Volume Ii Part 3 (1/2)
Thursday. The Inn, Splgen.
Here we are still in this blessed place, this being now our seventh day in a hole you would n't condemn a dog to live in. How long we might have continued our sojourn it is hard to say, when a mere accident has afforded us the prospect of liberation. It turns out that two families arrived and went forward last night, having only halted to sup and change horses. On inquiry why we could n't be supposed capable of the same exertion, you 'll not believe me when I tell you the answer we got.
No, Tom! The enormous power of lying abroad is clear and clean beyond your conception. It was this, then. We could go when we pleased,--it was entirely a caprice of our own that we had not gone before. ”How so, may I ask?” said I, in the meekest of inquiring voices. ”You would n't go like others,” was the answer. ”In what respect,--how?” asked I again.
”Oh, your English notions rejected the idea of a sledge. You insisted upon going on wheels, and as no wheeled carriage could run--” Grant me patience, or I'll explode like a sh.e.l.l. My hand shakes, and my temples are throbbing so that I can scarcely write the lines. I made a great effort at a calm and discretionary tone, but it would n't do; a certain fulness about the throat, a general dizziness, and a noise like the sea in my ears, told me that I'd have been behaving basely to the ”Guardian”
and the ”Equitable Fire and Life” were I to continue the debate. I sat down, and with a sponge and water and loose cravat, I got better. There was considerable confusion in my faculties on my coming to myself; I had a vague notion of having conducted myself in some most ridiculous and extravagant fas.h.i.+on,--having insisted upon the horses being harnessed in some impossible mode, or made some demand or other totally impracticable. Cary, like a dear kind girl as she is, laughed and quizzed me out of my delusion, and showed me that it was the cursed imputation of that scoundrel of a landlord had given this erratic turn to my thoughts. The gout has settled in my left foot, and I now, with the exception of an occasional shoot of pain that I relieve by a shout, feel much better, and hope soon to be fit for the road. Poor Cary made me laugh by a story she picked up somewhere of a Scotch gentleman who had contracted with his vetturino to be carried from Genoa to Rome and fed on the road,--a very common arrangement. The journey was to occupy nine days; but wis.h.i.+ng to secure a splendid ”buona mano,” the vetturino drove at a tremendous pace, and actually arrived in Rome on the eighth day, having almost killed his horses and exhausted himself. When he appeared before his traveller, expecting compliments on his speed, and a handsome recognition for his zeal, guess his astonishment to hear his self-panegyrics cut short by the pithy remark: ”You drove very well, my friend; but we are not going to part just yet,--you have still another day to _feed_ me.”
Tiverton has at length patched up an arrangement with our landlord for twelve sledges,--each only carries one and the driver,--so that if nothing adverse intervene we are to set forth to-morrow. He says that we may reasonably hope to reach Chiavenna before evening. I 'll therefore not detain this longer, but in the prospect that our hour of liberation has at length drawn nigh, conclude my long despatch.
Our villa at Como will be our next address, and I hope to find a letter there from you soon after our arrival. Remember, Tom, all that I have said about the supplies, for though they tell me Italy be cheap, I have not yet discovered a land where the population believes gold to be dross. Adieu!
LETTER VI. MARY ANNE DODD TO MISS DOOLAN, OF BALLYDOOLAN.
On the Splgen Alps.
Dearest Kitty,--I write these few lines from the Refuge-house on the Splgen Pa.s.s. We are seven thousand feet above the level of something, with fifty feet of snow around us, and the deafening roar of avalanches thundering on the ear. We set out yesterday from the village of Splgen, contrary to the advice of the guides, but papa insisted on going. He declared that if no other means offered, he 'd go on foot, so that opposition was really out of the question. Our departure was quite a picture. First came a long, low sledge, with stones and rocks to explore the way, and show where the footing was secure. Then came three others with our luggage; after that mamma, under the guidance of a most careful person, a certain Bernardt something, brother of the man who acted as guide to Napoleon; Cary followed her in another sledge, and I came third, papa bringing up the rear, for Betty and the other servants were tastefully grouped about the luggage. Several additional sledges followed with spade and shovel-folk, ropes, drags, and other implements most suggestive of peril and adventure. We were perfect frights to look at; for, in addition to fur boots and capes, tarpaulins and hoods, we had to wear snow goggles as a precaution against the fine drifting snow, so that really for very shame' sake I was glad that each sledge only held one, and the driver, who is fortunately, also, at your back.
