Time passed on, and her child grew, developing among other things a love of mischief; for one day, while her mother was at the mill where she wrought, she got to the box in which were kept her mother's cherished family documents and letters, and amused herself by setting them ablaze one by one at a lighted candle got for the purpose! Thus, in one half-hour, every document necessary to prove her mother's pedigree was destroyed, and with it all hope of bettering her position was thrown to the winds; so, when some years afterwards, Lady Curwen sent a messenger to tell her that the advertisement I have named had once more appeared in the public prints, she paid no attention to the information, satisfying herself simply with an expression of thanks to her kind benefactor!
She was, however, content with her lot. Her child was her chief comfort and joy. For her she toiled in the mill by day, and in her humble home at night; and as she grew in stature and in beauty, the mother's heart throbbed its gratitude and her eye beamed with admiration. But on one occasion she had nearly lost her. Playing one fine afternoon on the bank of the stream which drove the wheel belonging to the mill, her feet slipped, and she fell in. A man who happened to be a little in advance, had his eye drawn to an object on the water, which he at first took to be a quantity of loose hair; but another glance revealed to him the head of a little girl beneath the surface of the rapid stream. He ran and was just in time to lay hold of the hair as its possessor was falling over on to the wheel. Another moment, and Jane Ruddock (the drowning girl) would have been no more; in which case he who now pens these fragments of a strange history would not have been in existence—for that little girl became his mother.
I have little more to add. Isabella Pearson, who, as I have shewn, became Isabella Ruddock, wife of a common sailor, once more entered the matrimonial lists; but she neither improved her position nor increased her happiness by so doing. Indeed her life, while her second husband lived, was imbittered by his love of strong drink. But she survived him. She was a widow the second time when she became familiar to my youthful eye. Many a merry hour have I spent in her company. Often I have heard her relate the incidents which make up this story. She was a fine, tall, handsome woman while health remained with her; she had also a large womanly heart, a hot impetuous temper, and a remarkable simplicity and honesty of character. She died in 1849, weighed down with years and infirmities; but she ended her eventful life in much patience and peace.
[A LADY'S ASCENT OF THE BREITHORN.]
Fancy the following tableau. Scene—Switzerland; time—August 1875, at a desolate rocky part of the Surenen Pass. A group—Youthful grace and vigour; manly strength and endurance, &c. Foreground—Four heads eagerly bent over a huge bowl of café placed on a board, which is extended over four laps. Hands belonging to said heads ladling the mixture into their mouths with large wooden ladles with little curved handles, between convulsions of mirth. Background—The châlet of the Waldnacht Alp, from which the realistic artist should cause hideous odours to ascend in the form of dense vapour. At the door of it, the unwashed and scantily clad figure of a Swiss herdsman, fearful to behold, owner of châlet, and like Caliban himself, chattering an ominous jargon, and grinning at the English feeders. Right of background—Attendant guide, cheerful and pleased that he has at last secured some sustenance for his 'leddies,' who have been walking from eight A.M. to four P.M., and will yet have to go on till three-quarters of an hour after midnight. These tableaux, with minor variations, were frequent in our tour.
After many adventures and many jokes, after being lost in a pass from eight o'clock to ten, when the sun had set, and having to wander about for those two hours on the edge of a precipice guiltless of path, being finally rescued by a heaven-sent and most unexpected peasant with a lamp—after these things and their results, which were blackened complexions, dried skins, and dilapidated costumes, we arrived at Zermatt, where we settled down for a time. The object of the settling down was in one word—ascents.
Nothing much, according to the men, had yet been done, though we in our secret hearts hugged the proud thought that Pilatus had not defeated us, and that the Twelfth-cake-like snows of Titlis had been pressed by our tread; that the Aeggischhorn, though it had witnessed (N.B. at the end of a long day) the heat and perspiration which dimmed our few remaining charms, and had heard our smothered groans, had had in the end to feel our light weight upon its summit, and to bear us as we gazed with awe at its mighty circle of peaks. But what do these avail? In the eye of man they were mere preparation for mightier things.
After some debate, mingled with faint remonstrance on our part, when Monte Rosa was mentioned, the Breithorn was decided upon; and the manly spirits, which had become depressed by a few days' lounge, arose. Such is the enigma Man! The day was fixed, an extra guide (one Franz Biener—known as Weisshorn Biener) engaged on the night before we went up to the Riffel. After a few hours' disturbed sleep we were awoke at two; and dragging our weary and daily emaciating bodies from the beds where they had not been too comfortable, we dressed by the flickering light of a candle; and as we dressed, my friend and I cast fearful looks out at the Matterhorn, which fiercely pierced the dark sky, and seemed to say to me in the words of the poet:
Beware the pine-tree's withered branch;
Beware the awful avalanche!