In the Land of the Great Snow Bear: A Tale of Love and Heroism

Chapter Twenty Three
An Adventurous Voyage – “They’re Coming! They’re Coming!”

From the very day on which Lady Alwyn stepped on board the Alba, and joined the search for her lost son, and for tidings, however meagre, of the good ship Kittywake, a new life seemed to spring up within her. She seemed at once to have lost what she did not hesitate to call her narrow-mindedness.

She began to see that all the world were brothers and sisters, and dependent upon each other, not only for comfort, but for happiness itself. She herself in her pride and exclusiveness had never really known what happiness was before, because she had never been free. Accustomed to exact and to receive homage from almost every one around her, she had been living in a kind of fool’s paradise, imagining that she was not as other people, that because she had, not riches, but birth and high pedigree, she was made of different material than the “plebs,” the common herd, could boast of.

Now the scales seemed falling from her eyes. She could see arightly; she could even notice and learn that the world in general was independent of her, but that she was dependent on the world.

Those hardy seamen, who went merrily about at their work, talking, laughing, often singing, appeared not to know nor care that she, Lady Alwyn, was in existence. If Jack at his duty came on the quarter-deck, and she were in the way, politely but firmly Jack would tell her, “I’ll trouble you to shift for a moment, ma’am.”

Some of the politest of these offered an arm, and the proud Lady Alwyn was surprised at herself for accepting the kindly offered assistance.

She was surprised at herself, too, for positively feeling lost, unless she had some one to talk to, and to find herself often conversing with Captain Jahnsen as if he had been a brother, or with Meta as if she were a sister.

The latter, indeed, became indispensable to Lady Alwyn even before the ship had reached the longitude of Cape Farewell.

Before another fortnight had passed I think she really loved Meta; for Meta had been so unremittingly kind and attentive to her. She had calmed her fears when the winds or seas were raging and the storm roaring through the rigging, and when the poor little yacht was surrounded with floating icebergs so tall and so terrible in their tallness and quiet but awful strength, that the vessel looked beside them like a tiny fly on a crystal épergne.

Meta used to read to her, play to her, sing to her, and tell her tales; but she never told her the tale – she never told her the tale of her love.

One day the book drooped listlessly in Meta’s lap, and there came such a sad far-away look in her eyes, that – they were alone in the cabin – Lady Alwyn took her gently by the hand.

“What are you thinking about, dear child?” said the lady. “You have something on your mind – some grief, some sadness.”

For answer Meta burst into tears.

Had she dared she would have told her ladyship everything now; for Meta could not get over the idea that she was playing a double part, and night and day the thought troubled and vexed her. But dare she tell her? No, she feared her pride too much.

She consoled herself by remembering her vow, that she would never, never marry Claude without his mother’s consent – not unless she joined her hands and blessed them.

But then Claude – might he not even now be lying cold in death? No wonder that Meta wept.

The Alba sailed on and on, or steamed on and on, encountering all the dangers usual to a passage out in these seas.

But every danger was bravely faced by the ladies, every trial was cheerfully met, and but served to bind their hearts closer together in the bonds of friendship.

Then one day, towards the latter end of April, the sun went down in a yellow haze, through which he glared red and angrily. There was ice about everywhere, bergs of every conceivable shape and size, some so big that the Alba took long minutes to steam past them, others with pinnacled top so tall that they caught the sun’s rays long after he had dipped down behind the western waves. There was a look of such unwonted anxiety on good Captain Jahnsen’s face that Meta must go and embrace him, and ask him if there was any danger.

“A little, dear,” he replied. “You’re a sailor’s daughter, you know, so comfort poor Lady Alwyn if it comes on to blow much, and keep up her heart.”

Meta promised she would.

The glass got suddenly hollow at top, and began to sink at an aggravatingly rapid rate.

The night would not be a very long one, but it would be pitchy dark. A heavy swell, too, was coming in from the south, that showed a storm had been raging far out in the broad Atlantic.

Again and again the captain went to the glass, tapping it uneasily. It fell, and fell, and fell.

A bit of sail was got ready, only a morsel to steady her, and the fore-hatches were battened down none too soon.

The storm came on, accompanied by blinding snow. Lady Alwyn could not sleep, though Meta sang and played to her.

Music below, sweet, soft, and plaintive; on deck the roaring, whistling, and howling of the wind through the cordage; orders being almost incessantly given to the man at the wheel, and the ship’s course thus altered a few points every minute. This was to avoid the clashing ice.

