong. The snow was by this time whirled onward in a sort of mist or spray, in the midst of which Lewis was seen to strike a rock with his shoulder and swing violently round, while parts of his clothing were plainly rent from his body, but the painful sight did not last long. A few seconds more and he was hurled, apparently a lifeless form, among thedébrisand rocks far below.Death, in such a case, might have been expected to be instantaneous, but the very element that caused the poor youth’s fall, helped to save him. During the struggle for life while clinging to Emma’s arm, the check, brief though it was, sufficed to allow most of the snow to pass down before him, so that he finally fell on a comparatively soft bed; but it was clear that he had been terribly injured, and, what made matters worse, he had fallen into a deep gorge surrounded by precipices, which seemed to some of the party to render it quite impossible to reach him.“What is to be done?” exclaimed Lawrence, with intense anxiety. “He must be got at immediately. Delay of treatment in his case, even for a short time, may prove fatal.”“I know it, Monsieur,” said Antoine, who had been quietly but quickly uncoiling his rope. “One of the porters and I will descend by the precipices. They are too steep for any but well-accustomed hands and feet. You, Monsieur, understand pretty well the use of the axe and rope. Cut your way down the ice-slope with Jacques. He is a steady man, and may be trusted. Run, Rollo (to the third porter), and fetch aid from Gaspard’s châlet. It is the nearest. I need not say make haste.”These orders were delivered in a low, rapid voice. The men proceeded at once to obey them. At the same time Antoine and his comrade swung themselves down the cliffs, and were instantly lost to view. The young porter, whom he had named Rollo, was already going down the mountain at a smart run, and Jacques was on the ice-slope wielding his axe with ceaseless energy and effect, while Lawrence held the rope to which he was attached, and descended the rude and giddy staircase behind him.It was a terrible time for those who were left above in a state of inaction and deep anxiety, but there was no help for it. They had to content themselves with watching the rescue, and praying for success.It was not long before the guide and porter reached the spot where poor Lewis lay. He was not insensible, but a deadly pallor overspread his scarred face, and the position in which he lay betokened utter helplessness. He could scarcely speak, but whispered that he fancied he was not so much hurt as might have been expected, and expressed wonder at their having been so long in reaching him.The guide spoke to him with the tenderness of a woman. He knew well how severely the poor youth was injured, and handled him very delicately while making such preliminary arrangements as were in his power. A few drops of brandy and water were administered, the poor limbs were arranged in a position of greater comfort, and the torn rags of clothing wrapped round him.Soon they were joined by Lawrence, who merely whispered a few kind words, and proceeded at once to examine him. His chief anxiety was as to the amount of skin that had been destroyed. The examination revealed a terrible and bloody spectacle; over which we will draw a veil; yet there was reason to believe that the amount of skin torn off and abraded was not sufficient to cause death. Lawrence was comforted also by finding that no bones appeared to have been broken.Nothing could be done in the way of attempting a removal until the return of Rollo with a litter. Fortunately this was not long of being brought, for the young porter was active and willing, and Gaspard had promptly accompanied him with men and materials for the rescue.But it was a sad, slow, and painful process, to bear the poor youth’s frame from that savage gorge, and convey him on a litter, carried by four men, over glaciers and down rugged mountain sides, even although done by tender hearts and strong hands. Everything that ingenuity could contrive was done to relieve the sufferer, and when at last, after weary hours, they reached the high-road of the valley, a carriage was found waiting. A messenger had been sent in advance to fetch it, and Mrs Stoutley was in it.There was something quite touching in the quiet, firm air of self-restraint with which she met the procession, and afterwards tended her poor boy; it was so unlike her old character!The sun was setting in a field of golden glory when they carried Lewis into the hotel at Chamouni, and laid him on his bed—a mere wreck of his former self.
Our ramblers had now reached a place where a great expanse of rock surface was exposed, and the temptation to dilate on the action of glaciers proved too strong for the Professor. He therefore led those who were willing to follow to a suitable spot and pointed out the striations, flutings, and polishings of the granite, which showed that in former ages the glacier had passed there, although at that time it was far below in the valley. The polishings, he said, were caused by the ice slowly grinding over the surface of the rock, and the flutings and groovings were caused, not by the ice itself, but by stones which were embedded in its under surface, and which cut the solid granite as if with chisels.
Meanwhile, Lewis and Emma, having taken the opportunity to search for plants, had wandered on a little in advance, and had come to another steep slope, which was, however, covered with snow at its upper part. Below, where it became steeper, there was no snow, only pure ice, which extended downwards to an immense distance, broken only here and there by a few rocks that cropped through its surface. It terminated in a rocky gorge, which was strewn thickly withdébrisfrom above.
“Let us cross this,” said Emma, with a look of glee, for she possessed an adventurous spirit.
“We’d better not,” answered Lewis. “The slope is very steep.”
“True, O cautious cousin,” retorted Emma, with a laugh, “but it is covered here with snow that is soft and probably knee-deep. Go on it, sir, and try.”
Thus commanded, Lewis obeyed, and found that the snow was indeed knee-deep, and that there was no possibility of their either slipping or falling, unless one were unusually careless, and even in that case the soft snow would have checked anything like an involuntary glissade.
“Let me go first,” said Lewis.
“Nay, I will go first,” returned Emma, “you will follow and pick me up if I should fall.”
So saying, she stepped lightly into the snow and advanced, while her companion stood looking at her with a half-amused, half-anxious smile.
She had not made six steps, and Lewis was on the point of following, when he observed that there was a crack across the snow just above where he stood, and the whole mass began to slide. For a moment he was transfixed with horror. The next he had sprung to his cousin’s side and seized her arm, shouting—
“Emma! Emma! come back. Quick! It moves.” But poor Emma could not obey. She would as soon have expected the mountain itself to give way as the huge mass of snow on which she stood. At first its motion was slow, and Lewis struggled wildly to extricate her, but in vain, for the snow avalanche gathered speed as it advanced, and in its motion not only sank them to their waists, but turned them helplessly round, thus placing Lewis farthest from the firm land. He shouted now with all the power of his lungs for help, while Emma screamed from terror.
Lawrence chanced to be nearest to them. He saw at a glance what had occurred, and dashed down the hill-side at headlong speed. A wave was driving in front of the couple, who were now embedded nearly to their armpits, while streams of snow were hissing all round them, and the mass was beginning to rush. One look sufficed to show Lawrence that rescue from the side was impossible, but, with that swift power of perception which is aroused in some natures by the urgent call to act, he observed that some yards lower down—near the place where the ice-slope began—there was a rock near to the side in the track of the avalanche, which it divided. Leaping down to this, he sprang into the sliding flood a little above it, and, with a powerful effort, caught the rock and drew himself upon it. Next moment Emma was borne past out of reach of his hand. Lawrence rushed deep into the snow and held out his alpenstock. Emma caught it. He felt himself turned irresistibly round, and a sick feeling of despair chilled his life-blood. At the same moment a powerful hand grasped his collar.
“Hold on, Monsieur,” cried Antoine, in a deep, yet encouraging voice, “I’ve got you safe.”
As he spoke, Emma shrieked, “I cannot hold on!”
No wonder! She had not only to resist the rushing snow, but to sustain the drag of Lewis, who, as we have said, had been carried beyond his cousin, and whose only chance now lay in his retaining hold of her arm. Ere the words had quite left her lips, Lewis was seen deliberately to let go his hold and throw up his arm—it seemed as if waving it.
Next moment Emma was dragged on the rock, where she and her companions stood gazing in horror as their companion was swept upon the ice-slope and carried down headlong. The snow was by this time whirled onward in a sort of mist or spray, in the midst of which Lewis was seen to strike a rock with his shoulder and swing violently round, while parts of his clothing were plainly rent from his body, but the painful sight did not last long. A few seconds more and he was hurled, apparently a lifeless form, among thedébrisand rocks far below.
Death, in such a case, might have been expected to be instantaneous, but the very element that caused the poor youth’s fall, helped to save him. During the struggle for life while clinging to Emma’s arm, the check, brief though it was, sufficed to allow most of the snow to pass down before him, so that he finally fell on a comparatively soft bed; but it was clear that he had been terribly injured, and, what made matters worse, he had fallen into a deep gorge surrounded by precipices, which seemed to some of the party to render it quite impossible to reach him.
“What is to be done?” exclaimed Lawrence, with intense anxiety. “He must be got at immediately. Delay of treatment in his case, even for a short time, may prove fatal.”
“I know it, Monsieur,” said Antoine, who had been quietly but quickly uncoiling his rope. “One of the porters and I will descend by the precipices. They are too steep for any but well-accustomed hands and feet. You, Monsieur, understand pretty well the use of the axe and rope. Cut your way down the ice-slope with Jacques. He is a steady man, and may be trusted. Run, Rollo (to the third porter), and fetch aid from Gaspard’s châlet. It is the nearest. I need not say make haste.”
These orders were delivered in a low, rapid voice. The men proceeded at once to obey them. At the same time Antoine and his comrade swung themselves down the cliffs, and were instantly lost to view. The young porter, whom he had named Rollo, was already going down the mountain at a smart run, and Jacques was on the ice-slope wielding his axe with ceaseless energy and effect, while Lawrence held the rope to which he was attached, and descended the rude and giddy staircase behind him.
It was a terrible time for those who were left above in a state of inaction and deep anxiety, but there was no help for it. They had to content themselves with watching the rescue, and praying for success.
It was not long before the guide and porter reached the spot where poor Lewis lay. He was not insensible, but a deadly pallor overspread his scarred face, and the position in which he lay betokened utter helplessness. He could scarcely speak, but whispered that he fancied he was not so much hurt as might have been expected, and expressed wonder at their having been so long in reaching him.
The guide spoke to him with the tenderness of a woman. He knew well how severely the poor youth was injured, and handled him very delicately while making such preliminary arrangements as were in his power. A few drops of brandy and water were administered, the poor limbs were arranged in a position of greater comfort, and the torn rags of clothing wrapped round him.
Soon they were joined by Lawrence, who merely whispered a few kind words, and proceeded at once to examine him. His chief anxiety was as to the amount of skin that had been destroyed. The examination revealed a terrible and bloody spectacle; over which we will draw a veil; yet there was reason to believe that the amount of skin torn off and abraded was not sufficient to cause death. Lawrence was comforted also by finding that no bones appeared to have been broken.
Nothing could be done in the way of attempting a removal until the return of Rollo with a litter. Fortunately this was not long of being brought, for the young porter was active and willing, and Gaspard had promptly accompanied him with men and materials for the rescue.
But it was a sad, slow, and painful process, to bear the poor youth’s frame from that savage gorge, and convey him on a litter, carried by four men, over glaciers and down rugged mountain sides, even although done by tender hearts and strong hands. Everything that ingenuity could contrive was done to relieve the sufferer, and when at last, after weary hours, they reached the high-road of the valley, a carriage was found waiting. A messenger had been sent in advance to fetch it, and Mrs Stoutley was in it.
