Iceland! land of flowers and sunshine? Ah no; but Iceland! land of
storms; land of the thunder-cloud; land of lordly hills, whose strange,
jagged peaks pierce the clouds by day, and at night seem to nod to stars
or moon; land of rugged shores, around which for ever toss and roll the
arctic billows; land of glorious sunsets; land of the Aurora; land of
romance too, a romance of the olden time, for do not ancient Vikings
slumber on its shores in their wave-rocked graves? Iceland! land of
peace and innocence? Yes. Iceland! land of love? Yes, land of love--
of love as pure and true, if not so passionate, as ever budded and
bloomed beneath the sunny skies of fair Italia.
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It was the evening of the eighth day since poor Claude's accident. The
fever had all gone and left him. He lay there pale and weak and thin,
as quiet and as obedient as a child.
It was very still in that ancient room; the purring of the great grey
cat seemed very loud, so did the gentle twitter of the snow-flea in his
wee wicker cage, and when an old raven, perched on a stool near the
fire, rustled his feathers, the noise sounded harsh and startling.
It was near sunset, for the window was in the west, and the sun
shimmered in through the red and green and yellow of the flowers.
"Dear nursie, what is your name?"
The words appeared to fall unconsciously from the lips of our stricken
hero.
In his fever dreams, he just dimly remembered hearing it, but he was not
quite certain. Anyhow, he wished to hear it from the girl herself.
"Dear nursie, what is your name?"
"My name is Meta?"--this from the maiden, with a blush and a smile.
There was a pause. He would have liked her to have asked, "And what is
yours?"
But she did not. She only sat silently there, with the book on her lap,
as she had been sitting for the last half-hour.
"Mine is Claude," he said at last. "May I call you Meta?"
"Ye-es," with modest hesitation.
"Do call me Claude?"
"Claude," said the girl, advancing towards him with a very serious
countenance, and laying a tiny hand on his pulse, "I think you are going
to die. Oh! I trust not. But there is a strange glitter in your eyes
to-night--a look I like not, and your pulse flickers feebly. I will
call aunt."
She was hurrying away.
"Meta!"
She came back.
"Meta, I will not die if--"
He paused hesitatingly.
"If what?"
"If you--if you will stay and nurse me."
"I will; but now sleep. You are very weak, and, see, twilight is
creeping up from the fiord. Close your eyes, and I will play to you."
"Meta," said Claude next day.
"Yes, Claude."
Claude felt happy to be called Claude. Remember, he was very weak and
ill, and in this condition even men grow childish.
"Tell me something about yourself. You were not always in this island.
You even talk sweetly beautiful English."
"I am Norwegian. My father was a sailor, the captain of a barque. He
always took mother and me everywhere. We were all he had. Thus I
learned English. We often traded to Reykjavik. My two aunts used to
live there."
"Yes, Meta; and your parents?"
"Alas! we were wrecked on this wild coast; both were drowned. My dear
mother lies buried in the little graveyard yonder. My poor father was--
never--found."
Her face was hurriedly buried in her hands, and tears welled through her
fingers.
Tears filled Claude's eyes too, but he spoke not. He knew well how
sacred grief and tears like hers are.
But soon she lifted her tearful face.
"They are both in heaven, Claude," she said.
Claude hastened, with good tact, to change the subject. When he told
her of his father's sad death and of his mother's perpetual sorrow, then
even Meta felt that something had suddenly grown up in their hearts to
draw them together in friendship.
We will be brother and sister, she thought; but, alas! he will go, and I
shall see him never more again.
After this, though Meta still played, sung, and read to her patient as
before, patient and nurse talked more together.
Meta told Claude of her early life, and Claude exchanged confidences.
"I would dearly like to see your great lady mother," said Meta one day,
about two weeks after their first earnest conversation.
"You may one day," said Claude, thoughtfully.
"What? she may come here?--here in your ship? Is she very, _very_
proud? She might not deign to speak to a sailor's daughter," she added.
"Oh yes, dear Meta," exclaimed Claude, with enthusiasm; "she would speak
to you. She would thank you--she would bless you for having saved the
life of her only son."
"My aunts did that; not I," said innocent Meta.
"No, Meta, no; but you, and you alone, saved my worthless life--
worthless to all but my mother."
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There is a joy in returning health and strength that only those who have
been really and dangerously ill can understand. It was still the sweet
summer time when Claude was able to go out once more. Very feebly went
be at first, but in the keen, fresh, mountain air, vigour came fast. He
was soon able to take long rambles, then longer rides. How delightful
these rides were; how glorious, but sometimes how terrible and awesome,
was the scenery!