Bump, bump, bump, continually against smaller pieces that could not be avoided.

The ship was proceeding very slowly, and the captain was forward transmitting his orders aft through the trumpet, when suddenly there came a terrible crash, and the shouting and screaming after this was so dreadful that Lady Alwyn was fain to put her fingers in her ears.

The ship had been struck, her planks splintered and staved in right abaft the starboard bow.

It was “two watches to the pumps” now, while the mate and a few hands endeavoured to stem the leak by placing blankets overboard against the hole and over it. In vain; the wind was too high, the waves too merciless. With frozen fingers, the mate and his men had to desist.

Short though the night was, it was a terrible one to the ladies below. They had quite prepared to meet death. But oh! death like this is death in a dreadful form.

After what seemed an interminable time, the daylight shimmered in through the dead light on the deck of the ladies’ cabin, and up and down across the glass in the scuttle the green seas could be seen washing and lap – lap – lapping.

By-and-by they heard the captain’s voice in the saloon, and immediately after he sent to tell them that the danger was over, and the storm had blown itself out.

By noon next day the sea had gone so far down that temporary repairs were effected, and in a day or two more, in a calm blue sea, the ship was heeled over, and these repairs made good and substantial.

Then the Alba went on her adventurous voyage – adventurous, I mean, for so small a yacht – and the ladies took heart and came on deck to gaze and wonder at the marvels everywhere visible around them.

Into every creek went the Alba searching for tidings of the lost Kittywake.

In very few of these did they find inhabitants, and when they did, they had no news, or only sadly confusing news to give.

One day Captain Jahnsen came off from a little Yack village with a countenance beaming with hope and joy.

“I think,” he told Lady Alwyn, “I have got news of your son. Bad news partly.”

“Oh!” she cried, “it cannot be bad if he but lives.”

“Some months ago he was alive. I have met two Indians, who frankly confess they basely deserted the party after the ship had been burned, and a dearth of provisions followed. They are willing to be bribed to conduct us to the spot.”

The reader already knows who these Indians were. No time was now lost in getting ready, provisioning, and equipping a sufficient number of strong and ice-worthy sledges.

Captain Jahnsen made every endeavour to persuade Lady Alwyn from joining the toilsome and hazardous expedition, but in vain.

The snows yet lay thick on hill and vale, though the sun had risen for the day – the long Arctic day.

The ice on rivers and creeks was firm and safe, so that the course the sledge party took was a straight one. As they had travelled the road before, Jack and Joe could not now mistake it. Fast and well galloped the dogs, and wonderful was each day’s work that they put behind them; yet to Lady Alwyn’s mind and to Meta’s they could hardly go quickly enough.

The camping out at night, or during the hours that should have been night, was terribly trying to poor Lady Alwyn. How much she must have loved her son, how much she must have repented her false pride, ere she could have exposed herself to hardships such as these.

But the journey is nearly at an end, they have passed unscathed through every danger hitherto, and there is but a short fifty miles between them and the inland sea, when suddenly the sky began to darken over and a snow-wind to moan across the dreary wilderness. For days and days they sheltered in a cave.

How trying to nerves and temper! Would the storm never abate? Would the wind never cease to howl and rave? It did at length, and joyfully the journey was resumed.

As soon as they were visible, Byarnie, who had been watching on an icy cliff top, must needs take off his jacket to wave it – a cap would not have met the requirements of the situation; then, still waving his jacket aloft and shouting, he rushed down to the camp like a maniac giant.

“They’re coming! they’re coming! they’re coming!” he cried.

Boy Bounce ran out waving his ladle aloft; Dr Barrett himself ran to meet and welcome the expedition; the men rushed to the tent door, the hale supporting those who were maimed and sick, even Claude being among the number.

But Paddy O’Connell – why, nothing less than dancing a jig could satisfy Paddy O’Connell, or keep his feelings of joy in anything like control.

“Bedad!” he told a messmate many months afterwards, “if it hadn’t been for that jig I’d have bursted entoirely, and it’s the truth I’m telling ye, and never a word av a lie in it aither.”

Chapter Twenty Four
“It is all like a Dream.”

The journey back from the inland sea to the Yack village had been full of adventure and toil, but all happy; and there is hardly anything a person will not do or encounter when buoyed up with hope and joy.

They had stayed for two weeks at the village, that the invalids might recruit their health and strength; and then, with her sails outspread to a favouring breeze, southward she sped, literally on the wings of the wind.