There was something quite touching in the quiet, firm air of self-restraint with which she met the procession, and afterwards tended her poor boy; it was so unlike her old character!
The sun was setting in a field of golden glory when they carried Lewis into the hotel at Chamouni, and laid him on his bed—a mere wreck of his former self.
Chapter Twenty One.Down in the Moraine at last.As the reader may suppose, the terrible accident to Lewis Stoutley put an end to further merry-making among our friends at Chamouni. Mrs Stoutley would have left for England at once if that had been possible, but Lewis could not be moved for several weeks. At first indeed, fears were entertained for his life, but his constitution being good, and not having been damaged by dissipation, he rallied sooner than might have been expected, although it was evident from the beginning that complete restoration could not be looked for until many months, perhaps years, had passed away.We need scarcely say, that the rapid improvement of his health was largely due to the tender watchful care of his mother.Since visiting Switzerland, that excellent lady’s spirit had undergone a considerable change. Without going minutely into particulars, we may say that the startling events which had occurred had been made the means of opening her spiritual eyes. It had occurred to her—she scarce knew how or why—that her Creator had a claim on her for more consideration than she had been in the habit, heretofore, of testifying by a few formalities on Sundays; that there must be some higher end and aim in life than the mere obtaining and maintaining of health, and the pursuit of pleasure; and that as there was a Saviour, whom she professed on Sundays to follow, there must be something real from which she had to be saved, as well as something real that had to be done. Sin, she knew, of course, was the evil from which everybody had to be saved; but, being a good-natured and easy-going woman, she really did not feel much troubled by sin. Little weaknesses she had, no doubt, but not half so many as other people she knew of. As to anything seriously worthy the name of sin, she did not believe she had any at all. It had never, until now, occurred to her that the treating of her best Friend, during a lifetime, with cool and systematic indifference, or with mere protestations, on Sundays, of adoration, was probably as great a sin as she could commit.Her thoughts on these points she did not at first mention to any one, but she received great help and enlightenment, as well as comfort, from the quiet sensible talk of Dr Lawrence, as he sat day after day, and hour after hour, at the bedside of his friend, endeavouring to cheer his spirits as well as to relieve his physical pain—for Lawrence was well fitted to do both.He was not by any means what is styled a sermoniser. He made no apparent effort to turn conversation into religious channels. Indeed we believe that when men talk with the unrestrained freedom of true friendship, conversation needs no directing. It will naturally flow along all channels, and into all the zigzags and crevices of human thought—religion included. Lewis was in great pain and serious danger. Lawrence was a man full of the Holy Spirit and love to Jesus. Out of the fullness of his heart his mouth spoke when his friend appeared to desire such converse; but he never bored him withanysubject—for it is possible to be a profane, as well as a religious, bore!As soon as Lewis could turn his mind to anything, after his being brought back to the hotel, he asked earnestly after Nita Horetzki.“She has left,” said Mrs Stoutley.“Left! D’you mean gone from Chamouni, mother?” exclaimed Lewis, with a start and a look of anxiety which he did not care to conceal.“Yes, they went yesterday. Nita had recovered sufficiently to travel, and the medical man who has been attending her urged her removal without delay. She and her father seemed both very sorry to leave us, and left kind messages for you. The Count wanted much to see you, but we would not allow it.”“Kind messages for me,” repeated Lewis, in a tone of bitterness, “what sort of messages?”“Well, really, I cannot exactly remember,” returned Mrs Stoutley, with a slight smile, “the kind of messages that amiable people might be expected to leave in the circumstances, you know—regret that they should have to leave us in such a sad condition, and sincere hope that you might soon recover, etcetera. Yes, by the way, Nita also, just at parting, expressed a hope—an earnest hope—that we might meet again. Poor dear thing, she is an extremely affectionate girl, and quite broke down when saying good-bye.”“D’you know where they have gone to, mother?”“No. They mean to move about from place to place, I believe.”“Nita said nothing about writing to you, did she?”“Did they leave any address—aposte restante—anywhere, or any clew whatever as to their whereabouts?”“None whatever.”So then, during the weary days of suffering that he knew full well lay before him, poor Lewis had no consolatory thought in regard to Nita save in her expressed “earnest hope” that they might meet again. It was not much, but it was better than nothing. Being an ingenious as well as daring architect, Lewis built amazing structures on that slight foundation—structures which charmed his mental eyes to look upon, and which, we verily believe, tended to facilitate his recovery—so potent is the power of true love!“Captain Wopper,” said Mrs Stoutley one morning, towards the end of their stay in Switzerland, Lewis having been pronounced sufficiently restored to travel homeward by easy stages, “I have sent for you to ask you to do me a favour—to give me your advice—your—”Here, to the Captain’s amazement, not to say consternation, Mrs Stoutley’s voice trembled, and she burst into tears. If she had suddenly caught him by the nose, pulled his rugged face down and kissed it, he could not have been more taken aback.“My dear madam,” he stammered, sitting down inadvertently on Mrs Stoutley’s bonnet—for it was to the good lady’s private dressing-room that he had been summoned by Gillie White—“hold on! don’t now, please! What ever have I done to—”“You’ve done nothing, my dear Captain,” said Mrs Stoutley, endeavouring to check her tears. “There, I’m very foolish, but I can’t help it. Indeed I can’t.”In proof of the truth of this assertion she broke down again, and the Captain, moving uneasily on his chair, ground the bonnet almost to powder—it was a straw one.“You have been a kind friend, Captain Wopper,” said Mrs Stoutley, drying her eyes, “a very kind friend.”“I’m glad you think so, ma’am; I’ve meant to be—anyhow.”“You have, you have,” cried Mrs Stoutley, earnestly, as she looked through her tears into the seaman’s rugged countenance, “and that is my reason for venturing to ask you now to trouble yourself with—with—”There was an alarming symptom here of a recurrence of “squally weather,” which caused the Captain to give the bonnet an “extra turn,” but she recovered herself and went on—“With my affairs. I would not have thought of troubling you, but with poor Lewie so ill, and Dr Lawrence being so young, and probably inexperienced in the ways of life, and Emma so innocent and helpless, and—in short I’m—hee!—that is to say—ho dear! Iamso silly, but I can’t—indeed I can’t—hoo–o–o!”It blew a regular gale now, and a very rain of strawdébrisfell through the cane-bottomed chair on which the Captain sat, as he vainly essayed to sooth his friend by earnest, pathetic, and even tender adjurations to “clap a stopper upon that,” to “hold hard,” to “belay”, to “shut down the dead-lights of her peepers,” and such-like expressive phrases.At length, amid many sobs, the poor lady revealed the overwhelming fact that she was a beggar; that she had actually come down to her last franc; that her man of business had flatly declined to advance her another sovereign, informing her that the Gorong mine had declared “no dividend;” that the wreck of her shattered fortune had been swallowed up by the expenses of their ill-advised trip to Switzerland, and that she had not even funds enough to pay their travelling expenses home; in short that she was a miserable boulder, at the lowest level of the terminal moraine!To all this Captain Wopper listened in perfect silence, with a blank expression on his face that revealed nothing of the state of feeling within.“Oh! Captain Wopper,” exclaimed the poor lady anxiously, “surely—surelyyouwon’t forsake me! I know that I have no claim on you beyond friendship, but you have always given us to understand that you were well off, and I merely wish toborrowa small sum. Just enough, and no more. Perhaps I may not be able to repay you just immediately, but I hope soon; and even if it came to the worst, there is the furniture in Euston Square, and the carriage and horses.”Poor Mrs Stoutley! She was not aware that her man of business had already had these resources appraised, and that they no more belonged to her at that moment than if they had been part of the personal estate of the celebrated man in the moon.Still the Captain gazed at her in stolid silence.“Even my personal wardrobe,” proceeded Mrs Stoutley, beginning again to weep, “I will gladly dis—”“Avast! Madam,” cried the Captain, suddenly, thrusting his right hand into his breeches-pocket, and endeavouring to drag something therefrom with a series of wrenches that would have been terribly trying to the bonnet, had its ruin not been already complete, “don’t talk to me of repayment. Ain’t I your—your—husband’s brother’s buzzum friend—Willum’s old chum an’ messmate? See here.”He jerked the chair (without rising) close to a table which stood at his elbow, and placed thereon a large canvas bag, much soiled, and tied round the neck with a piece of rope-yarn, which smelt of tar even at a distance. This was the Captain’s purse. He carried it always in his right trouser-pocket, and it contained his gold. As for such trifling metal as silver, he carried that loose, mixed with coppers, bits of tobacco, broken pipes, and a clasp-knife, in the other pocket. He was very fond of his purse. In California he had been wont to carry nuggets in it, that simple species of exchange being the chief currency of the country at the time he was there. Some of the Californiandébrishad stuck to it when he had filled it, at a place of exchange in London, with Napoleons. Emptying its glittering contents upon the table, he spread it out.“There, madam,” he said, with a hearty smile, “you’re welcome to all I’ve got about me just at this moment, and you shall have more when that’s done. Don’t say ‘not so much,’ cause it ain’t much, fifty pound, more or less, barrin’ the nuggets, which I’ll keep, as I dessay they would only worry you, and there’s plenty more shot in the locker where that come from; an’ don’t talk about payin’ back or thankin’ me. You’ve no occasion to thank me. It’s only a loan, an’ I’ll hold Willum, your brother-in-law, responsible. You wouldn’t decline to take it from Willum, would you?”“Indeed no; William Stout has always been so kind to us—kinder than I have deserved.”“Well, then, I’ll write to Willum. I’ll say to him, ‘Willum, my boy, here’s your brother’s widdy bin caught in a squall, had her sails blown to ribbons, bin throw’d on her beam-ends, and every stick torn out of her. You’ve got more cash, Willum, than you knows what to do with, so, hand over, send me a power of attorney (is that the thing?) or an affydavy—whatever lawyer’s dockiments is required—an’ I’ll stand by and do the needful.’ An’ Willum ’ll write back, with that power an’ brevity for which he is celebrated,—‘Wopper, my lad, all right; fire away. Anything short o’ ten thousand, more or less. Do yer w’ust. Yours to command,“‘Willum.’”There was no resisting such arguments. Mrs Stoutley smiled through her tears as she accepted the money. Captain Wopper rose, crammed the empty canvas bag into his pocket, and hastily retired, with portions of the bonnet attached to him.“Susan,” said Mrs Stoutley, on the maid answering her summons, “we shall start for London tomorrow, or the day after, so, pray, set about packing up without delay.”“Very well, ma’am,” replied Susan, whose eyes were riveted with an expression of surprised curiosity on the cane-bottomed chair.“It is my bonnet Susan,” said the lady, looking in the same direction with a sad smile. “Captain Wopper sat down on it by mistake. You had better remove it.”To remove it was a feat which even Susan, with all her ready wit and neatness of hand, could not have accomplished without the aid of brush and shovel. She, therefore, carried it off chair and all, to the regions below, where she and Gillie went into convulsions over it.“Oh! Susan,” exclaimed the blue spider, “wot would I not have given to have seed him a-doin’ of it! Only think! The ribbons, flowers, and straw in one uniwarsal mush!Wota grindin’ there must ave bin! I heer’d the Purfesser the other day talkin’ of wot he calls glacier-haction—how they flutes the rocks an’ grinds in a most musical way over the boulders with crushin’ wiolence; but wot’s glacier haction tothat?”Susan admitted that it was nothing; and they both returned at intervals in the packing, during the remainder of that day, to have another look at the bonnet-débris, and enjoy a fresh explosion over it.
