"TILL FROZEN SEAS DO MEET."
"Mr Lloyd," said Claude to his first mate, the morning after the
_Icebear_ sailed away from the Orkneys on the wings of a favouring
breeze, "I am not going to call my men together and make a speech. That
style of thing is far too stagey. We have picked our crew, and I
believe they will be good men and true, every one of them. Well, I will
try to be a kind and considerate captain; and I'll tell you now what I
should like. I want, then, in a word, all the discipline and
cleanliness of a man-o'-war, with a good deal of the cheerfulness and
light-heartedness you find on a well-appointed yacht or best class of
merchantmen. Let them sing below if they like, or even on deck for'ard
during smoking hours: I won't object to a little music. You
understand?"
"Perfectly, my lord."
Claude held up a finger.
"My lord is too formal for a ship's quarter-deck," he said.
"Beg pardon, sir. I really had forgotten for the moment."
The captain and mate were on the quarter-deck, the latter taking his
orders for the day.
As shrewd and sturdy a sailor as ever faced the billows was Lloyd. And
not only a sailor, but a thorough iceman. He had been going "back and
fore," as he phrased it, to Greenland ever since he was a boy of ten,
and he was now nearly thirty. He had come through every peril that one
can think of; he had been cast away as often as he had fingers on his
left hand--there were only four, one had been shot off--his ship had
been burned at sea, and he had drifted for weeks on an iceberg, with
nothing to eat at last except boot leather; he had once even been
dragged under water by a shark, and was saved by his sea-boot coming
off--one of the best pairs of boots he ever had, he used to tell his
mates;--but, for all the dangers he had come through, he dearly loved
the regions round the Pole.
"Greenland has been like a mother to me," he had been heard to say; "and
I hope to die there, and be frozen up in an iceberg, where I'll keep
fresh till the crack of doom." [Note 1.]
That first day at sea--for these hardy mariners had not considered
themselves afloat till now--was a very busy one. It was a very
beautiful one too, for the matter of that, when one had time to look
around him.
When any one did, it was when the breeze slackened a bit, or blew
stiffer, or changed its course a point or two, or did any one of the
score of things that the wind that wafts a ship along is constantly
doing.
The captain walked all round the ship about eight bells, and found
everything taut and trim and clear, and no complaints.
The second and third officers had been with Claude before for many
voyages. The surgeon was a man of over forty, and as grey as a badger.
It was not years alone that had changed the colour of his hair, however,
but a lifetime of abstruse study. His studies had been of a very mixed
nature--better call him a scientist at once and be done with it; but he
was a musician and poet also. By the way, every naturalist is a poet,
whether he writes or not; for true poetry consists, not in writing
verses, but in being and in feeling yourself part and parcel of all the
life and loveliness around you, of loving all things and all creatures,
and thus, unwittingly it may be, worshipping in the truest Way the great
Being who made them.
But the surgeon's character will come out as we go on in our story;
suffice it to say here that although Claude had known him but a very few
months, he already liked and respected him very much.
Claude felt happy and contented in having so good a crew, and officers
he could trust by night or day. For though I may have seemed in my last
chapter to be sneering at good Professor Hodson and his brother
_savants_, they really were men who had the interests of science at
heart, and this ship was going on no insignificant errand to the land of
the snow bear.
The sea got up towards evening, and sail was taken in; and as the breeze
still freshened, still more sail, and she was practically made snug for
the night.
Before leaving Aberdeen--some days indeed--Claude had written to his
mother, filially and affectionately bidding her good-bye. Thus far he
had bent his pride; yes, and had she asked him to come home for a day--
well, perhaps he would have thrown all his pride to the winds and
obeyed.
But the time flew by, and there came no reply of any kind, and Claude
was sad About an hour before he sailed, a telegram was put into his
hand. It was brief, thus--
"Lady Alwyn wishes her son well."
So far the proud Lady of the Towers had melted. Claude put the telegram
in his Bible. It was something precious, for he could read between the
words. So he was happy.
But he would not write again.
The ship was steered for the nor'-nor'-west; and as it neared Iceland,
Claude grew more and more impatient. How would Meta look when she heard
the news?--for in the few letters he had written--there were few mails
to Iceland--he had not told her _all_ the truth.
When at length the _Icebear_ cast anchor before the quaint,
old-fashioned town of Reykjavik, after what had appeared to Claude an
interminable time, they found their store-ship in waiting. Claude
boarded her; and finding that everything had gone all right, directed
his men to pull him on shore.
