The Guide of Montanvert
We were passing the summer at the Pays de Vaud; thence making excursions, as suited our inclination, to different portions of the country, always finding something new and striking—something out of which we could draw profitable lessons for the future.
On one of these occasions we made the ascent of Montanvert, and visited the Mer de Glace. Montanvert rises abruptly from the vale of Chamouni, and may not improperly be considered a portion of the base of Mont Blanc. It is beautifully wooded to its summit, whence its name of the Green Mountain.
As we were standing in the court of the inn discussing the merits of a guide, and anxious to find a trusty and intelligent person from whom we could learn all that was to be learned, as well as feel secure in his choice of the best paths, a boy and girl came up the hill, and speaking hurriedly to the landlord, advanced confidently to the place where we stood. Lifting his cap, while a shower of light soft curls fell over his coarse blouse, he asked if we were in search of a guide, and if we would take him. His manner was so respectful, and his face and appearance so youthful, we were attracted, and still did not know how to reply to him.
“I was thinking of Franz,” said the innkeeper; “you need not fear his youth; he was born here, and his father has always been considered one of the best guides in the country; Franz knows every path.”
“Let his father come with him,” I suggested. I thought I caught a tear in the boy’s eye, and his lips trembled.
“Father is old, and besides he is very ill to-day; if you will allow me I will serve you faithfully.”
There was something so frank and truthful, and his words were so well chosen and showed such cultivation, that even had I feared that he was unequal to the task I should have taken him.
At this moment his sister came out of the inn, the good woman following her with a bottle of wine.
“This is for your father, Annette; I hope he will be better to-morrow.”
“I am going,” I heard Franz whisper; and taking the wine-bottle, he left Annette to carry the smaller packages, and turned to us as if ready to set off.
“You are not to take Annette, are you?” I asked.
“We live halfway up the mountain, and shall pass near the house. We shall not need our poles till we reach that point.”
We did not over-exert ourselves at the outset, casting our eyes over the green valley, and then up the snowy mountains, sometimes exchanging a word with Franz, but oftener listening, as he talked in a low voice to Annette, of what she was to do during the day.
“And if he dies, Franz!”
“God grant that he may not.”
We had now reached the little cottage, and, laying down her packages, Annette ran to a little shed and brought each of us a long pole furnished with a spike at the end, for which we found abundant use before we returned; she then brought a draught of clear, cold water, gushing out of a rock near by, and, bidding us “God speed,” entered the hut.
Franz was with us, but he had just stopped for a word with his father, and there was a moisture in his eye that came very near calling the tears to our own. We did not question him then, but going on, we paused occasionally to observe the ruin which had been wrought by many avalanches, while our ears mistook the sound of others for thunder. Trees uprooted, withered branches and blasted trunks were scattered in every direction, and sometimes a large space was completely cleared by one of these tremendous agents of destruction.
“You have seen the village of Chamouni,” said Franz; “it is said to have been built by a few peasants who escaped an avalanche that occurred on the opposite side of the Arve.”
The higher we ascended the more steep and difficult it became, and more than once did Franz have to turn and teach us how to use our poles, resting the weight of the body upon them, but still inclining the figure to the face of the mountain instead of the valley. Higher up we came to shoots or rivers of frozen snow; the inclination of the ice being extremely steep and the surface smooth, Franz crossed first, making marks with his pole for our feet. He then directed us to look neither above nor below us, but only to our feet, for should we fall nothing could save us from sliding down the ice and being dashed against the rocks or the stumps of trees beneath. Passing the first in safety, we found the next less formidable, while the danger was diminished in proportion to the experience we acquired.
Once over, Franz told us how his father was accustomed to descend the ice shoot; planting his heels firmly in the snow and placing his pole under his right arm and leaning the entire weight of his body upon it he came down with the swiftness of an arrow, his body almost in a sitting posture, his heels and the spiked end of his pole alone touching the ice and deeply indenting it.