As the reader may suppose, the terrible accident to Lewis Stoutley put an end to further merry-making among our friends at Chamouni. Mrs Stoutley would have left for England at once if that had been possible, but Lewis could not be moved for several weeks. At first indeed, fears were entertained for his life, but his constitution being good, and not having been damaged by dissipation, he rallied sooner than might have been expected, although it was evident from the beginning that complete restoration could not be looked for until many months, perhaps years, had passed away.
We need scarcely say, that the rapid improvement of his health was largely due to the tender watchful care of his mother.
Since visiting Switzerland, that excellent lady’s spirit had undergone a considerable change. Without going minutely into particulars, we may say that the startling events which had occurred had been made the means of opening her spiritual eyes. It had occurred to her—she scarce knew how or why—that her Creator had a claim on her for more consideration than she had been in the habit, heretofore, of testifying by a few formalities on Sundays; that there must be some higher end and aim in life than the mere obtaining and maintaining of health, and the pursuit of pleasure; and that as there was a Saviour, whom she professed on Sundays to follow, there must be something real from which she had to be saved, as well as something real that had to be done. Sin, she knew, of course, was the evil from which everybody had to be saved; but, being a good-natured and easy-going woman, she really did not feel much troubled by sin. Little weaknesses she had, no doubt, but not half so many as other people she knew of. As to anything seriously worthy the name of sin, she did not believe she had any at all. It had never, until now, occurred to her that the treating of her best Friend, during a lifetime, with cool and systematic indifference, or with mere protestations, on Sundays, of adoration, was probably as great a sin as she could commit.
Her thoughts on these points she did not at first mention to any one, but she received great help and enlightenment, as well as comfort, from the quiet sensible talk of Dr Lawrence, as he sat day after day, and hour after hour, at the bedside of his friend, endeavouring to cheer his spirits as well as to relieve his physical pain—for Lawrence was well fitted to do both.
He was not by any means what is styled a sermoniser. He made no apparent effort to turn conversation into religious channels. Indeed we believe that when men talk with the unrestrained freedom of true friendship, conversation needs no directing. It will naturally flow along all channels, and into all the zigzags and crevices of human thought—religion included. Lewis was in great pain and serious danger. Lawrence was a man full of the Holy Spirit and love to Jesus. Out of the fullness of his heart his mouth spoke when his friend appeared to desire such converse; but he never bored him withanysubject—for it is possible to be a profane, as well as a religious, bore!
As soon as Lewis could turn his mind to anything, after his being brought back to the hotel, he asked earnestly after Nita Horetzki.
“She has left,” said Mrs Stoutley.
“Left! D’you mean gone from Chamouni, mother?” exclaimed Lewis, with a start and a look of anxiety which he did not care to conceal.
“Yes, they went yesterday. Nita had recovered sufficiently to travel, and the medical man who has been attending her urged her removal without delay. She and her father seemed both very sorry to leave us, and left kind messages for you. The Count wanted much to see you, but we would not allow it.”
“Kind messages for me,” repeated Lewis, in a tone of bitterness, “what sort of messages?”
“Well, really, I cannot exactly remember,” returned Mrs Stoutley, with a slight smile, “the kind of messages that amiable people might be expected to leave in the circumstances, you know—regret that they should have to leave us in such a sad condition, and sincere hope that you might soon recover, etcetera. Yes, by the way, Nita also, just at parting, expressed a hope—an earnest hope—that we might meet again. Poor dear thing, she is an extremely affectionate girl, and quite broke down when saying good-bye.”
“D’you know where they have gone to, mother?”
“No. They mean to move about from place to place, I believe.”
“Nita said nothing about writing to you, did she?”
“Did they leave any address—aposte restante—anywhere, or any clew whatever as to their whereabouts?”
“None whatever.”
So then, during the weary days of suffering that he knew full well lay before him, poor Lewis had no consolatory thought in regard to Nita save in her expressed “earnest hope” that they might meet again. It was not much, but it was better than nothing. Being an ingenious as well as daring architect, Lewis built amazing structures on that slight foundation—structures which charmed his mental eyes to look upon, and which, we verily believe, tended to facilitate his recovery—so potent is the power of true love!
“Captain Wopper,” said Mrs Stoutley one morning, towards the end of their stay in Switzerland, Lewis having been pronounced sufficiently restored to travel homeward by easy stages, “I have sent for you to ask you to do me a favour—to give me your advice—your—”
Here, to the Captain’s amazement, not to say consternation, Mrs Stoutley’s voice trembled, and she burst into tears. If she had suddenly caught him by the nose, pulled his rugged face down and kissed it, he could not have been more taken aback.
“My dear madam,” he stammered, sitting down inadvertently on Mrs Stoutley’s bonnet—for it was to the good lady’s private dressing-room that he had been summoned by Gillie White—“hold on! don’t now, please! What ever have I done to—”
“You’ve done nothing, my dear Captain,” said Mrs Stoutley, endeavouring to check her tears. “There, I’m very foolish, but I can’t help it. Indeed I can’t.”
In proof of the truth of this assertion she broke down again, and the Captain, moving uneasily on his chair, ground the bonnet almost to powder—it was a straw one.
“You have been a kind friend, Captain Wopper,” said Mrs Stoutley, drying her eyes, “a very kind friend.”
“I’m glad you think so, ma’am; I’ve meant to be—anyhow.”
“You have, you have,” cried Mrs Stoutley, earnestly, as she looked through her tears into the seaman’s rugged countenance, “and that is my reason for venturing to ask you now to trouble yourself with—with—”
There was an alarming symptom here of a recurrence of “squally weather,” which caused the Captain to give the bonnet an “extra turn,” but she recovered herself and went on—
“With my affairs. I would not have thought of troubling you, but with poor Lewie so ill, and Dr Lawrence being so young, and probably inexperienced in the ways of life, and Emma so innocent and helpless, and—in short I’m—hee!—that is to say—ho dear! Iamso silly, but I can’t—indeed I can’t—hoo–o–o!”
It blew a regular gale now, and a very rain of strawdébrisfell through the cane-bottomed chair on which the Captain sat, as he vainly essayed to sooth his friend by earnest, pathetic, and even tender adjurations to “clap a stopper upon that,” to “hold hard,” to “belay”, to “shut down the dead-lights of her peepers,” and such-like expressive phrases.
At length, amid many sobs, the poor lady revealed the overwhelming fact that she was a beggar; that she had actually come down to her last franc; that her man of business had flatly declined to advance her another sovereign, informing her that the Gorong mine had declared “no dividend;” that the wreck of her shattered fortune had been swallowed up by the expenses of their ill-advised trip to Switzerland, and that she had not even funds enough to pay their travelling expenses home; in short that she was a miserable boulder, at the lowest level of the terminal moraine!
To all this Captain Wopper listened in perfect silence, with a blank expression on his face that revealed nothing of the state of feeling within.
“Oh! Captain Wopper,” exclaimed the poor lady anxiously, “surely—surelyyouwon’t forsake me! I know that I have no claim on you beyond friendship, but you have always given us to understand that you were well off, and I merely wish toborrowa small sum. Just enough, and no more. Perhaps I may not be able to repay you just immediately, but I hope soon; and even if it came to the worst, there is the furniture in Euston Square, and the carriage and horses.”
Poor Mrs Stoutley! She was not aware that her man of business had already had these resources appraised, and that they no more belonged to her at that moment than if they had been part of the personal estate of the celebrated man in the moon.
Still the Captain gazed at her in stolid silence.
“Even my personal wardrobe,” proceeded Mrs Stoutley, beginning again to weep, “I will gladly dis—”
“Avast! Madam,” cried the Captain, suddenly, thrusting his right hand into his breeches-pocket, and endeavouring to drag something therefrom with a series of wrenches that would have been terribly trying to the bonnet, had its ruin not been already complete, “don’t talk to me of repayment. Ain’t I your—your—husband’s brother’s buzzum friend—Willum’s old chum an’ messmate? See here.”
He jerked the chair (without rising) close to a table which stood at his elbow, and placed thereon a large canvas bag, much soiled, and tied round the neck with a piece of rope-yarn, which smelt of tar even at a distance. This was the Captain’s purse. He carried it always in his right trouser-pocket, and it contained his gold. As for such trifling metal as silver, he carried that loose, mixed with coppers, bits of tobacco, broken pipes, and a clasp-knife, in the other pocket. He was very fond of his purse. In California he had been wont to carry nuggets in it, that simple species of exchange being the chief currency of the country at the time he was there. Some of the Californiandébrishad stuck to it when he had filled it, at a place of exchange in London, with Napoleons. Emptying its glittering contents upon the table, he spread it out.
“There, madam,” he said, with a hearty smile, “you’re welcome to all I’ve got about me just at this moment, and you shall have more when that’s done. Don’t say ‘not so much,’ cause it ain’t much, fifty pound, more or less, barrin’ the nuggets, which I’ll keep, as I dessay they would only worry you, and there’s plenty more shot in the locker where that come from; an’ don’t talk about payin’ back or thankin’ me. You’ve no occasion to thank me. It’s only a loan, an’ I’ll hold Willum, your brother-in-law, responsible. You wouldn’t decline to take it from Willum, would you?”
“Indeed no; William Stout has always been so kind to us—kinder than I have deserved.”
“Well, then, I’ll write to Willum. I’ll say to him, ‘Willum, my boy, here’s your brother’s widdy bin caught in a squall, had her sails blown to ribbons, bin throw’d on her beam-ends, and every stick torn out of her. You’ve got more cash, Willum, than you knows what to do with, so, hand over, send me a power of attorney (is that the thing?) or an affydavy—whatever lawyer’s dockiments is required—an’ I’ll stand by and do the needful.’ An’ Willum ’ll write back, with that power an’ brevity for which he is celebrated,—‘Wopper, my lad, all right; fire away. Anything short o’ ten thousand, more or less. Do yer w’ust. Yours to command,
“‘Willum.’”
There was no resisting such arguments. Mrs Stoutley smiled through her tears as she accepted the money. Captain Wopper rose, crammed the empty canvas bag into his pocket, and hastily retired, with portions of the bonnet attached to him.
“Susan,” said Mrs Stoutley, on the maid answering her summons, “we shall start for London tomorrow, or the day after, so, pray, set about packing up without delay.”
“Very well, ma’am,” replied Susan, whose eyes were riveted with an expression of surprised curiosity on the cane-bottomed chair.