The first few miles of ascent were really pleasurable, for the snow was hard, and the pace occasionally reached a trot, or at least such a resemblance to one as shook the conveniency, and made the bells jingle agreeably on the harness. The road, too, followed a zigzag course on the steep side of the mountain, so that you saw at moments some of those above and some beneath you, winding along exactly like the elephant procession in Bluebeard. The voices sounded cheerily in the sharp morning air, itself exhilarating to a degree, and this, with the bright snow-peaks, rising one behind the other in the distance, and the little village of Splgen in the valley, made up a scene strikingly picturesque and interesting. There was a kind of adventure, too, about it all, dearest Kitty, that never loses its charm for the soul deeply imbued with a sense of the beautiful and imaginative. I fancied myself at moments carried away by force into the Steppes of Tartary, or that I was Elizabeth crossing the Volga, and I believe I even shed tears at my fancied distress. To another than you, dearest, I might hesitate even if I confessed as much; but you, who know every weakness of a too feeling heart, will forgive me for being what I am.
My guide, a really fine-looking mountaineer, with a magnificent beard, fancied that it was the danger that had appalled me. He hastened to offer his rude but honest consolations; he protested that there was nothing whatever like peril, and that if there were--But why do I go on?
even to my dearest friend may not this seem childish? and is it not a silly vanity that owns it can derive pleasure from every homage, even the very humblest?
We gradually lost sight of the little smoke-wreathed village, and reached a wild but grandly desolate region, with snow on every side. The pathway, too, was now lost to us, and the direction only indicated by long poles at great intervals. That all was not perfectly safe in front might be apprehended, for we came frequently to a dead halt, and then the guides and the shovel-men would pa.s.s rapidly to and fro, but, m.u.f.fled as we were, all inquiry was impossible, so that we were left to the horrors of doubt and dread without a chance of relief. At length we grew accustomed to these interruptions, and felt in a measure tranquil.
Not so the guides, however; they frequently talked together in knots, and I could see from their upward glances, too, that they apprehended some change in the weather. Papa had contrived to cut some of the cords with which they had fastened his m.u.f.fles, and by great patience and exertion succeeded in getting his head out of three horsecloths, with which they had swathed him.
”Are we near the summit?” cried he, in English,--”how far are we from the top?”
His question was of course unintelligible, but his action not; and the consequence was that three of our followers rushed over to him, and after a brief struggle, in which two of them were tumbled over in the snow, his head was again enclosed within its woolly cenotaph; and, indeed, but for a violent jerking motion of it, it might have been feared that even all access to external air was denied him. This little incident was the only break to the monotony of the way, till nigh noon, when a cold, biting wind, with great ma.s.ses of misty vapor, swept past and around us, and my guide told me that we were somewhere, with a hard name, and that he wished we were somewhere else, with a harder.
I asked why, but my question died away in the folds of my head-gear, and I was left to my own thoughts, when suddenly a loud shout rang through the air. It was a party about to turn back, and the sledges stopped up the road. The halt led to a consultation between the guides, which I could see turned on the question of the weather. The discussion was evidently a warm one, a party being for, and another against it. Hearing what they said was of course out of the question, m.u.f.fled as I was; but their gestures clearly defined who were in favor of proceeding, and who wished to retrace their steps. One of the former particularly struck me; for, though enc.u.mbered with fur boots and an enormous mantle, his action plainly indicated that he was something out of the common. He showed that air of command, too, Kitty, that at once proclaims superiority.
His arguments prevailed, and after a considerable time spent, on we went again. I followed the interesting stranger till he was lost to me; but guess my feelings, Kitty, when I heard a voice whisper in my ear, ”Don't be afraid, dearest, I watch over _your_ safety.” Oh! fancy the perturbation of my poor heart, for it was Lord George who spoke. He it was whose urgent persuasions had determined the guides to proceed, and he now had taken the place behind my own sledge, and actually drove instead of the postilion. Can you picture to yourself heroism and devotion like this? And while I imagined that he was borne along with all the appliances of ease and comfort, the poor dear fellow was braving the storm _for me_, and _for me_ enduring the perils of the raging tempest. From that instant, my beloved Kitty, I took little note of the dangers around me. I thought but of him who stood so near to me,--so near, and yet so far off; so close, and yet so severed! I bethought me, too, how unjust the prejudice of the vulgar mind that attributes to our youthful n.o.bility habits of selfish indolence and effeminate ease. Here was one reared in all the voluptuous enjoyment of a splendid household, trained from his cradle to be waited on and served, and yet was he there wilfully encountering perils and hards.h.i.+ps from which the very bravest might recoil. Ah, Kitty! it is impossible to deny it,--the highly born have a native superiority in everything. Their n.o.bility is not a thing of crosses and ribbons, but of blood. They feel that they are of earth's purest clay, and they a.s.sert the claim to pre-eminence by their own proud and lofty gifts. I told you, too, that he said ”dearest.” I might have been deceived; the noise was deafening at the moment; but I feel as if my ears could not have betrayed me. At all events, Kitty, his hand sought mine while he spoke, and though in his confusion it was my elbow he caught, he pressed it tenderly. In what a delicious dream did I revel as we slid along over the snow! What cared I for the swooping wind, the thundering avalanche, the drifting snow-wreath,--was he not there, my protector and my guide? Had he not sworn to be my succor and my safety?
