In the Land of the Great Snow Bear Part 29

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 bra.s.s 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 surpa.s.s.

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.