“Don’t talk such nonsense, child, but go on with what you were speaking about,” rejoined Susan, with a smile, to conceal which she bent down her head as she plied her needle briskly on one of Emma’s mountain-torn dresses.
“Well, where was I?” continued Gillie, “ah, yes. Then, Lord what’s-’is-name, he’s falled in love with the mountain-tops, an’ is for ever tryin’ to get at ’em, in which he would succeed, for he’s a plucky young feller, if it worn’t for that snob—who’s got charge of ’im—Mister Lumbard—whose pecooliarity lies in preferrin’ every wrong road to the right one. As I heard Mr Lewis say the other day, w’en I chanced to be passin’ the keyhole of the sallymanjay, ‘he’d raither go up to the roof of a ’ouse by the waterspout than the staircase,’ just for the sake of boastin’ of it.”
“And is Mr Lumbard in love with any one?” asked Susan.
“Of course he is,” answered Gillie, “he’s in love with hisself. He’s always talkin’ of hisself, an’ praisin’ hisself, an’ boastin’ of hisself an’ what he’s done and agoin’ to do. He’s plucky enough, no doubt, and if there wor a lightnin’-conductor runnin’ to top of Mount Blang, I do b’lieve he’d try to—to—lead his Lordship up that; but he’s too fond of talkin’ an’ swaggerin’ about with his big axe, an’ wearin’ a coil of rope on his shoulder when he ain’t goin’ nowhere. Bah! I don’t like him. What do you think, Susan, I met him on the road the other evenin’ w’en takin’ a stroll by myself down near the Glassyer day Bossong, an’ I says to him, quite in a friendly way, ‘bong joor,’ says I, which is French, you know, an’ what the natives here says when they’re in good humour an’ want to say ‘good-day,’ ‘all serene,’ ‘how are you off for soap?’ an’ suchlike purlitenesses. Well, would you believe it, he went past without takin’ no notice of me whatsumdever.”
“How very impolite,” said Susan, “and what did you do?”
“Do,” cried Gillie, drawing himself up, “why, I cocked my nose in the air and walked on without disdainin’ to say another word—treated ’im with suvrin contempt. But enough of him—an’ more than enough. Well, to continue, then there’s Missis Stoutley, she’s falled in love too.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes, with wittles. The Count Hur—what’s-’is-name, who’s always doin’ the purlite when he’s not mopin’, says it’s the mountain hair as is agreein’ with her, but I think its the hair-soup. Anyhow she’s more friendly with her wittles here than she ever was in England. After comin’ in from that excursion where them two stout fellers carried her up the mountains, an’ all but capsized her and themselves, incloodin’ the chair, down a precipice, while passin’ a string o’ mules on a track no broader than the brim of Mister Slingsby’s wide-awake, she took to her wittles with a sort of lovin’ awidity that an’t describable. The way she shovelled in the soup, an’ stowed away the mutton chops, an’ pitched into the pease and taters, to say nothing of cauliflower and cutlets, was a caution to the billions. It made my mouth water to look at her, an’ my eyes too—only that may have had somethin’ to do with the keyhole, for them ’otels of Chamouni are oncommon draughty. Yes,” continued Gillie, slowly, as if he were musing, “she’s failed in love with wittles, an’ it’s by no means a misplaced affection. It would be well for the Count if he could fall in the same direction. Did you ever look steadily at the Count, Susan?”
“I can’t say I ever did; at least not more so than at other people. Why?”
“Because, if you ever do look at him steadily, you’ll see care a-sittin’ wery heavy on his long yeller face. There’s somethin’ the matter with that Count, either in ’is head or ’is stummick, I ain’t sure which; but, whichever it is, it has descended to his darter, for that gal’s face is too anxious by half for such a young and pretty one. I have quite a sympathy, a sort o’ feller-feelin’, for that Count. He seems to me the wictim of a secret sorrow.”