“It is my bonnet Susan,” said the lady, looking in the same direction with a sad smile. “Captain Wopper sat down on it by mistake. You had better remove it.”
To remove it was a feat which even Susan, with all her ready wit and neatness of hand, could not have accomplished without the aid of brush and shovel. She, therefore, carried it off chair and all, to the regions below, where she and Gillie went into convulsions over it.
“Oh! Susan,” exclaimed the blue spider, “wot would I not have given to have seed him a-doin’ of it! Only think! The ribbons, flowers, and straw in one uniwarsal mush!Wota grindin’ there must ave bin! I heer’d the Purfesser the other day talkin’ of wot he calls glacier-haction—how they flutes the rocks an’ grinds in a most musical way over the boulders with crushin’ wiolence; but wot’s glacier haction tothat?”
Susan admitted that it was nothing; and they both returned at intervals in the packing, during the remainder of that day, to have another look at the bonnet-débris, and enjoy a fresh explosion over it.
Chapter Twenty Two.Mysterious Proceedings of the Captain and Gillie.We are back again in London—in Mrs Roby’s little cabin at the top of the old tenement in Grubb’s Court.Captain Wopper is there, of course. So is Mrs Roby. Gillie White is there also, and Susan Quick. The Captain is at home. The two latter are on a visit—a social tea-party. Little Netta White, having deposited Baby White in the mud at the lowest corner of the Court for greater security, is waiting upon them—a temporary handmaiden, relieving, by means of variety, the cares of permanent nursehood. Mrs White is up to the elbows in soap-suds, taking at least ocular and vocal charge of the babe in the mud, and her husband is—“drunk, as usual?” No—there is a change there. Good of some kind has been somewhere at work. Either knowingly or unwittingly some one has been “overcoming evil with good,” for Mrs White’s husband is down at the docks toiling hard to earn a few pence wherewith to increase the family funds. And who can tell what a terrible yet hopeful war is going on within that care-worn, sin-worn man? To toil hard with shattered health is burden enough. What must it be when, along with the outward toil, there is a constant fight with a raging watchful devil within? But the man has given that devil some desperate falls of late. Oh, how often and how long he has fought with him, and been overcome, cast down, and his armoury of resolutions scattered to the winds! But he has been to see some one, or some one has been to see him, who has advised him to try another kind of armour—not his own. He knows the power of a “new affection” now. Despair was his portion not long ago. He is now animated by Hope, for the long uncared-for name of Jesus is now growing sweet to his ear. But the change has taken place recently, and he looks very weary as he toils and fights.“Well, mother,” said Captain Wopper, “now that I’ve given you a full, true, an’ partikler account of Switzerland, what d’ee think of it?”“It is a strange place—very, but I don’t approve of people risking their lives and breaking their limbs for the mere pleasure of getting to the top of a mountain of ice.”“But we can’t do anything in life without riskin’ our lives an’ breakin’ our limbs more or less,” said the Captain.“An’ think o’ the interests of science,” said Gillie, quoting the Professor.Mrs Roby shook her tall cap and remained unconvinced. To have expected the old nurse to take an enlightened view on that point would have been as unreasonable as to have looked for just views in Gillie White on the subject of conic sections.“Why, mother, a man may break a leg or an arm in going down stairs,” said the Captain, pursuing the subject; “by the way, that reminds me to ask for Fred Leven. Didn’t I hear thathebroke his arm coming up his own stair? Is it true?”“True enough,” replied Mrs Roby.“Was he the worse of liquor at the time?”“No. It was dark, and he was carrying a heavy box of something or other for his mother. Fred is a reformed man. I think the sight of your poor father, Gillie, has had something to do with it, and that night when his mother nearly died. At all events he never touches drink now, and he has got a good situation in one of the warehouses at the docks.”“That’s well,” returned the Captain, with satisfaction. “I had hopes of that young feller from the night you mention. Now, mother, I’m off. Gillie and I have some business to transact up the water. Very particular business—eh, lad?”“Oh! wery partickler,” said Gillie, responding to his patron’s glance with a powerful wink.Expressing a hope that Susan would keep Mrs Roby company till he returned, the Captain left the room with his usual heavy roll, and the spider followed with imitative swagger.Captain Wopper was fond of mystery. Although he had, to some extent made a confidant of the boy for whom he had taken so strong a fancy, he nevertheless usually maintained a dignified distance of demeanour towards him, and a certain amount of reticence, which, as a stern disciplinarian, he deemed to be essential. This, however, did not prevent him from indulging in occasional, not to say frequent, unbendings of disposition, which he condescended to exhibit by way of encouragement to his smallprotégé; but these unbendings and confidences were always more or less shrouded in mystery. Many of them, indeed, consisted of nothing more intelligible than nods, grins, and winks.“That’ll be rather a nice cottage when it’s launched,” said the Captain, pointing to a building in process of erection, which stood so close to the edge of the Thames that its being launched seemed as much a literal allusion as a metaphor.“Raither bobbish,” assented the spider.“Clean run fore and aft with bluff bows, like a good sea-boat,” said the Captain. “Come, let’s have a look at it.”Asking permission to enter of a workman who granted the same with, what appeared to Gillie, an unnecessarily broad grin, the Captain led the way up a spiral staircase. It bore such a strong resemblance to the familiar one of Grubb’s Court that Gillie’s eyes enlarged with surprise, and he looked involuntarily back for his soapy mother and the babe in the mud. There were, however, strong points of dissimilarity, inasmuch as there was no mud or filth of any kind near the new building except lime; and the stair, instead of leading like that of the Tower of Babel an interminable distance upwards, ended abruptly at the second floor. Here, however, there was a passage exactly similar to the passage leading to Mrs Roby’s cabin, save that it was well lighted, and at the end thereof was an almost exact counterpart of the cabin itself. There was the same low roof, the same little fireplace, with the space above for ornaments, and the same couple of little windows looking out upon a stretch of the noble river, from which you might have fished. There was the same colour of paint on the walls, which had been so managed as to represent the dinginess of antiquity. There was also, to all appearance, Mrs Roby’s own identical bed, with its chintz curtains. Here, however, resemblance ended, for there was none of the Grubb’s Court dirt. The craft on the river were not so large or numerous, the reach being above the bridges. If you had fished you not have hooked rats or dead cats, and if you had put your head out and looked round, you would have encountered altogether a clean, airy, and respectable neighbourhood, populous enough to be quite cheery, with occasional gardens instead of mud-banks, and without interminable rows of tall chimney-pots excluding the light of heaven.Gillie, not yet having been quite cured of his objectionable qualities, at once apostrophised his eye and Elizabeth Martin.“As like as two peas, barrin’ the dirt!”The Captain evidently enjoyed the lad’s astonishment.“A ship-shape sort o’ craft, ain’t it? It wouldn’t be a bad joke to buy it—eh?”Gillie, who was rather perplexed, but too much a man of the world to disclose much of his state of mind, said that it wouldn’t be a bad move for any feller who had got the blunt. “How much would it cost now?”“A thousand pounds, more or less,” said the Captain, with discreet allowance for latitude.“Ha! a goodish lump, no doubt.”“I’ve half a mind to buy it,” continued the Captain, looking round with a satisfied smile. “It would be an amoosin’ sort o’ thing, now, to bring old Mrs Roby here. The air would be fresher for her old lungs, wouldn’t it?”Gillie nodded, but was otherwise reticent.“The stair, too, wouldn’t be too high to get her down now and again, and a boat could be handy to shove her into without much exertion. For the matter of that,” said the Captain, looking out, “we might have a slide made, like a Swiss couloir, you know, and she could glissade comfortably into the boat out o’ the winder. Then, there’s a beam to hang her ship an’ Chinee lanterns from, an’ a place over the fireplace to stick her knick-knacks. What d’ee think, my lad?”Gillie, who had begun to allow a ray of light to enter his mind, gave, as his answer, an emphatic nod and a broad grin.The Captain replied with a nod and a wink, whereupon the other retired behind his patron, for the purpose of giving himself a quiet hug of delight, in which act, however, he was caught; the Captain being one who always, according to his own showing, kept his weather-eye open.“W’y, what’s the matter with you, boy?”“Pains in the stummick is aggrawatin’ sometimes,” answered Gillie.“You haven’t got ’em, have you?”“Well, I can’t exactly go for to say as I has,” answered Gillie, with another grin.“Now, look ’ee here, youngster,” said the Captain, suddenly seizing the spider by his collar and trousers, and swinging him as though about to hurl him through the window into the river, “if you go an’ let your tongue wag in regard to this matter, out you go, right through the port-hole—d’ee see?”He set the spider quietly on his legs again, who replied, with unruffled coolness—“Mum’s the word, Cappen.”Gillie had been shorn of his blue tights and brass buttons, poor Mrs Stoutley having found it absolutely necessary, on her return home, to dismiss all her servants, dispose of all her belongings, and retire into the privacy of a poor lodging in a back street. Thus the spider had come to be suddenly thrown on the world again, but Captain Wopper had retained him, he said, as a mixture of errand-boy, cabin-boy, and powder-monkey, in which capacity he dwelt with his mother during the night and revolved like a satellite round the Captain during the day. A suit of much more appropriate pepper-and-salt had replaced the blue tights and buttons. Altogether, histout-ensemblewas what the Captain styled “more ship-shape.”We have said that Mrs Stoutley and her family had made a descent in life. As poor Lewis remarked, with a sad smile, they had quitted the gay and glittering heights, and gone, like a magnificent avalanche, down into the moraine. Social, not less than physical, avalanches multiply their parts and widen their course during descent. The Stoutleys did not fall alone. A green-grocer, a shoemaker, and a baker, who had long been trembling, like human boulders, on the precipice of bankruptcy, went tumbling down along with them, and found rest in a lower part of the moraine than they had previously occupied.“It’s a sad business,” said Lewis to Dr Lawrence one morning; “and if you continue to attend me, you must do so without the most distant prospect of a fee.”“My dear fellow,” returned Lawrence, “have you no such thing as gratitude in your composition?”“Not much, and, if I had ever so much, it would be poor pay.”“Poor, indeed, if regarded as one’s only source of livelihood,” rejoined Lawrence, “but it is ample remuneration from a friend, whether rich or poor, and, happily, capable of being mixed with pounds, shillings and pence without deterioration. In the present case, I shall be more than rejoiced to take the fee unmixed, but, whether fee’d or not fee’d, I insist on continuing attendance on a case which I have a right to consider peculiarly my own.”“It would have been a bad case, indeed, but for you,” returned Lewis, a flush for a moment suffusing his pale cheek as he took his friend’s hand and squeezed it. “I am thoroughly convinced, Lawrence, that God’s blessing on your skill and unwearied care of me at the time of the accident is the cause of my being alive to thank you to-day. But sit down, my dear fellow, and pray postpone your professional inquiries for a little, as I have something on my mind which I wish to ask you about.”Lawrence shook his head. “Business first, pleasure afterwards,” he said; “professional duties must not be postponed.”