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“Do you not notice,” said the lady, “how white and snowy its plumage has become of late? It is always thus before my boy arrives.”
“Dear Lady Alwyn, I did not like to tell you before; but all the three days you were at Dumfries Alba was lost, and I never thought to see him again. He was whiter when he came back than the snows on the mountains.”
“How strange!” said Lady Alwyn, meditatively.
“Claude, Claude!” cried Alba.
There is nothing strange in hearing a seagull talking, and Alba’s vocabulary was not a small one.
Lady Alwyn held out her hand; the bird perched on it, and presently was nestling fondly on her breast. This did not altogether please Fingal, Claude’s favourite deerhound. He must needs get up from the skin on which he had been reclining, and lean his noble head on the lady’s lap. And she could spare a hand to fondle the head.
Yes, everything was bright and pleasant. What though the early winter winds were raving through the leafless trees without, where swayed the rooks near their cheerless nests? what though the blasts were biting and cold in the uplands, and the Nith – brown and swollen – roared angrily over its rocky bed? Bright fires burned in every grate, and were reflected in patches of crimson from the massive mahogany furniture.
And Lady Alwyn’s face was cheerful too. Resigned and calm though she always appeared, to-day there was a sparkle in her eyes, that made her look almost young.
Rat-tat! It was a double knock at the front hall door which resounded through all the house.
Lady Alwyn started from her seat, and stood eager and expectant. She even went to meet the liveried servant, who presently entered with the telegram.
“Yes, yes!” she joyfully exclaimed in answer to Janet’s inquiring look. “My boy is coming to-day. I knew he would be. Alba, your master is coming.”
She embraced the bird again. Fingal, sure that something more than usual was on the tapis, began to scamper round the room, jumping over the chairs – a way he had when excited. He jumped all round the room twice, then he playfully snatched the telegram from Lady Alwyn’s hand and went jumping round again with that.
How much or how little of the truth Fingal guessed I cannot pretend to say. It was but a telegram. Had it been a letter written by his loved master’s hand, Fingal would have known it, even had the wanderer been years away.
So when Claude stepped briskly out of the train at the little station of P – , there, sure enough, was the great stately old carriage, with its two splendid dark bays, in their silvered harness, waiting to receive him.
His mother was not there; but Fingal was, and almost pulled his master down in the exuberance of his joy.
It was a long five-mile drive from the station to Dunallan. Charming enough, in all conscience, during the spring and summer months, and even when autumn tints were on the trees, but cold-looking and dreary now. All the more so that night was coming on apace, the little of lurid light which the sun had left in the west getting quickly absorbed in the heavy banks of rising cloud.
Claude’s spirits fell lower now than they had yet fallen. There was something even in the sombre grandeur of the family carriage that brought dark clouds around his heart.
Not one thought except those of love for the fair and innocent maiden far away mingled with these. But his mother? His proud, good, gentle mother?
How would the Lady Alwyn, the Lady of the Towers, herself of ancient family, like the idea of her only son marrying a poor Iceland orphan unblessed with a pedigree?
And he – a lord – Lord Alwyn! Yes, Lord Alwyn. He could not deny it, though he hated the title, hated it now more than ever for the sake of Meta.
There was some relief from his present gloom and doubts and fears in placing his arm round great Fingal – seated so lovingly by his side, – and breathing into his ears the strange story of his love.
Fingal could listen and sympathise, even if he did not know one whit what it was all about.
Fingal was a wise old dog, so he wisely held his peace, and offered no advice on the matter either way. He gave his master one lick on the cheek, however, as much as to say —
“Whatever you think, dear master, must be right, and whatever you do can’t be wrong in my eyes, so there?”
Mother and son had much to talk of that night. Lady Alwyn’s life since the Alba, her son’s ship, bore away for the far North, had been uneventful enough; but he had had adventures numerous indeed – although, mind you, he did not speak of them as such. Hardly ever is a rover off the stage heard making use of the word “adventures.” Modesty is one of the leading characteristics of your true hero.
There were times on this first evening when Claude would suddenly lapse into silence, almost into moodiness. He might be looking at his mother or not, but his mind was evidently abstracted, preoccupied, and his eyes had a far-away look in them. This did not escape his mother’s notice.
“Could he have any grief?” she thought. “Could he be ill and not know it?”
“You are sure,” she said once, “my dear Claude, that you have quite recovered from your terrible accident?”
“What, mother? Accident? Oh yes; indeed I had almost forgotten.”
“And your nurses, your kindly nurses, Claude: you must never forget them, dear.”
“I’m not likely to,” he said, with on emphasis which she thought almost strange. “Never while I live.”
He gazed into the fire.
“Would not this be the right time,” he was thinking, “to tell her all: to tell her I had three nurses instead of only two?”
But no; he dared not just yet. He would not run the risk of bringing a care to her now happy face. He thought himself thus justified in putting the evil day – if evil day it were to be – further off.
Claude was no coward, as I believe the sequel of my story will show, but still he dreaded – oh, how he dreaded! – the effect which the intelligence he was bound soon to give her would have upon her.
