The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. II

LETTER VI. MARY ANNE DODD TO MISS DOOLAN, OF BALLYDOOLAN

Dearest Kitty, – I write these few lines from the Refuge-house on the Splügen Pass. 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 Splügen, 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 Splügen 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 pass rapidly to and fro, but, muffled 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 muffles, 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 masses 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, muffled 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 encumbered 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 nobility 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 hardships 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 nobility is not a thing of crosses and ribbons, but of blood. They feel that they are of earth's purest clay, and they assert 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 masses 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 shied 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 pass 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 quantity 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 masses 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 masses 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 astonishing 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 masses 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.

But does not the very name "Refuge-house" fill you with thoughts of appalling danger? Do you not instinctively shudder at the perils to which this is the haven of succor?

"I see we are not the first here," cried Caroline; "don't you see lights moving yonder?"

She was right, for as we drew up we perceived a group of guides and drivers in the doorway, and saw various conveyances and sledges within the shed at the side of the building.

A dialogue in the wildest shouts was now conducted between our party and the others, by which we came to learn that the travellers were some of those who had left Splugen the night before ourselves, and whose disasters had been even worse than our own. Indeed, as far as I could ascertain, they had gone through much more than we had.

Our first meeting with papa – in the kitchen, as I suppose I must call the lower room of this fearful place – was quite affecting, for he had taken so much of the guide's brandy as an antidote to the supposed poison, that he was really overcome, and, under the delusion that he was at home in his own house, ran about shaking hands with every one, and welcoming them to Dodsborough. Mamma was so convinced that he had lost his reason permanently, that she was taken with violent hysterics. The scene baffles all description, occurring, as it did, in presence of some twenty guides and spade-folk, who drank their "schnaps," ate their sausages, smoked, and dried their wet garments all the while, with a most well-bred inattention to our sufferings. Though Cary and I were obliged to do everything ourselves, – for Betty was insensible, owing to her having travelled in the vicinity of the same little cordial flask, and my maid was sulky in not being put under the care of a certain good-looking guide, – we really succeeded wonderfully, and contrived to have papa put to bed in a little chamber with a good mattress, and where a cheerful fire was soon lighted. Mamma also rallied, and Lord George made her a cup of tea in a kettle, and poured her out a cup of it into the shaving-dish of his dressing-box, and we all became as happy as possible.

It appeared that the other arrivals, who occupied a separate quarter, were not ill provided for the emergency, for a servant used to pass and repass to their chamber with a very savory odor from the dish he carried, and Lord G. swore that he heard the pop of a champagne cork. We made great efforts to ascertain who they were, but without success. All we could learn was that it was a gentleman and a lady, with their two servants, travelling in their own carriage, which was unmistakably English.

"I 'm determined to run them to earth," exclaimed Lord G. at last. "I 'll just mistake my way, and blunder into their apartment."

We endeavored to dissuade him, but he was determined; and when he is so, Kitty, nothing can swerve him. Off he went, and after a pause of a few seconds we heard a heavy door slammed, then another. After that, both Cary and myself were fully persuaded that we heard a hearty burst of laughter; but though we listened long and painfully, we could detect no more. Unhappily, too, at this time mamma fell asleep, and her deep respirations effectually masked everything but the din of the avalanches. After a while Cary followed ma's example, leaving me alone to sit by the "watch-fire's light," and here, in the regions of eternal snow, to commune with her who holds my heart's dearest affections.

It is now nigh three o'clock. The night is of the very blackest, neither moon nor stars to be seen; fearful squalls of wind – gusts strong enough to shake this stronghold to its foundation – tear wildly past, and from the distance comes the booming sound of thundering avalanches. One might fancy, easily, that escape from this was impossible, and that to be cast away here implied a lingering but inevitable fate. No great strain of fancy is needed for such a consummation. We are miles from all human habitation, and three yards beyond the doorway the boldest would not dare to venture! And you, Kitty, at this hour are calmly sleeping to the hum of "the spreading sycamore;" or, perchance, awake, and thinking of her who now pours out her heart before you; and oh, blame me not if it be a tangled web that I present to you, for such will human hopes and emotions ever make it My poor heart is, indeed, a battleground for warring hopes and fears, high-soaring ambitions, and depressing terrors. Would that you were here to guide, console, and direct me!

