In the Land of the Great Snow Bear Part 1

In the Land of the Great Snow Bear.

by Gordon Stables.

CHAPTER ONE.

DUNALLAN TOWERS.

Even in the days of his boyhood--I had almost said infancy--there seems to have been much in the character and habits of Claude Alwyn that is unusual in children so young.

Some people tell us that the qualities of mind, developed by the individual, depend entirely on the nature of his a.s.sociates and a.s.sociations in early youth. I am not prepared to deny that there is a great deal of truth in this statement. But the facts therein do not account for everything, for individuality is stamped on a child from his very birth, and the power for good or for evil of the accidental a.s.sociation of after life may mould in a great measure, but cannot alter this.

"Many men many minds."

A true though trite old saying is that, and there were, no doubt, a great many different opinions concerning young Claude among those who dwelt in, or were in the habit of visiting at, Dunallan Towers.

From an old journal or diary, which has been handed to me by its writer, with full permission to make whatever use I choose of it, I have gleaned much information bearing on the boy's character and peculiarities.

Dunallan Towers, now so gloomy and desolate, was once the happiest and the homeliest, and at the same time the gayest and brightest of all the many beautiful mansions that grace the banks of the winding Nith. This was shortly after the marriage of Lord Alwyn to the only daughter of an English baronet.

There were those, however, about the country-side who did not hesitate to say that Alwyn might have been content to take for himself a bride from among the many fair and high-born dames of the shire in which he lived.

"The goshawk should never mate wi' the ringdove," said one stern old Scottish lady, "nor the owl perch low in the nightingale's bower. Our cauld Highland hills will hardly suit the dainty limbs of Alwyn's bonnie English bride. Our wild forests are no' like scented southern groves, and the roaring Nith is no' the placid Thames. A'thing will be strange to her, everything foreign, wild, and queer. She'll no' stay lang.

You'll see! you'll see! you'll see."

But if this proud and ancient dame really meant to give herself out as a prophetess, she proved to be a false one; only, to her credit be it said, she was the very first to call on the Lady of the Towers, as people named the bride of Lord Alwyn--the first to call, and the first to become one of her best and firmest friends.

As a bachelor hall, the Towers had been somewhat of a failure; all that was altered after Alwyn brought home his young wife--she looked so young, and in years, indeed, was little more than a girl.

But her easy, pleasant manner captivated every one; and, whether it were winter, with the snow on lawns and park, and ice on the river's edge, or summer, with the roses all in bloom, and the wind sighing softly through the birch-clad glens, bright and happy faces never failed to encircle the dinner-table of our winsome Lady of the Towers.

There was great rejoicing throughout all the parish on the birth of Lord Alwyn's heir. Village bells were rung, and a huge bonfire was lighted on the very top of the highest hill: a bonfire that could be seen from house and hut for leagues and leagues around.

The bonfire was kept burning all night long. Meanwhile the village lads and la.s.ses had a.s.sembled in a barn gaily bedecked with evergreens and flowers of every hue, and had made quite a ball-room of it. So the fire burned all the livelong night, and as long as the fire burned, the lads and la.s.ses danced, till at last the grey dawn of a summer morning made fire and dancing both seem out of place.

But Alwyn's heir did not cease to be a wonder and a subject for talk for the traditional nine days at least, during which time there was not a living soul in or about Dunallan Towers who had not been honoured with a peep at his little full moon of a face.

His nurse was so proud of her charge that she had even brought him as far as the top of the great hall-stair for Peter, the cow-boy, to have just one glimpse at.

Peter--the diary informs me--had left his boots on the mat; and when he reached the stair-top, and the snowy-white wraps were down-folded from the child's face, the good-hearted cow-boy, thinking he was in duty bound to say something very complimentary in return for the high honour bestowed upon him, lifted both hands and eyes ceiling-wards, and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed--

"My goodness! What a bonnie, bonnie bairn! I never saw the like o'

that before in a' my born days!"

I pause for a moment here, reader, and raise my head from the table at which I have been writing with the diary mentioned lying open before me.

I look up because some one has just glided silently into the room. It is Janet--Janet who wrote the diary; Janet who had been Claude's nurse.

She is very old now, her hair is as white as wreaths of drifted snow, but her face is still pleasant, and her eyes are bright, nor has the weight of years succeeded in bending her form.

She stands by my side, erect. She places one hand--how thin it is!--on the pages of the journal.