Claude slept but little that night, and slept but ill. More than once he started from some frightful dream, in which his mother was strangely mixed up, and not his mother only, but his Meta.
It was about five o’clock, though it would not be daylight for a long while yet. Claude was lying partially asleep: I say partially, because he seemed listening to the wind roaring through the leafless boughs of the trees, and every now and then causing the twiglets to tap and creak against the panes; but he thought he was at sea, and that the rushing sound was the rushing of waves, the creaking the yielding of the ship’s timbers to the force of the seas.
Suddenly he sprang half up in bed and listened intently, painfully.
He had distinctly heard some one in the room calling him. He could not be mistaken, and the voice seemed Meta’s.
“Claude! Claude!” cried the voice again, and his heart almost stood still for a moment as he saw a figure, which his imagination magnified a hundredfold, near the bed. “Claude?”
Next moment Alba, the snow-bird, alighted on his breast.
He slept soundly soon after this, but still when he appeared at breakfast he was so jaded looking and restless as to cause his mother considerable anxiety. He stoutly refused to see a medical man, however.
“It is nothing,” he laughed. “Nothing, dear mother, only slight fatigue. A sailor like myself thinks little of travelling a thousand miles by sea, yet dreads the rolling, jolting train.”
There was plenty to do and think about all day, well calculated to banish care. The villagers, the tenants, and neighbours all round were delighted to see the manly face and handsome figure of young Claude Alwyn once more among them, still accompanied by his pet – his spirit-bird, as the older cottagers had come to call it.
Then, although grouse were wild, there were hares in plenty, and fish in the river ready to be wooed by the gentle art of so true a fisherman as Claude Alwyn. And the walking exercise, through the heather hills, the fresh air, and the balmy breath of pine trees, never failed to refresh and invigorate him both in mind and body, so that he always returned to dinner buoyant and hopeful. But ever at the breakfast-table there was that weary look of carking care in his face.
He would go no further, however, in explaining it than confessing he did not sleep very well at night.
“It is the change,” he remarked, smiling, “from a hard mattress to one far too soft and luxuriant for a sailor. Besides, mother, I dare say I miss the motion of the ship.”
His mother only sighed softly.
There came to Claude one night a dream as vivid as any reality. He was back again in Iceland. He was gazing on the face and form of her whom he loved, though she did not seem to see him. She was seated on a hill-top, a favourite spot, where beside her he had often sat, when the fields beneath were green, the far-off sea an azure blue, when wild birds sang above and around them, and the perfume of wild flowers filled the summer air.
But snow was all over the landscape now, save where dark rocks jutted through the white, and the ocean, foam-flecked, dashed high over the beetling cliffs. Yes, there sat Meta, but oh! the sad, sad look in those beautiful eyes! She opened her lips and spoke at last.
“No, no, no!” she murmured; “he will never come again.”
He thought he sprang towards her, but she faded away like the mist from a geyser, and he was alone on the snow.
He slept no more that night. But he formed a resolve.
“No,” he said to himself, “I am not a man; not a drop of proud Alwyn’s blood runs through my veins if I hesitate longer. It is a duty I owe to my mother and to her to speak my mind. Yes, Meta, I will come back again.”
Were I an artist, I should delight in painting only beauty and peace: the fairest, holiest faces should be transferred to my canvas; the most smiling summer landscapes, the sunniest seas. But, alas! I am but an author, and no pen-and-ink depiction of life would be complete without the shade and shadow of sorrow.
I will not needlessly dwell on the interview that took place in the very room in which I am sitting writing now, between the proud Lady Alwyn and her son. Indeed, the interview was brief in itself: I have thus some excuse for being brevity personified in my description.
Pass we over, then, Claude’s introduction, his passionate declaration of love for Meta, his glowing panegyrics on her person and mind, and even the statement that only his regard for his mother and fear of hurting her feelings caused him to conceal the truth so long from her, and then we come to the dénouement.
“But, dearest mother, I now know and feel that your constant desire to do everything for my happiness will cause you to receive my Meta when I bring her home as my bride.”
If she had been silent till now, it was because she seemed as if thunder-struck.
“My boy,” she cried at last, “you are bewitched, or I am dreaming some hideous dream. Tell me it is all but an ill-timed joke. You are but a child – ”
“I am a man.”
“You have been deceived, put upon, tempted by a designing – ”
“Hold, mother, hold! Though the few words you have uttered sound like the death-knell to hopes I have fondly cherished, go no further: forget not yourself so far as to speak one word against my bride-elect, lest I forget I am your son.”
“My son? My son?” exclaimed the proud Lady of the Towers almost tragically. “Oh! would I could forget it, or that your ship had sunk in the blackest depths of ocean, rather than you had lived to bring this disgrace on the noble house of Alwyn.”
“Enough, mother; I will hear no more. You have thwarted me in the dearest wish of my heart, you whose love for a son ought to have conquered family pride. You have thrust me from the halls of my ancestors. I go forth into the world of adventure. I will seek in ambition, in ceaseless change, the only possible balm for the sorrow I have in parting from you.”