“Now,” said Lewis when he had finished, “are you satisfied? Do you admit that even an unprofessional man might have seen at a glance that I am much better, and that your present draft on my gratitude is a mere swindle?”“I admit nothing,” retorted the other; “but now, what have you got to say to me?”“I am going to make a confidant of you. Are you to be trusted?”“Perhaps; I dare not say yes unconditionally, because I’m rather sociable and communicative, and apt to talk in my sleep.”“That will do. Your answer is sufficiently modest. I will venture. You know Captain Wopper, I mean, you are well acquainted with his character; well, that kind and eccentric man has made a proposal to my dear mother, which we do not like to accept, and which at the same time we do not quite see our way to refuse. My mother, when in great distress in Switzerland, was forced to borrow a small sum of money from him, and thought it right to justify her doing so by letting him know—what everybody, alas! may know now—that we were ruined. With that ready kindness which is his chief characteristic he at once complied. Since our return home he has, with great delicacy but much determination, insisted that we shall accept from him a regular weekly allowance until we have had time to correspond with our uncle Stout in California. ‘You mustn’t starve,’ he said to my mother—I give you his own words—‘and you’d be sure to starve if you was to try to wegitate for six months or so on atmospheric air. It’ll take that time before you could get a letter from Willum, an’ though your son Lewis could an’ would, work like a nigger to keep your pot bilin’ if he was well an’ hearty, it’s as plain as the nose on your own face, ma’am, that he can’t work while he’s as thin as a fathom of pump-water an’ as weak as a babby. Now, you know-at least I can tell ’ee—that my old chum Willum is as rich as a East Injin nabob. You wouldn’t believe, madam, what fortins some gold-diggers have made. W’y, I’ve seed men light their pipes with fi’-pun’ notes for a mere brag out there. I’ve made a goodish lump o’ money myself too,—a’most more than I know what to do with, an’ as to Willum, I may say he’s actooally rollin’ in gold. He’s also chockfull of regard for you and yours, ma’am. That bein’ so, he’s sure to send you somethin’ to tide you over yer difficulties, an’ he’s also sure to send somethin’ to Lewis to help him start fair when he gits well, and he’s surest of all to send somethin’ to Miss Emma for all the kind letters she’s writ to him doorin’ the last five or six years. Well, then, I’m Willum’s buzzum friend, and, knowin’ exactly what he’ll say an’ do in the circumstances, what more nat’ral an’ proper than that Willum’s chum should anticipate Willum’s wishes, and advance the money—some of it at least—say three thousand pounds to start with.’ Now, Lawrence,” continued Lewis, “what should we do? Should we accept this offer? The good fellow has evidently made a great deal of money at the gold-fields, and no doubt speaks truly when he says he can afford to advance that sum. And we know our uncle William’s character well enough, though we have never seen him, to be quite sure that he will assist my dear mother until I am able to support her. What say you?”“Accept the offer at once,” said Lawrence. “From what I have seen of the Captain, I am convinced that he is a warm friend and a genuine man. No doubt he can well afford to do what he proposes, and his opinion of William Stout’s character is just, for, from what I know of him through Mrs Roby, who knew him when he was a lad, when his life was saved by my father, he must have a kind heart.”“I have no doubt of it, Lawrence, and a grateful heart too, if I may judge from a few words that fell from Captain Wopper about your father and yourself.”“Indeed! what did he say about us?”“I have no right to repeat observations dropped inadvertently,” said Lewis, with a laugh.“Nor to raise curiosity which you don’t mean to satisfy,” retorted his friend; “however, my advice is, that you accept the Captain’s offer, and trust to your uncle’s generosity.”
We are back again in London—in Mrs Roby’s little cabin at the top of the old tenement in Grubb’s Court.
Captain Wopper is there, of course. So is Mrs Roby. Gillie White is there also, and Susan Quick. The Captain is at home. The two latter are on a visit—a social tea-party. Little Netta White, having deposited Baby White in the mud at the lowest corner of the Court for greater security, is waiting upon them—a temporary handmaiden, relieving, by means of variety, the cares of permanent nursehood. Mrs White is up to the elbows in soap-suds, taking at least ocular and vocal charge of the babe in the mud, and her husband is—“drunk, as usual?” No—there is a change there. Good of some kind has been somewhere at work. Either knowingly or unwittingly some one has been “overcoming evil with good,” for Mrs White’s husband is down at the docks toiling hard to earn a few pence wherewith to increase the family funds. And who can tell what a terrible yet hopeful war is going on within that care-worn, sin-worn man? To toil hard with shattered health is burden enough. What must it be when, along with the outward toil, there is a constant fight with a raging watchful devil within? But the man has given that devil some desperate falls of late. Oh, how often and how long he has fought with him, and been overcome, cast down, and his armoury of resolutions scattered to the winds! But he has been to see some one, or some one has been to see him, who has advised him to try another kind of armour—not his own. He knows the power of a “new affection” now. Despair was his portion not long ago. He is now animated by Hope, for the long uncared-for name of Jesus is now growing sweet to his ear. But the change has taken place recently, and he looks very weary as he toils and fights.
“Well, mother,” said Captain Wopper, “now that I’ve given you a full, true, an’ partikler account of Switzerland, what d’ee think of it?”
“It is a strange place—very, but I don’t approve of people risking their lives and breaking their limbs for the mere pleasure of getting to the top of a mountain of ice.”
“But we can’t do anything in life without riskin’ our lives an’ breakin’ our limbs more or less,” said the Captain.
“An’ think o’ the interests of science,” said Gillie, quoting the Professor.
Mrs Roby shook her tall cap and remained unconvinced. To have expected the old nurse to take an enlightened view on that point would have been as unreasonable as to have looked for just views in Gillie White on the subject of conic sections.
“Why, mother, a man may break a leg or an arm in going down stairs,” said the Captain, pursuing the subject; “by the way, that reminds me to ask for Fred Leven. Didn’t I hear thathebroke his arm coming up his own stair? Is it true?”
“True enough,” replied Mrs Roby.
“Was he the worse of liquor at the time?”
“No. It was dark, and he was carrying a heavy box of something or other for his mother. Fred is a reformed man. I think the sight of your poor father, Gillie, has had something to do with it, and that night when his mother nearly died. At all events he never touches drink now, and he has got a good situation in one of the warehouses at the docks.”
“That’s well,” returned the Captain, with satisfaction. “I had hopes of that young feller from the night you mention. Now, mother, I’m off. Gillie and I have some business to transact up the water. Very particular business—eh, lad?”
“Oh! wery partickler,” said Gillie, responding to his patron’s glance with a powerful wink.
Expressing a hope that Susan would keep Mrs Roby company till he returned, the Captain left the room with his usual heavy roll, and the spider followed with imitative swagger.
Captain Wopper was fond of mystery. Although he had, to some extent made a confidant of the boy for whom he had taken so strong a fancy, he nevertheless usually maintained a dignified distance of demeanour towards him, and a certain amount of reticence, which, as a stern disciplinarian, he deemed to be essential. This, however, did not prevent him from indulging in occasional, not to say frequent, unbendings of disposition, which he condescended to exhibit by way of encouragement to his smallprotégé; but these unbendings and confidences were always more or less shrouded in mystery. Many of them, indeed, consisted of nothing more intelligible than nods, grins, and winks.
“That’ll be rather a nice cottage when it’s launched,” said the Captain, pointing to a building in process of erection, which stood so close to the edge of the Thames that its being launched seemed as much a literal allusion as a metaphor.
“Raither bobbish,” assented the spider.
“Clean run fore and aft with bluff bows, like a good sea-boat,” said the Captain. “Come, let’s have a look at it.”
Asking permission to enter of a workman who granted the same with, what appeared to Gillie, an unnecessarily broad grin, the Captain led the way up a spiral staircase. It bore such a strong resemblance to the familiar one of Grubb’s Court that Gillie’s eyes enlarged with surprise, and he looked involuntarily back for his soapy mother and the babe in the mud. There were, however, strong points of dissimilarity, inasmuch as there was no mud or filth of any kind near the new building except lime; and the stair, instead of leading like that of the Tower of Babel an interminable distance upwards, ended abruptly at the second floor. Here, however, there was a passage exactly similar to the passage leading to Mrs Roby’s cabin, save that it was well lighted, and at the end thereof was an almost exact counterpart of the cabin itself. There was the same low roof, the same little fireplace, with the space above for ornaments, and the same couple of little windows looking out upon a stretch of the noble river, from which you might have fished. There was the same colour of paint on the walls, which had been so managed as to represent the dinginess of antiquity. There was also, to all appearance, Mrs Roby’s own identical bed, with its chintz curtains. Here, however, resemblance ended, for there was none of the Grubb’s Court dirt. The craft on the river were not so large or numerous, the reach being above the bridges. If you had fished you not have hooked rats or dead cats, and if you had put your head out and looked round, you would have encountered altogether a clean, airy, and respectable neighbourhood, populous enough to be quite cheery, with occasional gardens instead of mud-banks, and without interminable rows of tall chimney-pots excluding the light of heaven.
Gillie, not yet having been quite cured of his objectionable qualities, at once apostrophised his eye and Elizabeth Martin.
“As like as two peas, barrin’ the dirt!”
The Captain evidently enjoyed the lad’s astonishment.
“A ship-shape sort o’ craft, ain’t it? It wouldn’t be a bad joke to buy it—eh?”
Gillie, who was rather perplexed, but too much a man of the world to disclose much of his state of mind, said that it wouldn’t be a bad move for any feller who had got the blunt. “How much would it cost now?”
“A thousand pounds, more or less,” said the Captain, with discreet allowance for latitude.
“Ha! a goodish lump, no doubt.”
“I’ve half a mind to buy it,” continued the Captain, looking round with a satisfied smile. “It would be an amoosin’ sort o’ thing, now, to bring old Mrs Roby here. The air would be fresher for her old lungs, wouldn’t it?”
Gillie nodded, but was otherwise reticent.
“The stair, too, wouldn’t be too high to get her down now and again, and a boat could be handy to shove her into without much exertion. For the matter of that,” said the Captain, looking out, “we might have a slide made, like a Swiss couloir, you know, and she could glissade comfortably into the boat out o’ the winder. Then, there’s a beam to hang her ship an’ Chinee lanterns from, an’ a place over the fireplace to stick her knick-knacks. What d’ee think, my lad?”
Gillie, who had begun to allow a ray of light to enter his mind, gave, as his answer, an emphatic nod and a broad grin.
The Captain replied with a nod and a wink, whereupon the other retired behind his patron, for the purpose of giving himself a quiet hug of delight, in which act, however, he was caught; the Captain being one who always, according to his own showing, kept his weather-eye open.
“W’y, what’s the matter with you, boy?”
“Pains in the stummick is aggrawatin’ sometimes,” answered Gillie.
“You haven’t got ’em, have you?”
“Well, I can’t exactly go for to say as I has,” answered Gillie, with another grin.
