Gordon Stables

“ The aurora, that shone with such radiance the winter before, now showed only occasionally, and that only as a faint white glimmer among the clouds. No moon or stars were ever seen.
Sometimes, for a week at a time, the snow fell and the wind raged with such fearful and bitter force as to preclude the possibility of any one ever putting his head beyond the threshold of the door on pain of instant suffocation.
At such times it taxed all the energies of Claude and the doctor, and even of Paddy himself, to keep the men from sinking into utter despondency. ”

“ A great grey cat was singing herself to sleep on the piano stool, a fire was burning on the low hearth—a fire of peat and wood, that looked very cheerful—and above the window, in a tiny wicker cage, hung a tiny and miserable-looking snow-flea.
Claude took all this in at a glance. But none of these things interested him. His eyes were riveted on the only figure now in the room. A beautiful young girl, almost spirit-like she looked. So thought Claude. She stood leaning against the piano reading a tiny gilt-edged book. She was dressed in a long flowing robe of crimson adorned with snow-white fur. ”

“ At other times, perhaps, after a fall of silent snow, without as much wind as would serve to move one downy fleck, the clouds would disperse, and the stars would glitter like a million diamonds, when suddenly a murmuring roar would be heard among the mountains, and on looking in that direction from the ship’s deck, or from the huts on shore, a sight would be presented to the wondering gaze of Claude and his crew that my poor feeble pen would struggle in vain to describe. ”

“ It seemed as if a wind from every point of the compass had marched forth to meet and do battle with each other among the hills, and that each wind was accompanied by a ghostly storm spirit. High as the stars were those whirling sheeted ghosts; if they crossed the moon’s disc they looked unearthly and fearful; but see! they meet in fury, and all is a bewildering chaos. Describe to me the foam of Atlantic billows dashing high in the air after striking a black, bare rock in the sea; describe to me in words the smoky spray of a geyser, and I will try to paint to you the battle of the snow-squalls. ”

“ He is a giant in stature. He kneels beside young Alwyn, and there is a kindness visible in his little grey eyes, as he strokes Claude’s face, just as if he had been a colt. Byarnie, for such is this giant’s name, soon finds out how matters stand, and gently he lifts Claude in his arms and places him on his shoulder, and then marches off.
Preposterous and humorous thoughts will often pass through the mind, even when the body is in agony; and now, Claude could not help recalling the story of Jack the Giant-killer, and fancied himself Jack being carried away on the shoulders of Blunderbore. ”

“ Then it was withdrawn—lifted, and behold summer on the hills, summer in the glens. Glad streams and cataracts sparkling in the sunshine, the mountain-tops capped in silvery snow, streaks of silver running down their brown, white-flecked sides, but the ground all carpeted with green, which in a few days burst forth into the most charming variety of colours.
The sea itself was scarcely rippled by the gentle breeze that blew steadily from the west; the air was so fresh and balmy that it was a pleasure to breathe it. Everything seemed to feel the touch of the newly come summer, and to rejoice. ”

“ But here no heather-bell bloomed to vanish. But the lovely little stonecrops, white or yellow, the crimson ranunculus, the dark-tufted grasses, the wild dwarf poppies, and even the mosses and the hardy shrubs that blossomed for a time in the sloping rays of the sun—all have gone or lie deeply buried under the snow; they will appear no more till June again melts their covering and awakens them to sunshine and life.
Claude and his crew have not been idle. ”

“ Was not Greenland—that vast country which a single glance at the map tells you is as large in extent, as long and as wide as Africa itself—was it not at one time, ages ago, they argued, an inhabited continent as free from ice as our fair England is at the present day? They believed that the mountains which now shoot their jagged peaks, covered with perpetual snow, up into the blue-green sky were once purple and crimson with gorgeous heath; that green valleys and lovely glens lay below, with placid lakes and rolling rivers, and cascades of sparkling water ”