“It is all like a dream,” said Claude, as he sat by Meta’s side on the quarter-deck of the yacht Alba, one beautiful summer’s day just two months after the events related in the last chapter. “All like a dream, Meta.” The vessel was coasting along the western shores of Scotland, many miles off the point of Ardnamurchan.

There was hardly a breath of air; just a little swell on, and a gentle ripple on each round heaving wave, with the sunshine weaving threads of brightest silver all through, and making rainbows in the spray and bubbles that floated away astern in the ship’s wake.

The Alba and her happy crew were returning to their native land, and if nothing occurred they would cast anchor by next morning, at the tail of the bank.

“Yes, dear,” replied Meta, “it is all like a dream – a long, long dismal dream.”

“I’m not sorry it all occurred, though, Meta; it has tried your faith and mine as well; and perhaps, you know, if things had not turned out as they have done, my mother would never have consented to our union.”

“Oh, I love your mother so, so much!” exclaimed Meta, enthusiastically. “I loved her before we were a week together in the ship; but then – ”

“Then what, dearest?”

“I was not happy, because, you must know, I thought I was deceiving her, that I was playing a double part, that I ought to have told her at once who I was.”

“Do you know, Meta,” said Claude, after a pause, “I do not think I shall ever doubt the goodness of Providence again. Oh! you cannot tell, love,” he continued, “how dark my heart felt, how sad and gloomy, and how full of despair when poor Paddy reported the desertion of Jack and Joe, the Eskimo Indians. And yet, Meta, had they not deserted, your father would not have met them in the Yack village, and the probability is you would not have found us, or found us dead.”

Poor Meta shuddered, and the tears rose to her eyes. Claude hastened to change the subject.

“Do you think, dear,” he said, “you will like our country?”

Meta had not been enough in society to be anything else but candid.

“I’m sure I shall not at first,” she replied; “only – ”

She paused.

“I will be with you,” said Claude, beaming.

“Yes. And after a time I dare say I shall get used to – to Scotland; but oh! never to England.”

“We will keep this yacht, Meta.”

“That will be delightful.”

“And when tired of one place, we will go to another. I have a home in the wildest part of the Highlands of Ross; we will live much there. And we will sometimes cruise away north to Norway, and to your dear Icelandic home.”

Meta was too happy to reply.

Claude’s thoughts were also very pleasant, so the lovers relapsed into silence.

There are, to my way of thinking, few events more sad than the breaking up of a ship’s company, on her return after a long voyage.

At sea we have been a little community – nay, more, a family almost. We have learned each other’s ways. We have learned to love our messmates, or at all events to regard them with friendship. We know their peculiarities, their habits, even their weak points and faults. We have been, indeed, more than a community; we have been a little world afloat, knowing as little for the time being of any other people as the inhabitants of one planet do about those of another.

But now with the paying-off of the ship’s crew all is over; from the moment the ship sails into the harbour all is changed, and every tie is ruthlessly snapped asunder.

Everything is now bustle, stir, and excitement. The very ship herself begins to look unkempt and untidy. She seems to become reckless and regardless of her personal appearance – ropes anyhow, rigging awry, dirty foot-prints on a deck that erst was snowy-white, tarnished brass and soiled mahogany. Strangers, too, crowd on board – landsmen with long hats and umbrellas; lands-women who care less for a ship than they do for a barn. You feel the vessel is no longer your home, and you long to get away out of her.

The crew is broken up; and on shore, if you meet some of the seamen you sailed with, you will hardly know them, for Jack himself seems to have degenerated, and your smartest and tidiest sailor on board may, on shore, look a veritable rake or lubber.

No; my ship never looks well in dock. Let me have her leagues and leagues away out on the silent sea; be the water rough or smooth – be it blue, green, grey, or foam-flecked, I can love her then and be quietly, serenely happy.

So the men of the Alba and the survivors of the unfortunate Icebear were scattered far and near, the yacht being left in charge of McDonald and two hands.

Meta and Claude parted for a time – Meta going home to her father’s beautiful villa at R – , on the banks of the romantic Clyde. Byarnie went with his mistress. Dr Barrett became the guest of the Lady of the Towers and of Claude. The boy Bounce was here also. He took up his abode in the kitchen, and settled down to serious eating, by way, perhaps, of making up for what he had lost in the Arctic regions. And Paddy O’Connell went home to “ould Oirland” to visit his mother and his sister Biddy – “and the pig, the crayture.”

