“Young and active ladies can,” said the Professor, with his blandest possible smile, as he bowed to Emma.
“Then, we’ll all go together,” cried Lewis, with energy.
“Not all,” said Mrs Stoutley, with a sigh, “I am neither young nor active.”
“Nonsense, mother, you’re quite young yet, you know, and as active as a kitten when you’ve a mind to be. Come, we’ll have a couple of porters and a chair to have you carried when you knock up.”
Notwithstanding the glowing prospects of ease and felicity thus opened up to her, Mrs Stoutley resolutely refused to go on this excursion, but she generously allowed Emma to go if so disposed. Emma, being disposed, it was finally arranged that, on the following day, she, the Captain, Lewis, and Lawrence, with Gillie White as her page, should proceed up the sides of Mont Blanc with the man of science, and over the Mer de Glace to the Jardin.
Chapter Nine.
A Solid Stream.
There is a river of ice in Switzerland, which, taking its rise on the hoary summit of Mont Blanc, flows through a sinuous mountain-channel, and terminates its grand career by liquefaction in the vale of Chamouni. A mighty river it is in all respects, and a wonderful one—full of interest and mystery and apparent contradiction. It has a grand volume and sweep, varying from one to four miles in width, and is about twelve miles long, with a depth of many hundreds of feet. It is motionless to the eye, yet it descends into the plain continually. It is hard and unyielding in its nature, yet it flows as really and steadily, if not with as lithe a motion, as a liquid river. It is not a half solid mass like mud, which might roll slowly down an incline; it is solid, clear, transparent, brittle ice, which refuses to bend, and cracks sharply under a strain; nevertheless, it has its waves and rapids, cross-currents, eddies, and cascades, which, seen from a moderate distance, display all the grace and beauty of flowing water—as if a grand river in all its varied parts, calm and turbulent, had been actually and suddenly arrested in its course and frozen to the bottom.