“ Look at those bluff, bare crags that overhang the sea, the home of hardly even a wild bird; see afar off the tree-lands covered with snow, leaden clouds athwart the sky, billows dashing in foam against the black rocks, and the cold wind blowing. Ugh! let us leave it. It is pleasant to find a Prince Albert Land and a Victoria Land up in the Arctic ocean, side by side; and a North Lincoln and North Devon, separated only by Jones’s Sound. We have been told that when the North Pole is eventually discovered a Scotchman will be found at the top of it. ”

“ Along the horizon ahead was a bank of rock-and-castle clouds, while far away astern the jagged snowcapped peaks of Iceland were just visible above the rolling seas.
Flocks of malleys, shrill-screaming kittywakes, and different kinds of seagulls were tacking and half-tacking round the vessel, afar off, and the dark and ominous-like skua waited his chance to rob the malleys of whatever they might happen to pick up.
“Yes,” the surgeon said; “I think we’ll have it out of yonder.”
“Seems so to me, too,” said Claude. “We are all ready for a blow, Mr Lloyd?” ”

“ And beside her always sat a sturdy bright-faced boy of about thirteen, with blue eyes, and short irrepressible locks of soft fair hair, that nothing on earth except scissors could have kept from tumbling over his brow. He was always dressed in the Highland garb as Highland lads ought to be, but his jacket was of black velvet and his kilt of the sombrest coloured tartan.
He was the favourite of every one on the estate, and so was his bird. Wherever young Claude—he was seldom called Lord Claude, because he did not like to be—wherever he went his snow-bird went as well. ”

“ And Claude was quite as fond of his pet as his pet was of him, and that was the secret of his success in taming this wild and strangely beautiful creature.
Only those who have seen the snow-bird in its own country, sailing around great icebergs or glittering glaciers, its plumage rivalling the snow in the purity of its whiteness, its shape more graceful than that of a swallow, can have any idea of the extreme loveliness of the creature. ”

“ Summer has fled from the Norland hills. The songbirds have gone—the martin, and woodlark, and robin; the wild flowers have faded—the blue geraniums, the pink-eyed diapensias, the daisies, and the purple wild thyme; only the green of the creeping saxifrage bedecks the rocks, and hardy sea-pinks and ferns still grow in the glades and by the brook-sides. But autumn winds sigh mournfully through the leafless birch trees and drooping willows, and rustle the withered leaves of the wild myrtle on the braesides.
With a sigh Meta turns away from the window. ”

“ Everything about this natty yacht is neat and trim. The capstan is of polished mahogany, the binnacle is fit to be a drawing-room ornament. Whatever ought to be black about her is like polished ebony, and the brasswork shines like burnished gold.
On the deck sit two ladies. One, the elder, leans languidly back in her cane chair; the other—it is Meta—is sitting on a footstool at her knee, reading aloud.
A sailor would say the Alba is a trifle down by the head; only a sailor could notice it. The Alba is heavily fortified with wood and iron around and between the bows. ”

“ Had our heroes known aught of the disaster to the store-ship, it would have cast a gloom over them that nothing could have dispelled.
As it was they had nothing in their hearts but hope—hope that, when the long, dreary winter wore away, having more than accomplished the object of their cruise, the ice would break up, their imprisonment would be over, and, laden with riches and crowned with honour, they would bid farewell to the land of the aurora, and reach England in peace and safety. ”

“ It takes Claude nearly an hour to drag himself to a neighbouring knoll, for one limb is smashed, and he has lost blood. He throws himself down now, or rather he falls, and when next he becomes conscious the sun is shining down warm on him from a bright blue sky; birds are singing near, and the wild flowers are open and nodding to a gentle breeze. ”