“Now, look ’ee here, youngster,” said the Captain, suddenly seizing the spider by his collar and trousers, and swinging him as though about to hurl him through the window into the river, “if you go an’ let your tongue wag in regard to this matter, out you go, right through the port-hole—d’ee see?”
He set the spider quietly on his legs again, who replied, with unruffled coolness—
“Mum’s the word, Cappen.”
Gillie had been shorn of his blue tights and brass buttons, poor Mrs Stoutley having found it absolutely necessary, on her return home, to dismiss all her servants, dispose of all her belongings, and retire into the privacy of a poor lodging in a back street. Thus the spider had come to be suddenly thrown on the world again, but Captain Wopper had retained him, he said, as a mixture of errand-boy, cabin-boy, and powder-monkey, in which capacity he dwelt with his mother during the night and revolved like a satellite round the Captain during the day. A suit of much more appropriate pepper-and-salt had replaced the blue tights and buttons. Altogether, histout-ensemblewas what the Captain styled “more ship-shape.”
We have said that Mrs Stoutley and her family had made a descent in life. As poor Lewis remarked, with a sad smile, they had quitted the gay and glittering heights, and gone, like a magnificent avalanche, down into the moraine. Social, not less than physical, avalanches multiply their parts and widen their course during descent. The Stoutleys did not fall alone. A green-grocer, a shoemaker, and a baker, who had long been trembling, like human boulders, on the precipice of bankruptcy, went tumbling down along with them, and found rest in a lower part of the moraine than they had previously occupied.
“It’s a sad business,” said Lewis to Dr Lawrence one morning; “and if you continue to attend me, you must do so without the most distant prospect of a fee.”
“My dear fellow,” returned Lawrence, “have you no such thing as gratitude in your composition?”
“Not much, and, if I had ever so much, it would be poor pay.”
“Poor, indeed, if regarded as one’s only source of livelihood,” rejoined Lawrence, “but it is ample remuneration from a friend, whether rich or poor, and, happily, capable of being mixed with pounds, shillings and pence without deterioration. In the present case, I shall be more than rejoiced to take the fee unmixed, but, whether fee’d or not fee’d, I insist on continuing attendance on a case which I have a right to consider peculiarly my own.”
“It would have been a bad case, indeed, but for you,” returned Lewis, a flush for a moment suffusing his pale cheek as he took his friend’s hand and squeezed it. “I am thoroughly convinced, Lawrence, that God’s blessing on your skill and unwearied care of me at the time of the accident is the cause of my being alive to thank you to-day. But sit down, my dear fellow, and pray postpone your professional inquiries for a little, as I have something on my mind which I wish to ask you about.”
Lawrence shook his head. “Business first, pleasure afterwards,” he said; “professional duties must not be postponed.”
“Now,” said Lewis when he had finished, “are you satisfied? Do you admit that even an unprofessional man might have seen at a glance that I am much better, and that your present draft on my gratitude is a mere swindle?”
“I admit nothing,” retorted the other; “but now, what have you got to say to me?”
“I am going to make a confidant of you. Are you to be trusted?”
“Perhaps; I dare not say yes unconditionally, because I’m rather sociable and communicative, and apt to talk in my sleep.”
“That will do. Your answer is sufficiently modest. I will venture. You know Captain Wopper, I mean, you are well acquainted with his character; well, that kind and eccentric man has made a proposal to my dear mother, which we do not like to accept, and which at the same time we do not quite see our way to refuse. My mother, when in great distress in Switzerland, was forced to borrow a small sum of money from him, and thought it right to justify her doing so by letting him know—what everybody, alas! may know now—that we were ruined. With that ready kindness which is his chief characteristic he at once complied. Since our return home he has, with great delicacy but much determination, insisted that we shall accept from him a regular weekly allowance until we have had time to correspond with our uncle Stout in California. ‘You mustn’t starve,’ he said to my mother—I give you his own words—‘and you’d be sure to starve if you was to try to wegitate for six months or so on atmospheric air. It’ll take that time before you could get a letter from Willum, an’ though your son Lewis could an’ would, work like a nigger to keep your pot bilin’ if he was well an’ hearty, it’s as plain as the nose on your own face, ma’am, that he can’t work while he’s as thin as a fathom of pump-water an’ as weak as a babby. Now, you know-at least I can tell ’ee—that my old chum Willum is as rich as a East Injin nabob. You wouldn’t believe, madam, what fortins some gold-diggers have made. W’y, I’ve seed men light their pipes with fi’-pun’ notes for a mere brag out there. I’ve made a goodish lump o’ money myself too,—a’most more than I know what to do with, an’ as to Willum, I may say he’s actooally rollin’ in gold. He’s also chockfull of regard for you and yours, ma’am. That bein’ so, he’s sure to send you somethin’ to tide you over yer difficulties, an’ he’s also sure to send somethin’ to Lewis to help him start fair when he gits well, and he’s surest of all to send somethin’ to Miss Emma for all the kind letters she’s writ to him doorin’ the last five or six years. Well, then, I’m Willum’s buzzum friend, and, knowin’ exactly what he’ll say an’ do in the circumstances, what more nat’ral an’ proper than that Willum’s chum should anticipate Willum’s wishes, and advance the money—some of it at least—say three thousand pounds to start with.’ Now, Lawrence,” continued Lewis, “what should we do? Should we accept this offer? The good fellow has evidently made a great deal of money at the gold-fields, and no doubt speaks truly when he says he can afford to advance that sum. And we know our uncle William’s character well enough, though we have never seen him, to be quite sure that he will assist my dear mother until I am able to support her. What say you?”
“Accept the offer at once,” said Lawrence. “From what I have seen of the Captain, I am convinced that he is a warm friend and a genuine man. No doubt he can well afford to do what he proposes, and his opinion of William Stout’s character is just, for, from what I know of him through Mrs Roby, who knew him when he was a lad, when his life was saved by my father, he must have a kind heart.”
“I have no doubt of it, Lawrence, and a grateful heart too, if I may judge from a few words that fell from Captain Wopper about your father and yourself.”
“Indeed! what did he say about us?”
“I have no right to repeat observations dropped inadvertently,” said Lewis, with a laugh.
“Nor to raise curiosity which you don’t mean to satisfy,” retorted his friend; “however, my advice is, that you accept the Captain’s offer, and trust to your uncle’s generosity.”
Chapter Twenty Three.The Captain surprises his Friends in various Ways, and is himself Baffled.Time and Tide passed on—as they are proverbially said to do—without waiting for any one. Some people in the great city, aware of this cavalier style of proceeding on the part of Time and Tide, took advantage of both, and scaled the pinnacled heights of society. Others, neglecting their opportunities, or misusing them, produced a series of avalanches more or less noteworthy, and added a few more boulders to the vast accumulations in the great social moraine.Several of the actors in this tale were among those who, having learnt a few sharp lessons in the avalanche school, began to note and avail themselves of Time and Tide—notably, Mrs Stoutley and her son and niece. A decided change had come over the spirit of Mrs Stoutley’s dream of life. She had at last visited the great London moraine, especially that part of it called Grubb’s Court, and had already dug up a few nuggets and diamonds, one of which latter she brought to her humble home in the back street, with the design of polishing it into a good servant-maid. Its name was Netta White. Mrs Stoutley had formerly been a spendthrift; now she was become covetous. She coveted the male diamond belonging to the same part of the moraine—once named the Spider,aliasthe Imp—but Captain Wopper had dug up that one for himself and would not part with it. Gradually the good lady conceived and carried out the idea of digging out and rescuing a number of diamonds, considerably lower in the scale than the Netta type, training them for service, and taking pains to get them into good situations. It was hard work no doubt, but Mrs Stoutley persevered, and was well repaid—for the Master of such labourers esteems them “worthy of their hire.” Emma assisted in the work most heartily. It was by no means new to her. She might have directed if she had chosen, but she preferred to follow.Lewis recovered rapidly—so rapidly that he was soon able to resume his medical studies and prosecute them with vigour. No bad effects of the accident remained, yet he was an altered man—not altered in appearance or in character, but in spirit. He was still off-hand in manner, handsome in face and figure, hearty in society, but earnest and grave—very grave—in private. He pored over his books, and strove, successfully too, to master the difficulties of the healing art; but do what he would, and fight against it as he might, he was constantly distracted by a pretty face with bright sparkling eyes and a strangely sad expression coming between him and the page. He made continual inquiries after the owner of the sparkling eyes in every direction without success, and at last got into the habit when walking, of looking earnestly at people as if he expected to meet with some one. “If I had got into this state,” he sometimes said to himself, “because of being merely in love with a pretty face, I should consider myself a silly nincompoop; but it is such a terrible thing for so sweet and young a creature to be chained to a man who must in the nature of things, land her in beggary and break her heart.” Thus he deceived himself as to his main motive. Poor Lewis!One morning Captain Wopper got up a little earlier than usual, and began a series of performances which Mrs Roby had long ago styled “rampadgin” round his garret.The reader may have discovered by this time that the Captain was no ordinary man. Whatever he did in connection with himself was done with almost superhuman energy and noise. Since the commencement of his residence in the garret he had unwittingly subjected the nerves of poor Mrs Roby to such a variety of shocks, that the mere fact of her reason remaining on its throne was an unquestionable proof of a more than usually powerful constitution. It could not well be otherwise. The Captain’s limbs resembled the limbs of oaks in regard to size and toughness. His spirits were far above “proof.” His organs were cathedral organs compared with the mere barrel-organs of ordinary men. On the other hand, the “cabin” in Grubb’s Court was but a flimsy tenement; its plank floorings were thin, and its beams and rafters slim and somewhat loose owing to age, so that when the captain snored, which he did regularly and continuously, it was as if a mastiff had got inside a double-bass and were growling hideously.But Mrs Roby had now got pretty well accustomed to her lodger’s ways. Her nerves had become strung to the ordeal, and she even came to like the galvanic battery in which she dwelt, because of its being worked by the intimate friend of her dear William; such is the power of love—we might almost say, in this case, of reflected love! The good old lady had even become so acute in her perceptions, that, without seeing the “rampadger,” she knew precisely the part of his daily programme with which he happened to be engaged. Of course the snoring told its own tale with brazen-tongued clamour, and the whole tenement trembled all night long from top to bottom. Nothing but the regardless nature of the surrounding population prevented the Captain from being indicted as a nuisance; but there were other sounds that were not so easily recognised.On the morning in question, Mrs Roby, lying placidly in her neat white little bed, and gazing with a sweet contented face through one of her cabin windows at the bright blue sky, heard a sound as though a compound animal—hog and whale—had aroused itself and rolled over on its other side. A low whistling followed. Mrs Roby knew that the Captain was pleasantly engaged with his thoughts—planning out the proceedings of the day. Suddenly the whistling ceased and was followed by a sonorous “how-ho!” terminating in a gasp worthy of an express locomotive. The Captain had stretched himself and Mrs Roby smiled at her own thoughts, as well she might for they embraced the idea that a twentieth part of the force employed in that stretch would have rent in twain every tendon, muscle, sinew, and filament in her, Mrs Roby’s, body. Next, there descended on the floor overhead a sixteen-stone cannon ball, which caused—not the neighbours, but the boards and rafters to complain. The Captain was up! and succeeding sounds proved that he had had another stretch, for there was a bump in the middle of it which showed that, forgetting his stature, the careless man had hit the ceiling with his head. That was evidently a matter of no consequence.From this point the boards and rafters continued to make unceasing complaint, now creaking uneasily as if under great provocation, anon groaning or yelling as though under insufferable torment. From the ceiling of Mrs Roby’s room numerous small bits of plaster, unable to stand it longer, fell and powdered Mrs Roby’s floor. The curtains of her little bed saved her face. There was a slushing and swishing and gasping and blowing now, which might have done credit to a school of porpoises. The Captain was washing. Something between the flapping of a main top-sail in a shifting squall and the currying of a hippopotamus indicated that the Captain was drying himself. The process was interrupted by an unusual, though not quite unknown, crash and a howl; he had overturned the wash-hand basin, and a double thump, followed by heavy dabs, told that the Captain was on his knees swabbing it up.Next instant the Captain’s head, with beard and hair in a tremendously rubbed-up condition, appeared upside down at the hatchway.