They rode on ponies, Meta and Claude, while the great, unwieldy Byarnie
trotted along by their side, or ran on ahead; for often there were
rivers to ford, and gorges to descend, without e'er a path except that
found, extempore, by this honest, but ghoul-like groom.
Many and many a day after, when imprisoned in the icy North without hope
of deliverance, except through the valley of death, did Claude Alwyn
look back with joy and pleasure to these excursions. He remembered
every feature of the scenery--the frowning cliffs, the towering
mountains, the broad, shallow rivers, the deep ravines and glens, the
cliffs and rocks, the great boulders that seemed about to topple over
and hurry them to destruction, the wild birds, the green, green sward,
the beautiful mosses, and the still more lovely wild flowers. But,
above all, he remembered the innocent, childlike face of Meta, that used
to look into his so trustingly as she called him "brother Claude."
Sometimes they would seat themselves together by the banks of a stream
where Byarnie would be fishing, and Meta would tell her brother such
wondrous tales--mostly Icelandic and Norse fairy stories, about which
there is so great a charm. Claude loved to hear her talk; there was
such an earnestness about her while she related tales of folk-lore, as
if she really believed them all herself. But when she came to speak of
the ancient Vikings, and their deeds of valour and prowess, then the
maiden's eyes sparkled, and there came a brighter glow in her cheeks,
that told of a bold heart that beat within her breast, a heart that
could not only love but _dare_.
So weeks sped on, so even months passed by, and surely Paul and Virginia
led no more idyllic life than did Claude and Meta during this time.
They sat near a geyser one lovely day in July. There was no great
eruption that day, no startling and awful upthrow of boiling water, only
now and then a bubbling, rumbling sound, which made a rude bass to the
song of the birds that hovered near.
Giant Byarnie had boiled some eggs in a spring. Byarnie always provided
luncheon for the party of one kind or another. He had placed the eggs
in the sun, and had gone away to a distance to milk a cow. I am really
afraid that Byarnie was not particular whose cow it was. Cows are often
public property in Iceland. Anyhow he found a cow, two of them for that
matter, so he went to pull some of the sweetest grass to lay before one
to keep her quiet while he filled his pannikin.
Meanwhile Meta and brother Claude sat on a bank near the spring. The
sunshine was very soft and warm, and the air was filled with the odour
of wild thyme.
Meta was silent and sad, for to-morrow Claude was going away--never,
never, she thought to return again. She could not speak much. Very
little would have made her cry, and she felt determined not to do that.
Claude was silent also.
And Byarnie, away down in the valley yonder, went on milking his cow--or
rather somebody else's cow--and singing in Norse to himself. Presently
Claude put out his hand and took that of Meta. It was very cold.
"Dear sister Meta," he said.
She felt she wanted to cry more than ever now.
"I am going away to-morrow--south to my mother, dear; south to my own
bonnie land. I am going away--"
Oh, how the tears rained now! There was no keeping them back. She
threw herself on the grass and sobbed as if her heart would really
burst.
Claude could say nothing for a moment or two.
"Meta! Meta!" he cried at last, "look up--speak to me. Listen, dear; I
am going south to tell my mother I will never many any one except you,
dear Meta. Do not speak; I know you love me as I love you. I will not
be long away. You will long for my return, even as my dear mother is
longing now. My mother will be your mother, Meta; my home and country
will be yours."
Meta was smiling now through her tears. What more was said, if
anything, may never be known, but when Byarnie came floundering back
with his pannikin of milk, he found his mistress and master, as he
called them, both happy and gay, and wondered at this very much, because
he had left them both sad and quiet.
A little Norse maiden knelt in prayer that night beside her
dimity-curtained bed, and thanked the kind Father for the hope and joy
of pure love, the hope that as she had a mother in heaven, she yet might
have one on earth as well.
And Claude's yacht spread her wings to the breeze, and south and south
she flew. Past the Westmann Isles, past lonely Stramoe, past the rugged
Faroes, past the Shetlands, past the Hebrides themselves.
And now Claude slackens sail His men notice that he is no longer so
buoyant and happy. He treads the deck with a quicker step, as if to
keep time with those thoughts.
"Oh?" he was saying to himself, "what will mother say? How will mother
take it? How will the proud Lady Alwyn look, when I tell her I am
betrothed to a simple Iceland maiden?"