“It happened,” said Franz, “that my father was showing a small company of travellers to the summit, when a sudden fancy seized one of them to make the descent in that way. My father expostulated, and told him that it required practice and skill, that but few of the guides would undertake it. He would not be deterred, feeling, as he said, sure that he could do anything performed by another. Seeing that he was determined, my father helped him to adjust his pole, and then shut his eyes.”
“And what then?” I asked, as Franz stopped and looked in the direction of the Mer de Glace.
“There was no help for him,” said Franz; “he was buried at the foot of the mountain.”
Having reached the summit, the scene that burst upon us was sublime in the highest degree; immediately beneath was the Mer de Glace, a broad river of ice running nearly forty miles up into the Alps; to the north the green valley of Chamouni, to the south the gigantic barriers that separate Savoy from Piedmont, and around us inaccessible peaks and mountains of eternal snow, finely contrasting with the deep blue of the heavens; while the roar of cataracts and the thunder of avalanches were the only sounds that broke upon the profound stillness of the terrible solitude.
On the summit of the mountain we found an inn or hospice. We entered and warmed ourselves, neither did we refuse the black bread and glass of sour wine that were presently brought to us. As we sat by the fire a small table was brought near us, and on it lay the album in which we were expected to enter our names. Many notable autographs we found here, and despite the gladness we felt in adding ours to the number, there was still a sad, desolate thought: those most distinguished had all passed away. The mountains remained, their glory undiminished; but the human beings climbing their heights, and exulting in the grandeur of heaven and earth, had vanished like the mist wreath. Years would pass and other feet would cross the slippery fields, other eyes look out upon the work of God’s hands, other names be traced, and we, like the throng before us, be gone—no longer to look upon the created, but the Creator.
As soon as we were sufficiently rested, Franz summoned us to the Sea of Ice, and we began to descend the steep and rugged face of the mountain. As we approached the surface of the glacier, these inequalities rose into considerable elevations, intermingled with half-formed pyramids, bending walls and shapeless masses of ice; with blocks of granite and frightful chasms at once savage and fantastic. It puzzled me to know why it should have been called a sea, a rough and stony one at that; but to me it looked like a river, walled in by two enormous mountains, rising to the height of ten thousand feet, and forming a ravine a mile and a half wide, that pursues a straight course for several miles and divides at the upper end into two glens, like deep gashes, that run up to the highest elevation of the Alps, terminating at the lower extremity in an icy precipice of two thousand feet, whose base is in a still deeper valley. It was as if there had been innumerable torrents dashing down the precipice into the valley—arrested by a mighty hurricane as they hurried along, and wrought into the wildest forms by the fury of the tempest, and then suddenly congealed, leaving a sea or river of ice, framed in with lofty peaks and snowy summits, cataracts and avalanches, clouds and storms, a wonderful combination of the grand, the terrible, and the sublime.
Franz understood his business of guide too well to let me loiter as I wished. “These fissures are the chief danger,” he said; and, holding out his small hand, he grasped mine with the tenacity of one not accustomed to let anything slip through his fingers. A girdle of imperfectly frozen snow borders this sea; and Franz never planted his feet till he had first ascertained the nature of the surface with his pole. Some of these fissures are of an amazing depth, and, taking out my watch, I tried to fathom one of them by dropping large fragments of granite; and calculating by the time that elapsed before reaching the bottom, we judged it to be over five hundred feet.
Franz had hurried us; now, he stopped, and bade us look above us. We did so, and were amply repaid for all our toil. To try to describe it would be in vain; and still the distinct outline is indelibly impressed upon my mind, and I am confident will never be effaced. We were standing in the midst of the rough waves and yawning abysses of this frozen sea; while almost perpendicularly from its brink the mountains rose, clothed with scanty herbage, and adorned with the tiny crimson blossoms of the rhododendron that bloomed upon their sides.
As the eye looked up the valley, every trace of vegetation died away; and the snowy mountains appeared to meet and mingle with each other.
