“Here they are, Cappen, all ready; fit to do dooty as a lookin’-glass to shave yerself,” cried the “powder-monkey,” leaping up and leaving the room abruptly.
Gillie’s opinion in regard to the madness of Lewis was shared by several of his friends above stairs. Doctor Lawrence, especially, felt much anxiety about him, having overheard one or two conversations held by the guides on the subject of the young Englishman’s recklessness.
“Really, Lewis,” said the Doctor, on one occasion, “you must listen to a lecture from me, because you are in a measure under my charge.”
“I’m all attention, sir,” said Lewis meekly, as he sat down on the edge of his bed and folded his hands in his lap.
“Well then, to begin,” said the Doctor, with a half-serious smile, “I won’t trouble you with my own opinion, to which you attach no weight—”
“Pardon me, Lawrence, I attach great weight to it—or, rather, it has so much weight that I can scarcely bear it.”
“Just so, and therefore you shan’t have it. But you must admit that the opinion of a good guide is worth something. Now, I heard Antoine Grennon the other day laying down some unquestionable principles to the Professor—”
“What! lecturing the Professor?” interrupted Lewis, “how very presumptuous.”
“He said,” continued the Doctor, “that the dangers connected with the ascent of these Swiss mountains are real, and, unless properly provided against, may become terrible, if not fatal. He instanced your own tendency to go roving about among the glaciers alone. With a comrade or a guide attached to you by a rope there is no danger worth speaking of, but it must be as clear to you as it is to me that it when out on the mountains alone, you step on a snow-covered crevasse and break through, your instant death is inevitable.”
“Yes, but,” objected Lewis, with that unwillingness to be convinced which is one of the chief characteristics of youth, “I always walk, when alone on the glaciers, with the utmost caution, sounding the snow in front of me with the long handle of my axe at every step as I go.”