My little heroine – the bonnie, winsome, lovesome Meta – had seen many changes even in her short lifetime. And now she is home for a time at her father’s house. Though a very beautiful and tastefully furnished mansion, Captain Jahnsen’s home was by no means a palace, but compared to Meta’s cottage in Iceland, surrounded by wild, bleak, and rugged scenery – scenery nearly as silent as the grave or Greenland – her father’s domains were almost a paradise.

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; and none to see her now could doubt she would fit and fill the proud position gracefully and well.

After a few weeks at home, during which, however, he had made many a little run to Captain Jahnsen’s house, going with all a lover’s joyful ardour, returning with all a lover’s sad, sweet reluctance, our hero ran his vessel down the Clyde.

It mattered but very little to Claude where the beautiful yacht Alba lay while being altered and refitted, so she was moored not far from Captain Jahnsen’s house. Refitted? Yes, because there were tons of iron and wood to come off her bows, and changes were to be made in her saloon and interior generally. She would sail no longer to the icy regions of the far north, but by way of change – and such a change! – to sunny lands beyond the torrid zone.

There was a deal to be done to the interior of the Alba. Fewer hands would be needed now, and therefore a new saloon for the officers, with cabins off it, was built in the fore-part of the ship. It was by no means capacious, this room, but Claude spared no expense in making it both elegant and comfortable.

The after-part of the ship was to contain Claude’s private apartments, and here taste vied with elegance to make a suite of ship-rooms that nothing that is beautiful on board the finest liner could surpass.

What a pleasure it was to Claude, this refitting of what for many months was to be the ocean home of his bonnie bride!

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. But, after all, Jahnsen was a very practical sailor, so no doubt he thought, although he said nothing, that he would just as soon sail in a less costly fitted barque.

But then Captain Jansen was not going in the Alba. His sailing days were over, unless, as he said, something wonderful turned up to cause him to go to sea again.

Well, the Alba being completely fitted, it is only necessary to add that as many of Claude’s Arctic messmates as he could find were easily prevailed upon to join the ship.

Among these I need only name boy Bounce, who was rated wardroom steward; Paddy O’Connell, second officer – he was a good sailor, and true, as we already know; giant Byarnie, head steward and general superintendent; and last, but not least, Dr Barrett, surgeon, of course. His duties were bound to be very light, and he was rejoiced to have an opportunity to get that rest in southern climes which his adventures in the Arctic regions rendered a necessity.

It was gay and happy company that sat down to breakfast on that beautiful autumn day on which Claude and Meta were married; and perhaps the happiest, the most calmly, serenely happy face at that festive board was that of the Dowager Lady Alwyn.

And Claude, with his bride, went away to sea.

But one thing is worthy of note in this place. Before bidding his mother good-bye, he took the snow-bird from his shoulder and whispered some words in its ear. I do not for a moment wish any one to believe that the bird knew what was said, but one thing is certain: when Claude placed Alba in his mother’s arms, it nestled there, and it never afterwards left Dunallan Towers.

Seated on a mossy bank, in a wooded ravine, I have been writing this last chapter, dear reader mine, while the Nith goes wimpling through the glen close beneath me.

Summer winds are sighing and whispering among the silver birch trees, and their drooping branches, nodding, kiss the murmuring stream. There is a wealth of wild flowers everywhere – great banks of brambles starred over with pink-white blooms, and great banks of green and feathery breckans, up through which tower the crimson-belled stalks of the beautiful foxglove.

Musing on the story I have just completed, lulled by the river’s lisping song, and mournful croodle of the wild pigeons in the dark spruce thicket, I have almost dropped into dreamland. But I start as a hand is laid on my shoulder. I start and stand up.

No need to be frightened. It is only Janet who confronts me – Janet, with her silvery hair, her mild eyes, and chastened face.

“Janet,” 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. What does yonder sky forebode, evil or good?”

It was the parting rays of the setting sun I pointed to, gleaming red upon a lovely reach of water far down the strath, and lighting up the dark pine trees and the hills that o’ertopped them with a glory not their own. It lighted up old Janet’s face, too, and her locks of silvery-grey, until her face shone – radiant.

“Ah!” she murmured, “that sky bodes a bright to-morrow.”

So, too, shall the sunset of your life and of mine be, dear reader, if our lives are spent in the discharge of duty – be it high, be it low – and if our hearts are ever brightened with a hope that is not of this world, but lies in – the Far Beyond.

The End.