We left the glacier, and ascending again to the hospice of Montanvert, I sat down by the side of Franz upon a block of granite, and looked again upon a scene the equal of which I never expect to see again. There was a far away look in Franz’s eyes. Was he thinking of the little cottage far up the mountain, and of Annette watching by the bedside of his sick father? Perhaps so; in any case I was glad that we had taken him. His could not be an everyday story, there must be some particular motive why he should want so earnestly to come. I would not question him then; but I determined to stop at the little cottage and learn for myself.
With all the untold glory above and beneath me, I felt oppressed with the littleness, as well as the greatness of my nature. How insignificant I appeared amid these gigantic forms; and still I exulted in the consciousness that “My Father made them all, that Father with whom I could commune, and whose Son I was privileged to love.”
“And this God is our God,” I was constrained to say aloud. Franz turned his speaking eye upon me.
“If it was not for this, how could we endure it?” he said, while there was a grave, calm look on his face, so little to be expected in a guide.
“How could we endure this grandeur, or our own littleness?” I asked.
“To know that God rules, giving each his place, to the mountains theirs, and to us ours. Insignificant we may be, and still we are each of us of more value than all the mountains in the universe. Jesus created mountains; but he died for us.”
“Where did you learn this, Franz?”
“From the Bible, sir.”
I saw it all; the Bible was the textbook he had studied. It was this which had given him that rare expression of face, and the words so far above the condition of life indicated by the little hamlet where he lived.
There was no more time, for the sun was going down, and we must go with it; and rising, we began to make the descent.
The moon was full orbed before we reached the cottage. I was weary beyond the power of utterance.
“If you would prefer to stop here, we can give you a comfortable bed,” said Franz, “and Annette will have something to eat. I told her that there was a possibility that you would like to remain.”
It was the very thing I wanted, and placing my pole by the side of Franz’s in the little shed from which Annette had brought it in the morning, I entered the cottage.
All was still and quiet. It seemed Annette had not heard us; for as the door was opened, she rose from the bedside, where she had been kneeling, and springing lightly to Franz hid her little tear-wet face in his bosom. She did not perceive me, and for a moment there was nothing to be heard but the heavy breathing of the sick man.
“How has he been, Annette?” and Franz unclasped his sister’s arm.
“He did not say much till the sun was nearly down, then he began to ask for you, and at last I read him to sleep.”
“Can you give us something to eat, Annette? you see I have brought the stranger with me.”
She turned with such an air of modesty, dropping a courtesy so very humbly, and yet with a blending of maidenly dignity, that I felt instinctively to bow to the womanhood before me, quaint and picturesque as it was in its black dress, white sleeves, and wooden-heeled shoes.
Giving one glance at the sleeper, Annette slipped out at a side-door; while Franz rising from his straight-backed chair, and dropping on his knees beside the bed, pressed his lips to the furrowed brow. The action seemed to recall the sick man, his breathing was not so heavy and his eyes partly opened.
“Father, you are not sleeping easily; let me turn you on your pillow.” The voice was low and tender, and the action gentle as a woman’s. “Franz!” and the withered hand stroked his light curls. “Franz!” there was nothing more; but oh, what a world of love, of restored confidence! the stiffening tongue lingered fondly on each letter.
The room was large, and there was a general air of neatness; but there was a lack of comforts such as we are accustomed to see at home. There was no lamp in the room; only on the hearth a pine-knot nearly spent, sending out now a bright light, then wavering, bringing out shadows on the wall, and permitting us to catch glimpses of the outdoor radiance, the silvery effulgence of the rocks and hills.
The sick man slept, and now his breathing was as sweet as an infant’s. I rose to look at him, his bronzed face bleached to a deathly pallor, his high brow seamed with furrows, and his hair like a network of silver falling over the coarse white pillow.
“Has he been long ill?” I asked.
“It is about three months now,” and Franz drew up a little stand, and lifted the Bible that had been lying open on the bed to the table.
“Annette spoke of reading him to sleep; was this the book?” I questioned.
“Father has come to like this since he was sick; he don’t care for any other.”
“Then he has not always liked it?”
“No, sir.”
“May I know, Franz, when you first learned to love this book?”