He turned on his heel as he spoke. He strode down the hall and through the avenue; he looked neither to right nor left, and never once behind him. His mother watched him with clasped hands, with anxious eyes, and with prayers on her pale and quivering lips.
“Would he turn? Surely, surely he would turn.” But nay; the trees soon hid him from view – hid him, and lastly Fingal, who with tail and head bent low, as if he knew that sorrow had come, followed at young Claude’s heels.
“Widowed and childless!” These were her words as she sank apparently lifeless on the floor.
Janet, her maid, found her thus and lifted her gently on to the couch. But when memory came back, no words her maid could utter could give comfort.
“I forgive him, Janet,” she said, “as he will forgive me. It is fate. He may write, but he’ll never return: too well do I know the pride of the Highland Alwyns. But, but, dear Janet,” – here all the woman’s nature gushed out in tears – “Janet,” she sobbed, “poor Fingal – too – has – gone.”
Sorrow had fallen like a dark cloud on Dunallan Towers, a cloud that was deepened in its darkness when one morning Alba, the snow-bird, was missing. It was last seen flying listlessly around the great elm trees, then straight as lightning bearing northwards. It was Janet who saw it, and it seemed to say —
“I hear a voice you cannot hear,
That bids me not to stay;
I see a hand you cannot see,
That beckons me away.”
Chapter Six
“Grief is the Parent of Fame.”
Claude was miles away from home ere he noticed faithful Fingal trotting near him.
His first thought was to order him back, but this poor dog, as if reading his mind, crouched low at his feet, looking beseechingly up.
“This is my home,” he appeared to plead.
Claude’s next thought was to take him back; his mother might even ere now have relented. But that Highland pride, which has been at once the glory and the curse of Auld Scotland, stepped in and forbade.
Young Claude went on.
“Grief,” says one of England’s greatest novelists – Lord Lytton – “is the parent of fame.”
This is so true! Many and many a grief-stricken, sorrow-laden man and woman in this world would faint and fail and die, did they not fall back upon work to support them. This is the tonic that sustains tens of thousands of sorely stricken ones, until Time, the great healer, has assuaged the floods of their sorrow.
Young though Claude was – but little more than twenty-one – he had already obtained some fame in the fields of literature. He had been a rover, and to some extent an explorer – more especially among those wild and lonely islands in the Norland Ocean. Nor had he been content to merely cruise around these, watching only the ever-changing hues of the ocean, or the play of sunshine and shade on bold bluff crags and terraced cliffs. No, for he was as much on shore as afloat, mingling among their peoples when peoples there were, mingling among the birds if they were the only inhabitants, studying flora, studying fauna, reading even the great book of the rocks, that told him so much, but never yet had caused him to waver in his belief in a Supreme Being, who made the sea and all that is in it, the land and all it contains.
He was a sportsman and naturalist; in fact, “a man of the world,” in the only true and dignified sense of the term.
His was an original mind, and a deep-thinking one, so that the sketches of his life and travels which he had been in the habit of sending from time to time to the organs of higher-class literature were sure to be welcome both to editors and readers.
He was, moreover, a student of Norse lore, and a speculator in the theories – many of them vague enough – concerning the mysterious regions that lie around the Arctic Pole. And it was his writings on these countries that first brought him into real notoriety among a class of very worthy savants who, though seldom too willing to venture into extreme danger themselves, are, to their credit be it said, never averse to spend money in fitting out ships of research.
On the very day of his rejoining his vessel at Glasgow, a letter was handed to him by his chief mate, inviting him to London on important business in connection with discovery in the Arctic regions.
Two hours afterwards Claude was seated in a flying train, whirling rapidly on towards the borders. In nine hours more he was in town. Another half-hour brought him to a shipping office in Leadenhall Street.
“You are Captain Lord Alwyn?” said the grey-haired clerk, looking at him over the rims of a pair of golden spectacles.
“The same, at your service,” returned Claude.
“We did not expect you quite so soon. But if you did come, I was told to hand you this note.”
It was simply an invitation to dine with Professor Hodson and a few friends next evening at Richmond.
When Claude got there, the first person to greet him when announced was the learned professor himself, and a very bustling, dignified little man he was.
“Ha! ha!” he laughed, as he shook Claude warmly by the hand. “I couldn’t have believed it. Really, it is strange!”
“Believe what?” said Claude, bluntly.
“Why, that you were so young a man. Should have thought from your writings you must be forty if a day.”
It was Claude’s turn to laugh.
“But there, never mind. Authors are always taken to be older men than they are. No, I don’t think that youth will be an insuperable objection. Besides, youth has courage, youth has fire and health, to say nothing of a recuperative power of rising again even after being floored by a thousand misfortunes.”
“Difficulties, I dare say,” said Claude, “were made to be overcome.”
“To be sure. Well, then, having heard and read a good deal about your doings up North, we thought we would send for you, and instead of having a learned day discussion round a green baize-covered table, to invite you to join us at dinner – quite a quiet affair – and just to chat matters over.”