Burning with impatience though he was to get away from the town--the
reader will guess whither--it was hours before he could leave old
friends, so warmly did they welcome him.
Free at last! Free and away, and fleet was the sturdy pony that carried
him. Only an Iceland horse could have done so, for even in summer the
country is dangerous. Summer had not yet come, and the hills still wore
the garb of winter, and the higher paths were often slippery with
melting ice.
He sees the strange old cottage at last, and faster still he rides, for
it is nearly night. He sees Byarnie. Byarnie sees him, and, after one
wave of the arm to bid him welcome, rushes indoors. Poor, innocent,
beautiful Meta had had no thought of his coming that night, but, strange
to say, she was dressed exactly as he had first seen her. But now the
love-light was in her eyes, and tear-drops quivered on their long
lashes.
"I thought," she said, "you would never, never come again."
Claude remembered his dream.
The quaint old room when it was lit up looked cosier than ever, with the
great fire of turf and wood burning on the hearth, the raven nodding on
a log, the great cat on a stool, the snow-flea in its cage, the table
laid for supper, the aunts--still witch-like and ugly--one sitting
spinning like Fate in a picture, the other with book and spectacles in a
high-backed chair, and great, awkward Byarnie laying supper.
It was all like a vision of happiness to Claude. He thought he should
like to stay here all his life.
Perhaps Meta could read his thoughts in his eyes. I do not myself
believe in thought-reading; but if there be such a faculty, it surely is
the gift of true lovers.
"Oh! stay with us for ever," she whispered.
"Would I could," he answered. "Would that I could."
"But you will for months?"
"Nay, but for one short week."
The bright face fell, and tears again bedimmed the eyes.
"Dearest Meta," he murmured--
"`I could not love thee half so much
Loved I not honour more.'"
Next day, when alone with her, he bravely told her all. She was
convulsed with grief. He knew she would be so. He let her weep on for
a time. Tears bring such relief.
"I love you just the same, and will marry you on my return."
She turned to him, her face very pale and wet with tears, but calmness
and heroic determination in her eyes.
"Lord Alwyn," she said. Then she noticed the pain the words gave him.
"Claude, then," she continued, "I will never marry you without the
consent of your mother. That consent will not be given. So I will
never marry you--_never_."
There was a mournful cadence in her voice that rang through his heart.
"Then," he said, "you do not, you cannot lo--"
"Stay!" she interrupted; "stay, Claude, stay!" She put her little hand
on his as she spoke, and looked into his face with that holy truthful
gaze of hers. "I love you. I will never love another. I will love you
till frozen seas do meet."
The earnestness of her voice and manner held poor Claude spellbound for
a time--spellbound and speechless. He could only gaze entranced on her
lovely face, and never had it seemed to him more lovely than now.
"Sit down, dear Meta," he said at last; "we still are lovers."
"Yes," in a low, sad voice.
"Tell me, Meta, what did you mean by the strange words, `Till frozen
seas do meet'?"
"There is a legend," she replied, "that long, long ago there dwelt among
the rocks of the hills hereby an ancient but good man. He was called
the hermit; he never courted the acquaintance of any one, never left the
fastnesses where he dwelt; but people often went to seek advice from
him, and brought him gifts of roots and milk. He taught them many
things, and many believed him supernatural. _I_ do not think he was so,
because his teachings were not all from the Good Book. He told them
that the world was very old, but would be ages and ages older yet; that
there lay at the South Pole an ocean of ice just as at the North; that
the world was cooling down by imperceptibly slow degrees; that these
frozen seas were creeping nearer, advancing south and north; that they
would encroach on Southern Africa and on Europe; that the torrid zone
would become temperate; that nearer and nearer the oceans of ice would
creep, till at last they would all but meet on the equator; that ships
would then cease to float; that men would even degenerate, and finally
live for warmth in caves in the earth; and then _the frozen seas would
meet_, and this world would be all one shining ball of ice-clad snow.
But he said that a day would soon afterwards come when the elements
would melt--the lost, the final day. That is the legend of the strange
words I used. And,"--here she turned once more towards him, for she had
been talking hitherto like one in a dream--"and I will love you, Claude,
_till frozen seas do_ meet."
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Note 1. Bodies have been found frozen, and in perfect condition, after
a lapse of nearly half a century.