He looked up with such a shy, timid look, and still with the same frankness that had characterized him during the day. Just then Annette entered, whispered to Franz, and both went out. In a moment Franz returned.
“Annette was afraid it would not do; it is the best we have, and I know you must be hungry.”
White bread, and strawberries, and goat’s milk; while the bottle of sour wine I had seen in the morning graced the table. I had not expected such a tempting meal, and I was hungry, as Franz said. Taking his seat Franz raised his eyes to mine. There was no mistaking its upward, grateful glance. Bowing our heads, we asked a blessing, and then picking up the broken thread, Franz went on to tell me of himself.
Franz’s Story.
“It is nearly four years since an English gentleman and his daughter visited Chamouni, and my father was their guide. Mr. Wyndham was a gentleman of refined manners; a Christian man, loving God, and speaking of that love with the earnestness of one who wishes others to love Him also. His daughter Alice, a frail, gentle girl, was one of those beings that seem lent, not given; the last of a large family, and herself not strong. Her father brought her to Lausanne, hoping that pure air and change of scene would restore and invigorate her. I hardly know why, but certain it is that my father was never so much interested in travellers before; while from the first it seemed to me that I could never do enough for the gentle girl, who never failed to inspire me with the love of something beyond what I knew. It was not a tangible idea, and when I tried to reach it I could not. Often in going up the mountain we would stop and rest on some shelf of the rock, while Alice would take her Bible from her pocket, and read the beautiful descriptions of the majesty and glory of the mountain heights, their grandeur and splendor, and then of the great God, creator and ruler of the universe, and kneeling in the cleft of the rock, she would commit herself to him with such a sweet, childlike confidence, I used to weep without knowing what I was weeping for, wishing and longing that I could understand for myself. Whenever she read, and especially when she prayed, my father would listen attentively, taking care when we went home to say nothing about it.
“I remember one day we had been to ‘Le Jardin,’ a little spot of green at the foot of the grand Jarasse, framed in with eternal snows, but itself covered with Alpine plants and flowers, and yielding herbage sufficient to tempt the herdsmen to drive their cattle across the Mer de Glace. Her father and mine had gone a little out of the path, leaving me in charge and Alice to rest. Seeing some bright flowers of a peculiar species I stopped to gather them, and when I returned Alice was reading. It was not of Christ’s power, glory and majesty, but of his love, the tenderness he felt for us, of his life, and last of all, of his death. I had never heard the story before, and it took entire possession of my spirit. Going down the mountain I was continually asking myself, ‘What shall I render to him for all he has suffered on my account? and what for the blessings he has given me?’ Thinking of his buffetings, scoffs and scourging, I could hardly keep the tears. My father observing this, and supposing that I was weary or had hurt myself, was kinder than usual; but when I told him of the little book and what Alice had told me of the love of Jesus, he grew angry and said that the next time they needed a guide I should stay at home. ‘I have listened once or twice,’ he said, ‘because my living depends upon my politeness to strangers; but when it comes to turning the heads of my children it is quite another thing.’
“A few weeks after this Mr. Wyndham left Chamouni for Lausanne.
“‘We shall miss you,’ said Alice; for my father let me go to bid them good-by; ‘and that you may have something to remember me by, I am going to give you this little Bible. You will see that I have marked the passages I want you to study; and you must try to read it every day.’
“It was the very thing that I had wanted, but I could hardly tell her so. Tears were running over my face, and I had barely time to slip the little book into my pocket when my father came up. After that I was happier. I could read for myself, and it was sweet to know that God cared for me. Many a pleasant hour did I enjoy in the mountain passes, and in telling Annette of the treasure I had found in the Bible.
“My father may have suspected this. I hardly know; but one day the priest came to talk to me upbraiding me not a little with reading a book that could do me no good, and demanding that I should give it to him. This I refused to do. He appealed to my father; invectives and blows followed, and at last my father told me that I should either give up the book or never see him or Annette any more. It was a struggle, and I came near giving it up.