We had just arrived at a lofty tableland,--some few peaks appeared still above us, but none very near,--when the wind, with a violence beyond all description, bore great ma.s.ses of drift against us, and effectually barred all farther progress. The stone sledge, too, had partly become embedded in the soft snow, and the horse was standing powerless, when suddenly mamma's horse stumbled and fell. In his efforts to rise he smashed one of the rope traces, so that when he began to pull again, the unequal draught carried the sledge to one side, and upset it. A loud shriek told me something had happened, and at the instant Lord G.
whispered in my ear, ”It's nothing,--she has only taken a 'header' in the soft snow, and won't be a bit the worse.”
Further questioning was vain; for Cary's sledge-horse s.h.i.+ed at the confusion in front, and plunged off the road into the deep snow, where he disappeared all but the head, fortunately flinging her out into the guide's arms. My turn was now to come; for Lord G., with his mad impetuosity, tried to pa.s.s on and gain the front, but the animal, by a furious jerk, smashed all the tackle, and set off at a wild, half-swimming pace through the snow, leaving our sledge firmly wedged between two dense walls of drift Papa sprang out to our rescue; but so helpless was he, from the quant.i.ty of his integuments, that he rolled over, and lay there on his back, shouting fearfully.
It appeared as if the violence of the storm had only waited for this moment of general disaster; for now the wind tore along great ma.s.ses of snow, that rose around us to the height of several feet, covering up the horses to their backs, and embedding the men to their armpits. Loud booming ma.s.ses announced the fall of avalanches near, and the sky became darkened, like as if night was approaching. Words cannot convey the faintest conception of that scene of terror, dismay, and confusion.
Guides shouting and swearing; cries of distress and screams of anguish mingled with the rattling thunder and the whistling wind. Some were for trying to go back; others proclaimed it impossible; each instant a new disaster occurred. The baggage had disappeared altogether, Betty Cobb being saved, as it sank, by almost superhuman efforts of the guide.
Paddy Byrne, who had mistaken the kick of a horse on the back of his head for a blow, had pitched into one of the guides, and they were now fighting in four feet of snow, and likely to carry their quarrel out of the world with them. Taddy was ”nowhere.” To add to this uproar, papa had, in mistake for brandy, drunk two-thirds of a bottle of complexion wash, and screamed out that he was poisoned. Of mamma I could see nothing; but a dense group surrounded her sledge, and showed me she was in trouble.
I could not give you an idea of what followed, for incidents of peril were every moment interrupted by something ludicrous. The very efforts we made to disengage ourselves were constantly attended by some absurd catastrophe, and no one could stir a step without either a fall, or a plunge up to the waist in soft snow. The horses, too, would make no efforts to rise, but lay to be snowed over as if perfectly indifferent to their fate. By good fortune our britschka, from which the wheels had been taken off, was in a sledge to the rear, and mamma, Cary, and myself were crammed into this, to which all the horses, and men also, were speedily harnessed, and by astonis.h.i.+ng efforts we were enabled to get on. Papa and Betty were wedged fast into one sledge, and attached to us by a tow-rope, and thus we at length proceeded.
When mamma found herself in comparative safety, she went off into a slight attack of her nerves; but, fortunately, Lord G. found out the bottle papa had been in vain in search of, and she got soon better. Poor fellow, no persuasion could prevail on him to come inside along with us.
How he travelled, or how he contrived to brave that fearful day, I never learned! From this moment our journey was at the rate of about a mile in three hours, the shovel and spade men having to clear the way as we went; and what between horses that had to be dug out of holes, harness repaired, men rescued, and frequent accident to papa's sledge, which, on an average, was upset every half-hour, our halts were incessant. It was after midnight that we reached a dreary-looking stone edifice in the midst of the snow. Anything so dismal I never beheld, as it stood there surrounded with drift-snow, its narrow windows strongly barred with iron, and its roof covered with heavy ma.s.ses of stone to prevent it being earned away by the hurricane. This, we were told, was the Refuge-house on the summit, and here, we were informed, we should stay till a change of weather might enable us to proceed.