“ I say, “I have finished my story—your story.”
“The story of our boy,” says Janet, musingly, almost sadly. “And,” she adds, “you have told all about the death of my dear Dowager Lady, and how Claude never cares now to visit Dunallan Towers? Have you told how weeds now grow in the great old garden, and dark, dank nettles where the roses bloomed? How owls usurp the place of the pigeons in the ivied battlements? How on the drear, dark days of autumn the raven flaps—”
“Stay, Janet, stay,” I cry; “no trace of melancholy or gloom must tinge my last pages. Look, Janet, look up. ”

“ The savants are assembled in the largest room in the professor’s house—a room where lectures are often given and wonderful experiments made, but a cosy room for all that, with two great fires burning in it, and a soft crimson light diffused throughout it from the great candelabra.
There is a stranger here to-night—a stranger to us, I mean—a man about fifty, a sailor evidently, from his build and bronze. He is very pleasant in manner and voice; his face is handsome, and his smile strikes you as coming directly from the heart. ”

“ If Byarnie would suddenly explode with a loud “Ho! ho! ho!” of merriment, or if Fingal barked, then, hey! presto, every head would sink as if by magic, and in a few minutes the sea would be as smooth as usual, with only the gulls, divers, or grebes floating lazily on it.
Next, Claude would make Byarnie tell him some wild old Norse story—he was full of them—with Sagas, or Vikings, or fairies in it, and then sing. Oh! Byarnie could sing well, but a strange, monotonous kind of lilt it was—very pleasant, nevertheless, for it never once failed to put Claude to sleep. ”

“ But Meta was one of those girls that, however humble their early surroundings, if transplanted to a higher sphere, grace it Meta, in her Norland home, dressed in hodden grey or simple wincey, was a lady. Meta, arrayed in the costliest and neatest garments a fashionable costumier could devise, and, through her father’s fondness, “bedecked in jewels rare,” was nothing more. She was artless, straightforward, innocent, and candid. What else can you wish for in a lady, young or old?
And by-and-by Meta would be the lady of Dunallan Towers, and Claude’s mother the dowager ”

“ Alongside the Icebear are two huge sledges; one is laden with the tobogganing boards and a few merry sailors, the other with men and officers, and such a row there is and such a din! What with the wild shouts of Jack and Joe, the Eskimos; the cracking of whips; the snarling, barking, and yelping of the dogs, the noise is deafening and indescribable.
But they are off at last.
The men have breakfasted well, and, although it is very cold—ten degrees below zero—they are happy, nay, even boisterously merry. Paddy starts a song and all join in the chorus. Claude is there ”

“ Claude thought it ten, and felt in the third heaven when his young nurse again returned.
She seated herself at a little table facing Claude, and without even knocking at the door, Byarnie the giant stepped in, and placed a zither in front of her. It was a strange household, but, altogether, Iceland is a strange place.
She was going to play to soothe her patient. And sweetly she played too. Old-world airs, but how delicate the touch, how tasteful the fingering. And now she sings. “Who,” thought Claude, “can have taught her that wild sad song? Can a girl so young as she have loved and lost?” ”

“ What is that on a stone yonder? A snow-bird gazing at him with one beautiful eye, and seeming to pity him. A snow-bird? His snow-bird?
“Alba! Alba!” he calls it; but the bird flies away. He was not at home, then, in bonnie Scotland, by the green banks of the Nith, as he had almost thought he was.
No, no; for look, yonder is his horse at the foot of the cliff—dead.
Dead? Surely not dead. He tries to crawl towards it. The movement gives him intense agony. He himself is wounded. And now he remembers all. How he left his yacht at Reykjavik a week ago ”

“ When the last clang of hammer was hushed on board, when every artisan had left the ship, then, and not till then, did Claude invite Captain Jahnsen and his daughter to inspect the Alba.
Is it necessary to say that Meta wondered at and admired everything; asked a great many questions, and felt somewhat like a maiden under the spell of an enchanter?
But honest Captain Jahnsen viewed all in silence. It was certainly the silence of admiration for Claude’s cleverness—nay, almost genius—in the art of turning a yacht into a lady’s boudoir. ”