“Hallo! old girl, has she sprung a leak anywhere?”“Nowhere,” replied Mrs Roby, with a quiet smile. She felt the question to be unnecessary. “She,” that is, the roof above her, never did leak in such circumstances. If the Thames had suddenly flooded the garret, the Captain’s energy was sufficient to have swabbed it up in time to prevent a drop reaching “the lower deck.”Soon after this catastrophe there was a prolonged silence. The Captain was reading. Mrs Roby shut her eyes and joined him in spirit. Thereafter the Captain’s feet appeared at the trap where his head had been, and he descended with a final and tremendous crash to the floor.“See here, mother,” he cried, with a look of delight, holding up a very soiled and crumpled letter, “that’s from Willum.”“From William,” exclaimed the old woman, eagerly; “why, when did you get it? the postman can’t have been here this morning.”“Of course he hasn’t; I got it last night from the limb-o’-the-law that looks after my little matters. I came in late, and you were asleep, so I kep’ it to whet yer appetite for breakfast. Now listen, you must take it first; I’ll get you breakfast afterwards.”The Captain had by this time got into the way of giving the old woman her breakfast in bed every morning.“Go on,” said the old woman, nodding.The Captain spread out the letter on his knee with great care, and read aloud:—“My Dear Wopper, Got yer letter all right.“My blissin’ to the poor widdy. Help her? ov coorse I’ll help her. You did right in advancin’ the money, though you fell short, by a long way, when you advanced so little. Hows’ever, no matter. I gave you my last will an’ testimony w’en we parted. Here’s a noo un. Inside o’ this, if I don’t forget it before I’ve done, you’ll find a cheque for thirteen thousand pounds sterling. Give three to the widdy, with my respects; give four to dear Emma Gray, with my best love and blissin’; give two to Mister Lewis, with my compliments; an’ give four to young Lawrence, with my benediction, for his father’s sake. As for the old ’ooman Roby, you don’t need to give nothin’ to her. She and I understand each other.I’lllook after her myself. I’ll make her my residooary legatee, an’ wotever else is needful; but, in the meantime, you may as well see that she’s got all that she wants. Build her a noo house too. I’m told that Grubb’s Court ain’t exactly aristocratic or clean; see to that. Wotever you advance out o’ yer own pocket, I’ll pay back with interest. That’s to begin with, tell ’em. There’s more comin’. There—I’m used up wi’ writin’ such a long screed. I’d raither dig a twenty-futt hole in clay sile any day.—Yours to command, Willum.“P.S.—You ain’t comin’ back soon—are you?”“Now, mother, what d’ee think o’ that?” said the Captain, folding the letter and putting it in his pocket.“It’s a good, kind letter—just like William,” answered the old woman.“Well, so I’m inclined to think,” rejoined the Captain, busying himself about breakfast while he spoke; “it provides for everybody in a sort o’ way, and encourages ’em to go on hopeful like—don’t it strike you so? Then, you see, that’s four to Miss Emma, and four to Dr Lawrence, which would be eight, equal to four hundred a year; and that, with the practice he’s gettin’ into, would make it six, or thereabouts—not bad to begin with, eh?”The Captain followed his remark with a sigh.“What’s the matter?” asked Mrs Roby.“Why, you remember, mother, before goin’ abroad I set my heart on these two gettin’ spliced; but I fear it’s no go. Sometimes I think they looks fond o’ one another, at other times I don’t. It’s a puzzler. They’re both young an’ good-lookin’ an’ good. What more would they have?”“Perhaps they want money,” suggested the old woman. “You say Dr Lawrence’s income just now is about two hundred; well, gentlefolks find it summat difficult to keep house on that, though it’s plenty for the likes of you an’ me.”“That’s true. P’r’aps the Doctor is sheerin’ off for fear o’ draggin’ a young creeter into poverty. It never struck me in that light before.”Beaming under the influence of this hopeful view of the case, the Captain proceeded to make another move in the complicated game which he had resolved to play out and win; but this move, which he had considered one of the easiest of all, proved to be the most unfortunate, or rather unmanageable.“Now, mother,” said he, “I mean to make a proposal to ’ee, before going out for the day, so that you may have time to think over it. This cabin o’ yours ain’t just the thing, you know,—raither dirty, and too high in the clouds by a long way, so I’ve bin an’ seen a noo house on the river, not unlike this one, an’ I wants you to shift your berth. What say ’ee—eh?”To the Captain’s surprise and dismay, the old woman shook her head decidedly, and no argument which he could bring to bear had the least effect on her. She had, in fact, got used to her humble old home, and attached to it, and could not bear the thought of leaving it. Having exhausted his powers of suasion in vain, he left her to think over it, and sallied forth crestfallen. However, he consoled himself with the hope that time and consideration would bring her to a right state of mind. Meanwhile he would go to the parties interested, and communicate the contents of Willum’s letter.He went first to Doctor Lawrence, who was delighted as well as pleased at what it contained. The Captain at first read only the clauses which affected his friends the Stoutleys, and said nothing about that which referred to the Doctor himself.“So you see, Doctor, I’m off to let the Stoutleys know about this little matter, and just looked in on you in passing.”“It was very kind of you, Captain.”“Not at all, by no means,” returned the Captain, pulling out a large clasp-knife, with which he proceeded carefully to pare his left thumb nail. “By the way, Doctor,” he said carelessly, “were you ever in love?”Lawrence flushed, and cast a quick glance at his interrogator, who, however, was deeply engaged with the thumb nail.“Well, I suppose men at my time of life,” he replied, with a laugh, “have had some—”“Of course—of course,” interrupted the other, “but I mean that I wonder a strapping young fellow like you, with such a good practice, don’t get married.”The Doctor, who had recovered himself, laughed, and said that his good practice was chiefly among the poor, and that even if he wished to marry—or rather, if any one would have him—he would never attempt to win a girl while he had nothing better than two hundred a year and prospects to offer her.“Then I suppose youwouldmarry if you had something better to offer,” said the Captain, finishing off the nail and shutting the clasp-knife with a snap.Again the Doctor laughed, wondered why the Captain had touched on such a theme, and said that he couldn’t exactly say what he might or might not do if circumstances were altered.The Captain was baffled. However, he said that circumstanceswerealtered, and, after reading over the latter part of Willum’s letter, left Lawrence to digest it at his leisure.We need not follow him on his mission. Suffice it to say that he carried no small amount of relief to the minds of Mrs Stoutley and her household; and, thereafter, met Gillie by appointment at Charing Cross, whence he went to Kensington to see a villa, with a view to purchasing it.At night he again essayed to move Mrs Roby’s resolution, and many a time afterwards attacked her, but always with the same result. Although, as he said, he fought like a true-blue British seaman, and gave her broadside after broadside as fast as he could load and fire, he made no impression on her whatever. She had nailed her colours to the mast and would never give in.
Time and Tide passed on—as they are proverbially said to do—without waiting for any one. Some people in the great city, aware of this cavalier style of proceeding on the part of Time and Tide, took advantage of both, and scaled the pinnacled heights of society. Others, neglecting their opportunities, or misusing them, produced a series of avalanches more or less noteworthy, and added a few more boulders to the vast accumulations in the great social moraine.
Several of the actors in this tale were among those who, having learnt a few sharp lessons in the avalanche school, began to note and avail themselves of Time and Tide—notably, Mrs Stoutley and her son and niece. A decided change had come over the spirit of Mrs Stoutley’s dream of life. She had at last visited the great London moraine, especially that part of it called Grubb’s Court, and had already dug up a few nuggets and diamonds, one of which latter she brought to her humble home in the back street, with the design of polishing it into a good servant-maid. Its name was Netta White. Mrs Stoutley had formerly been a spendthrift; now she was become covetous. She coveted the male diamond belonging to the same part of the moraine—once named the Spider,aliasthe Imp—but Captain Wopper had dug up that one for himself and would not part with it. Gradually the good lady conceived and carried out the idea of digging out and rescuing a number of diamonds, considerably lower in the scale than the Netta type, training them for service, and taking pains to get them into good situations. It was hard work no doubt, but Mrs Stoutley persevered, and was well repaid—for the Master of such labourers esteems them “worthy of their hire.” Emma assisted in the work most heartily. It was by no means new to her. She might have directed if she had chosen, but she preferred to follow.
Lewis recovered rapidly—so rapidly that he was soon able to resume his medical studies and prosecute them with vigour. No bad effects of the accident remained, yet he was an altered man—not altered in appearance or in character, but in spirit. He was still off-hand in manner, handsome in face and figure, hearty in society, but earnest and grave—very grave—in private. He pored over his books, and strove, successfully too, to master the difficulties of the healing art; but do what he would, and fight against it as he might, he was constantly distracted by a pretty face with bright sparkling eyes and a strangely sad expression coming between him and the page. He made continual inquiries after the owner of the sparkling eyes in every direction without success, and at last got into the habit when walking, of looking earnestly at people as if he expected to meet with some one. “If I had got into this state,” he sometimes said to himself, “because of being merely in love with a pretty face, I should consider myself a silly nincompoop; but it is such a terrible thing for so sweet and young a creature to be chained to a man who must in the nature of things, land her in beggary and break her heart.” Thus he deceived himself as to his main motive. Poor Lewis!
One morning Captain Wopper got up a little earlier than usual, and began a series of performances which Mrs Roby had long ago styled “rampadgin” round his garret.
The reader may have discovered by this time that the Captain was no ordinary man. Whatever he did in connection with himself was done with almost superhuman energy and noise. Since the commencement of his residence in the garret he had unwittingly subjected the nerves of poor Mrs Roby to such a variety of shocks, that the mere fact of her reason remaining on its throne was an unquestionable proof of a more than usually powerful constitution. It could not well be otherwise. The Captain’s limbs resembled the limbs of oaks in regard to size and toughness. His spirits were far above “proof.” His organs were cathedral organs compared with the mere barrel-organs of ordinary men. On the other hand, the “cabin” in Grubb’s Court was but a flimsy tenement; its plank floorings were thin, and its beams and rafters slim and somewhat loose owing to age, so that when the captain snored, which he did regularly and continuously, it was as if a mastiff had got inside a double-bass and were growling hideously.
