"GRIEF IS THE PARENT OF FAME."
Claude was miles away from home ere he noticed faithful Fingal trotting
near him.
His first thought was to order him back, but this poor dog, as if
reading his mind, crouched low at his feet, looking beseechingly up.
"_This_ is my home," he appeared to plead.
Claude's next thought was to _take_ him back; his mother might even ere
now have relented. But that Highland pride, which has been at once the
glory and the curse of Auld Scotland, stepped in and forbade.
Young Claude went on.
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"Grief," says one of England's greatest novelists--Lord Lytton--"is the
parent of fame."
This is so true! Many and many a grief-stricken, sorrow-laden man and
woman in this world would faint and fail and die, did they not fall back
upon work to support them. This is the tonic that sustains tens of
thousands of sorely stricken ones, until Time, the great healer, has
assuaged the floods of their sorrow.
Young though Claude was--but little more than twenty-one--he had already
obtained some fame in the fields of literature. He had been a rover,
and to some extent an explorer--more especially among those wild and
lonely islands in the Norland Ocean. Nor had he been content to merely
cruise around these, watching only the ever-changing hues of the ocean,
or the play of sunshine and shade on bold bluff crags and terraced
cliffs. No, for he was as much on shore as afloat, mingling among their
peoples when peoples there were, mingling among the birds if they were
the only inhabitants, studying flora, studying fauna, reading even the
great book of the rocks, that told him so much, but never yet had caused
him to waver in his belief in a Supreme Being, who made the sea and all
that is in it, the land and all it contains.
He was a sportsman and naturalist; in fact, "a man of the world," in the
only true and dignified sense of the term.
His was an original mind, and a deep-thinking one, so that the sketches
of his life and travels which he had been in the habit of sending from
time to time to the organs of higher-class literature were sure to be
welcome both to editors and readers.
He was, moreover, a student of Norse lore, and a speculator in the
theories--many of them vague enough--concerning the mysterious regions
that lie around the Arctic Pole. And it was his writings on these
countries that first brought him into real notoriety among a class of
very worthy _savants_ who, though seldom too willing to venture into
extreme danger themselves, are, to their credit be it said, never averse
to spend money in fitting out ships of research.
On the very day of his rejoining his vessel at Glasgow, a letter was
handed to him by his chief mate, inviting him to London on important
business in connection with discovery in the Arctic regions.
Two hours afterwards Claude was seated in a flying train, whirling
rapidly on towards the borders. In nine hours more he was in town.
Another half-hour brought him to a shipping office in Leadenhall Street.
"You are Captain Lord Alwyn?" said the grey-haired clerk, looking at him
over the rims of a pair of golden spectacles.
"The same, at your service," returned Claude.
"We did not expect you quite so soon. But if you did come, I was told
to hand you this note."
It was simply an invitation to dine with Professor Hodson and a few
friends next evening at Richmond.
When Claude got there, the first person to greet him when announced was
the learned professor himself, and a very bustling, dignified little man
he was.
"Ha! ha!" he laughed, as he shook Claude warmly by the hand. "I
couldn't have believed it. Really, it is strange!"
"Believe what?" said Claude, bluntly.
"Why, that you were so young a man. Should have thought from your
writings you must be forty if a day."
It was Claude's turn to laugh.
"But there, never mind. Authors are always taken to be older men than
they are. No, I don't think that youth will be an insuperable
objection. Besides, youth has courage, youth has fire and health, to
say nothing of a recuperative power of rising again even after being
floored by a thousand misfortunes."
"Difficulties, I dare say," said Claude, "were made to be overcome."
"To be sure. Well, then, having heard and read a good deal about your
doings up North, we thought we would send for you, and instead of having
a learned day discussion round a green baize-covered table, to invite
you to join us at dinner--quite a quiet affair--and just to chat matters
over."
It must be confessed that poor Claude did not feel altogether at home
among those extremely learned men.
The conversation was all about previous voyages of scientific discovery.
Had those gentlemen been more practical and less theoretical, Claude
would have been all with them; but it was evident from the way they
spoke that not one of them had ever been on blue water, much less on the
stormy seas of the Far North.
When, by way of encouraging him to talk more, in the course of the
evening they asked Claude's advice concerning the practicability of the
plans they had in view, then young Claude spoke out like a man of
business and a sailor.
Cool and collected to a degree, boldly banishing all theories, he hung
on to facts. He did not ignore dangers and difficulties; he did not
despise them, but professed himself willing to meet them, without for a
moment holding out any promise of ultimate success in the adventurous
undertaking. How dared he, he said, expect to do more than abler and
better and braver men who had gone on the same track before him? If he
did presume to hope to even a little more, it was because he should have
all their bygone experiences to help him. If they entrusted the command
of an exploring ship to him, there was but one thing he could boldly
promise, and that was to do his best. He said much more to the same
effect, and even enlarged upon the necessary equipment, victualling, and
armament of a ship of the kind they proposed sending out, and when he at
length concluded--
"Spoken like a man and a sailor," said the professor, and a murmur of
assent passed round the table:
The _savants_ retired to another room to consult. When they came back,
Professor Hodson advanced and shook hands with Claude.
"We are unanimous in thinking, Lord Alwyn," he said, "that you are just
the man we want. The vessel you are to command already lies in
Southampton waters. There are doubtless a thousand alterations to be
made: these you, with your experience, will be able to see to. Do not
spare expense. Draw upon us. We want you to feel that it will be no
fault of ours if the expedition be not crowned with success; and I have
the support of my colleagues in adding that we sincerely believe it will
be no fault of yours. Other details," added the bold professor, "can be
gone into whenever you please."
It was a quiet little hotel that Claude occupied that night, but one
which he meant to make his home while in London. And why? Smile if you
like, reader, but the reason is this: the landlord did not object to the
presence of noble Fingal in his house.
Claude sat long in his sitting-room before retiring. The state of his
feelings may be more easily imagined than described. His mind was by
turns here, there, everywhere--back in his boyhood's home, afloat on the
sea, with his mother at Dunallan Towers, then away in the Far North with
Meta. His mind reverted to the past, and went forward again to the
future. He was sad and hopeful by turns. But he had crossed the
Rubicon; he could not now draw back from anything he had done or
promised to do.
Before he retired, he knelt and asked guidance from Him in whose hands
are all our ways, and he slept more soundly that night than he had done
for weeks.