"You will not find everything there," she says, "about my dear boy Claude."

"Sit down, Janet," I say to her kindly. "I like to have you near me.

Take the book on your lap. Read to me, or talk to me, or do both; I shall listen and presently I shall write."

The apartment in which I am seated is what is called the red parlour of Dunallan Towers. It is in one of the many gables of the old mansion that abuts upon a green lawn, or brae, sloping somewhat steeply down to the river's bank.

It is a lovely evening in early autumn. Behind the purple hills in the west yonder, the sun has just set in a golden haze, and high up in the sky's blue there are a few feather-like clouds of brightest crimson.

By-and-by these will change to grey, then shadows of night will creep up from glen and dell, the rooks will cease to caw, and we shall hear only the murmur of the river over its pebbly bed, and the wind moaning through the topmost branches and the crisp leaves of those tall swaying trees.

Janet's voice falls upon my ear in sad but pleasant monotone. It is like the voice of one chanting some old-world ballad. I do not think her eyes are turned on me as she speaks--mine are looking outwards into the twilight; and she is gazing back, as it were, to the far-distant past.

Why, it is dark! Janet must have been talking for hours and hours, and has glided away as silently as she came.

I awake from the reverie into which I had fallen and step out through the cas.e.m.e.nt. How fresh the air is! How pleasant the wind's soft whisper and the river's song! The stars are out, and the round yellow moon is struggling up through a bank of clouds on the horizon. Now and then a bat flits past; now and then an owl hoots mournfully from some turret or chimney, round which the darkling ivy creeps. Not a light in any window. Silence broods over Dunallan Towers.

"The harp that once thro' Tara's halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls As if that soul were fled.

"So sleeps the pride of former days, So glory's thrill is o'er, And hearts that once beat high for praise Now feel that pulse no more."

The night air is keen. I re-enter the red parlour, close the cas.e.m.e.nt, and light my reading-lamp.

And now I write once more. No need for the journal's a.s.sistance any longer, though. Every word that old Janet said has sunk deep into my mind and rooted itself in my memory, and will never be effaced while I and time have any connection.

CHAPTER TWO.

CLAUDE ALWYN'S BOYHOOD.

On the very day after the birth of Alwyn's heir something strange occurred: a large flight of curious seagulls alighted in the park around Dunallan Towers. No one had ever remembered seeing such weird-looking birds there before, and Janet had averred that their arrival betokened no good. She was not wrong, for that same night it came on to blow from the north, oh, such a fearful gale! Many of the tallest and st.u.r.diest trees were torn up by the roots, and even tossed about, and the Towers shook and trembled as if the very earth were quaking. It was eerisome to hear, at the dark midnight hour, the shriek of frightened wild birds around the house, high above the fitful roaring of the wind.

The Nith, too, came down "in spate;" they could see its white flashing waters, nearly close up to the window of the red parlour in which I now am sitting at work. It brought along with it from the mountains, fallen trees, bushes, heather-clad turf, and boulders of solid rock, tons and tons in weight.

All that night the storm raged, and though the wind went down about sunrise, the terrible rain still fell, and the river continued in raging spate. Great was the damage done to the lower-lying lands seawards; huts and even houses were laid low, sheep and cattle were drowned and borne away, so great is the fury and strength of a Highland river like the Nith when it "comes down," as the people phrase it.

But the sun shone forth at length, and the clouds went driving southwards, leaving lovely rifts of blue between them, and the rain ceased, and the poor people of the glens came forth to view the work of devastation and to mourn their losses.

One of these, while walking in the park and not far from the mansion house, found, crouching under the gnarled root of an old tree, and gazing up at him with its bright crimson eye, or rather first with one eye then with the other, a snow-white gull of most graceful form. [Note 1.]

He caught it--one wing was injured--and brought it round to the kitchen, where it was much admired and tenderly cared for. In little over a week it seemed as well and strong as it must have been before the storm. Yet it was in no hurry to leave.

It stayed on and on and on, and became as tame as a dove, and most affectionate to all it knew. But to Janet in particular it attached itself. One day it followed her into the room where Alwyn's heir lay in his little crib. Janet showed him the bird. He smiled and stretched out his arms with a fond cry, and next moment the snow-bird was nestling quietly on his breast.

There was no keeping the gull out of Claude's room after this, so it came to be called "baby's bird."