“When Annette suggested that I should go to Lausanne and see Mr. Wyndham and Alice, I had not thought that I could do this, and without delay started. I was received very kindly by Mr. Wyndham. Alice had grown very weak; could not walk, and seldom could ride. I can not tell you how the days passed, neither of the exertion she made to teach me out of my little book. Then came a day when her voice was still, and the next the sweet face was hidden from my sight for ever.
“Soon after this Mr. Wyndham left for England, but before he left he had a long talk with me, and of my plans and hopes for the future. The result was that I was placed in school, of which there are several, in Lausanne, and began to study with reference to being myself a teacher of his blessed word. My little Bible I sent to Annette; but my father would not let me come home. For the last year he has been failing; three months since he took to his bed, and then Annette prevailed upon him to let me come and wait upon him. I found him greatly changed. From the first he let me read the Book, as he calls it, and of late I feel that he loves Jesus, and trusts him for the future. Living upon his labor, it troubles him that he can do nothing; and this was why I was so anxious to go with you yesterday; he likes to think of me as a guide.”
“And I trust you will be a guide,” I said, as we left the table and entered the sick-room, “a guide to lead souls to Christ. What a blessed privilege!”
“If I can only do it,” and his eyes were full of a holy light.
Annette sat by the bedside; the face of the sick man was as pale as marble, and but for the gentle breathing, we should have thought him already departed. Franz put on a fresh knot, and the red flame sent a rosy tinge over the apartment. Sitting before the fire we watched him as he slept, knowing, feeling that it could not be long. Then a chapter was read, and a prayer went up for strength and guidance.
Franz would not let me watch with him; and leading me into a small room with a clean but somewhat hard bed, left me to myself. Weary as I was, I could not sleep. The glory of the day; the sad, sweet history just related; the sick man, with the messenger waiting at the humble door, thrilled me with a feeling that would not rest. Opening my window, I enjoyed the stillness, the solitude, and the grandeur of the scene: the glittering dome of Mont Blanc, and all the surrounding and inferior domes and spires and pyramids that cluster in this wondrous region, which fancy might conceive the edifices of some great city, or the towers and dome of some vast minster. Far above the mountain-tops the moon was shining; while her retinue of stars, seen through the cool crisp air, seemed larger and more beautiful than I had ever before seen them.
It would be impossible to detail all the thoughts that passed, and the emotions that were excited in my mind. Every object around, beneath, above me seemed in silent but impressive eloquence to celebrate God’s praise; from the moon that led the starry train, from the patriarch of his kindred hills and nearest to the heavenly sanctuary, down to the frozen glaciers and the roaring torrents of the lower valleys, all seemed endowed with a peculiar language—a voice to touch the heart of man, and to enter into the ear of God.
At length sleep overpowered me, and when I awoke the sun was shining. Stepping into the outer room I was met by Franz, looking as fresh as though sleep had not been denied him. Leading me to the bedside, he spoke a few words to his father, while the trembling hand met mine, weak and worn. I saw that his course was nearly run; but there was a light in his eye that spoke of peace. Words were of little use.
After breakfast, which Annette insisted that I should take, I walked down to the inn, and there learned more of Franz than he had been willing to tell me. Not only had he been the means of leading his father to the Saviour, but it was his habit to gather the people together and read to them out of his Bible, telling them of Jesus and of his pure and spotless life, then of his agony and death, picturing his love and his infinite tenderness.
I was not restricted to a set number of days, and for three days I vibrated between the inn and the small cottage on the mountain. On the fourth it was over; the messenger had done his bidding. Franz and Annette were not the only mourners, not a villager but joined them; and when they turned from the grave to the silence of their humble room, I went with them.
Not many days after that the door of the cottage was shut; and when I sailed for my western home, Franz Muller was prosecuting his studies at Basle.
“He is to be a minister,” said Annette, as she followed me to the door, “and he says that wherever his work is, I may share it with him.”
Her face was lit up with a smile almost as bright as I had seen on Franz’s face. Surely the angels know nothing of the rapture of such a work.