But Mrs Roby had now got pretty well accustomed to her lodger’s ways. Her nerves had become strung to the ordeal, and she even came to like the galvanic battery in which she dwelt, because of its being worked by the intimate friend of her dear William; such is the power of love—we might almost say, in this case, of reflected love! The good old lady had even become so acute in her perceptions, that, without seeing the “rampadger,” she knew precisely the part of his daily programme with which he happened to be engaged. Of course the snoring told its own tale with brazen-tongued clamour, and the whole tenement trembled all night long from top to bottom. Nothing but the regardless nature of the surrounding population prevented the Captain from being indicted as a nuisance; but there were other sounds that were not so easily recognised.
On the morning in question, Mrs Roby, lying placidly in her neat white little bed, and gazing with a sweet contented face through one of her cabin windows at the bright blue sky, heard a sound as though a compound animal—hog and whale—had aroused itself and rolled over on its other side. A low whistling followed. Mrs Roby knew that the Captain was pleasantly engaged with his thoughts—planning out the proceedings of the day. Suddenly the whistling ceased and was followed by a sonorous “how-ho!” terminating in a gasp worthy of an express locomotive. The Captain had stretched himself and Mrs Roby smiled at her own thoughts, as well she might for they embraced the idea that a twentieth part of the force employed in that stretch would have rent in twain every tendon, muscle, sinew, and filament in her, Mrs Roby’s, body. Next, there descended on the floor overhead a sixteen-stone cannon ball, which caused—not the neighbours, but the boards and rafters to complain. The Captain was up! and succeeding sounds proved that he had had another stretch, for there was a bump in the middle of it which showed that, forgetting his stature, the careless man had hit the ceiling with his head. That was evidently a matter of no consequence.
From this point the boards and rafters continued to make unceasing complaint, now creaking uneasily as if under great provocation, anon groaning or yelling as though under insufferable torment. From the ceiling of Mrs Roby’s room numerous small bits of plaster, unable to stand it longer, fell and powdered Mrs Roby’s floor. The curtains of her little bed saved her face. There was a slushing and swishing and gasping and blowing now, which might have done credit to a school of porpoises. The Captain was washing. Something between the flapping of a main top-sail in a shifting squall and the currying of a hippopotamus indicated that the Captain was drying himself. The process was interrupted by an unusual, though not quite unknown, crash and a howl; he had overturned the wash-hand basin, and a double thump, followed by heavy dabs, told that the Captain was on his knees swabbing it up.
Next instant the Captain’s head, with beard and hair in a tremendously rubbed-up condition, appeared upside down at the hatchway.
“Hallo! old girl, has she sprung a leak anywhere?”
“Nowhere,” replied Mrs Roby, with a quiet smile. She felt the question to be unnecessary. “She,” that is, the roof above her, never did leak in such circumstances. If the Thames had suddenly flooded the garret, the Captain’s energy was sufficient to have swabbed it up in time to prevent a drop reaching “the lower deck.”
Soon after this catastrophe there was a prolonged silence. The Captain was reading. Mrs Roby shut her eyes and joined him in spirit. Thereafter the Captain’s feet appeared at the trap where his head had been, and he descended with a final and tremendous crash to the floor.
“See here, mother,” he cried, with a look of delight, holding up a very soiled and crumpled letter, “that’s from Willum.”
“From William,” exclaimed the old woman, eagerly; “why, when did you get it? the postman can’t have been here this morning.”
“Of course he hasn’t; I got it last night from the limb-o’-the-law that looks after my little matters. I came in late, and you were asleep, so I kep’ it to whet yer appetite for breakfast. Now listen, you must take it first; I’ll get you breakfast afterwards.”
The Captain had by this time got into the way of giving the old woman her breakfast in bed every morning.
“Go on,” said the old woman, nodding.
The Captain spread out the letter on his knee with great care, and read aloud:—
“My Dear Wopper, Got yer letter all right.“My blissin’ to the poor widdy. Help her? ov coorse I’ll help her. You did right in advancin’ the money, though you fell short, by a long way, when you advanced so little. Hows’ever, no matter. I gave you my last will an’ testimony w’en we parted. Here’s a noo un. Inside o’ this, if I don’t forget it before I’ve done, you’ll find a cheque for thirteen thousand pounds sterling. Give three to the widdy, with my respects; give four to dear Emma Gray, with my best love and blissin’; give two to Mister Lewis, with my compliments; an’ give four to young Lawrence, with my benediction, for his father’s sake. As for the old ’ooman Roby, you don’t need to give nothin’ to her. She and I understand each other.I’lllook after her myself. I’ll make her my residooary legatee, an’ wotever else is needful; but, in the meantime, you may as well see that she’s got all that she wants. Build her a noo house too. I’m told that Grubb’s Court ain’t exactly aristocratic or clean; see to that. Wotever you advance out o’ yer own pocket, I’ll pay back with interest. That’s to begin with, tell ’em. There’s more comin’. There—I’m used up wi’ writin’ such a long screed. I’d raither dig a twenty-futt hole in clay sile any day.—Yours to command, Willum.“P.S.—You ain’t comin’ back soon—are you?”
“My Dear Wopper, Got yer letter all right.
“My blissin’ to the poor widdy. Help her? ov coorse I’ll help her. You did right in advancin’ the money, though you fell short, by a long way, when you advanced so little. Hows’ever, no matter. I gave you my last will an’ testimony w’en we parted. Here’s a noo un. Inside o’ this, if I don’t forget it before I’ve done, you’ll find a cheque for thirteen thousand pounds sterling. Give three to the widdy, with my respects; give four to dear Emma Gray, with my best love and blissin’; give two to Mister Lewis, with my compliments; an’ give four to young Lawrence, with my benediction, for his father’s sake. As for the old ’ooman Roby, you don’t need to give nothin’ to her. She and I understand each other.I’lllook after her myself. I’ll make her my residooary legatee, an’ wotever else is needful; but, in the meantime, you may as well see that she’s got all that she wants. Build her a noo house too. I’m told that Grubb’s Court ain’t exactly aristocratic or clean; see to that. Wotever you advance out o’ yer own pocket, I’ll pay back with interest. That’s to begin with, tell ’em. There’s more comin’. There—I’m used up wi’ writin’ such a long screed. I’d raither dig a twenty-futt hole in clay sile any day.—Yours to command, Willum.
“P.S.—You ain’t comin’ back soon—are you?”
“Now, mother, what d’ee think o’ that?” said the Captain, folding the letter and putting it in his pocket.
“It’s a good, kind letter—just like William,” answered the old woman.
“Well, so I’m inclined to think,” rejoined the Captain, busying himself about breakfast while he spoke; “it provides for everybody in a sort o’ way, and encourages ’em to go on hopeful like—don’t it strike you so? Then, you see, that’s four to Miss Emma, and four to Dr Lawrence, which would be eight, equal to four hundred a year; and that, with the practice he’s gettin’ into, would make it six, or thereabouts—not bad to begin with, eh?”
The Captain followed his remark with a sigh.
“What’s the matter?” asked Mrs Roby.
“Why, you remember, mother, before goin’ abroad I set my heart on these two gettin’ spliced; but I fear it’s no go. Sometimes I think they looks fond o’ one another, at other times I don’t. It’s a puzzler. They’re both young an’ good-lookin’ an’ good. What more would they have?”
“Perhaps they want money,” suggested the old woman. “You say Dr Lawrence’s income just now is about two hundred; well, gentlefolks find it summat difficult to keep house on that, though it’s plenty for the likes of you an’ me.”
“That’s true. P’r’aps the Doctor is sheerin’ off for fear o’ draggin’ a young creeter into poverty. It never struck me in that light before.”
Beaming under the influence of this hopeful view of the case, the Captain proceeded to make another move in the complicated game which he had resolved to play out and win; but this move, which he had considered one of the easiest of all, proved to be the most unfortunate, or rather unmanageable.
“Now, mother,” said he, “I mean to make a proposal to ’ee, before going out for the day, so that you may have time to think over it. This cabin o’ yours ain’t just the thing, you know,—raither dirty, and too high in the clouds by a long way, so I’ve bin an’ seen a noo house on the river, not unlike this one, an’ I wants you to shift your berth. What say ’ee—eh?”
To the Captain’s surprise and dismay, the old woman shook her head decidedly, and no argument which he could bring to bear had the least effect on her. She had, in fact, got used to her humble old home, and attached to it, and could not bear the thought of leaving it. Having exhausted his powers of suasion in vain, he left her to think over it, and sallied forth crestfallen. However, he consoled himself with the hope that time and consideration would bring her to a right state of mind. Meanwhile he would go to the parties interested, and communicate the contents of Willum’s letter.
He went first to Doctor Lawrence, who was delighted as well as pleased at what it contained. The Captain at first read only the clauses which affected his friends the Stoutleys, and said nothing about that which referred to the Doctor himself.
“So you see, Doctor, I’m off to let the Stoutleys know about this little matter, and just looked in on you in passing.”
“It was very kind of you, Captain.”
“Not at all, by no means,” returned the Captain, pulling out a large clasp-knife, with which he proceeded carefully to pare his left thumb nail. “By the way, Doctor,” he said carelessly, “were you ever in love?”
Lawrence flushed, and cast a quick glance at his interrogator, who, however, was deeply engaged with the thumb nail.
“Well, I suppose men at my time of life,” he replied, with a laugh, “have had some—”
“Of course—of course,” interrupted the other, “but I mean that I wonder a strapping young fellow like you, with such a good practice, don’t get married.”
The Doctor, who had recovered himself, laughed, and said that his good practice was chiefly among the poor, and that even if he wished to marry—or rather, if any one would have him—he would never attempt to win a girl while he had nothing better than two hundred a year and prospects to offer her.
“Then I suppose youwouldmarry if you had something better to offer,” said the Captain, finishing off the nail and shutting the clasp-knife with a snap.
Again the Doctor laughed, wondered why the Captain had touched on such a theme, and said that he couldn’t exactly say what he might or might not do if circumstances were altered.
The Captain was baffled. However, he said that circumstanceswerealtered, and, after reading over the latter part of Willum’s letter, left Lawrence to digest it at his leisure.
We need not follow him on his mission. Suffice it to say that he carried no small amount of relief to the minds of Mrs Stoutley and her household; and, thereafter, met Gillie by appointment at Charing Cross, whence he went to Kensington to see a villa, with a view to purchasing it.
At night he again essayed to move Mrs Roby’s resolution, and many a time afterwards attacked her, but always with the same result. Although, as he said, he fought like a true-blue British seaman, and gave her broadside after broadside as fast as he could load and fire, he made no impression on her whatever. She had nailed her colours to the mast and would never give in.