Lord George has not returned. What can his absence mean? All is silent, too, in the dreary building. My anxieties are fearful, – I dread I know not what. I fancy a thousand ills that even possibility would have rejected. The courier is to pass this at five o'clock, so that I must, perchance, close my letter in the same agony of doubt and uncertainty.

Oh, dearest, only fancy the mal à propos. Who do you think our neighbors are? Mr. and Mrs. Gore Hampton, on their way to Italy! Can you imagine anything so unfortunate and so distressing? You may remember all our former intimacy, – I may call it friendship, – and by what an unpropitious incident it was broken up. Lord George has just come to tell me the tidings, but, instead of participating in my distress, he seems to think the affair an admirable joke. I need not tell you that he knows nothing of mamma's temper, nor her manner of acting. What may come of this there is no saying. It seems that there is scarcely a chance of our being able to get on to-day; and here we are all beneath one roof, our mutual passions of jealousy, hatred, revenge, and malice, all snowed up on the top of the Splugen Alps!

I have asked of Lord George, almost with tears, what is to be done? but to all seeming he sees no difficulty in the matter, for his reply is always, "Nothing whatever." When pressed closely, he says, "Oh, the Gore Hamptons are such thoroughly well-bred folk, there is never any awkwardness to be apprehended from them. Be quite easy in your mind; they have tact enough for any emergency." What this may mean, Kitty, I cannot even guess; for the "situation," as the French would call it, is peculiar. And as to tact, it is, after all, like skill in a game which, however available against a clever adversary, is of little value when opposed to those who neither recognize the rules, nor appreciate the nice points of the encounter.

But I cannot venture to inquire further; it would at once convict me of ignorance, so that I appear to be satisfied with an explanation that explains nothing. And now, Kitty, to conclude; for, though dying to tell you that this knotty question has been fairly solved, I must seal my letter and despatch it by Lord George, who is this moment about to set out for the Toll-house, three miles away. It appears that two of our guides have refused to go farther, and that we must have recourse to the authorities to compel them. This is the object of Lord George's mission; but the dear fellow braves every hardship and every peril for us, and says that he would willingly encounter far more hazardous dangers for one "kind word, or one kind look," from your distracted, but ever devoted

Mary Anne.

They begin to fear now that some accident must have befallen the courier with the mails; he should have passed through here at midnight. It is now daybreak, and no sign of him! Our anxieties are terrible, and what fate may yet be ours there is no knowing.

LETTER VII. MRS. DODD TO MRS. MARY GALLAGHER, PRIEST'S HOUSE, BRUFF

My dear Molly, – After fatigues and distresses that would have worn out the strength of a rhinocerass, here we are, at length, in Italy. If you only saw the places we came through, the mountains upon mountains of snow, the great masses that tumbled down on every side of us, and we lost, as one might call it, in the very midst of eternal dissolution, you 'd naturally exclaim that you had got the last lines ever to be traced by your friend Jemima. Two days of this, no less, my dear, with fifteen degrees below "Nero," wherever he is, that's what I call suffering and misery. We were twice given up for lost, and but for Providence and a guide called – I am afraid to write it, but it answers to Barny with us – we 'd have soon gone to our long account; and, oh, Molly! what a reckoning will that be for K. I.! If ever there was a heart jet black with iniquity and baseness, it is his; and he knows it; and he knows I knows it; and more than that, the whole world shall know it I 'll publish him through what the poet calls the "infamy of space;" and, so long as I 'm spared, I 'll be a sting in his flesh, and a thorn in his side.