Among the Northern nations, especially the Norse, you meet types of men
and women as utterly different from those of Southern climes as if they
belonged to another sphere. The same blessed religion nevertheless
binds us all with its golden chain. Natures like those of Meta and
honest Byarnie--who, be it remembered, are not creatures of the
imagination, but true examples of a class--I have never met elsewhere.
The nearest approach to them in manners and ways of thinking, I have
found in my own dear Highlands of Scotland.
Very many, both of the Norse, such as those met with in Shetland and
Iceland, as well as our Highlanders, are very deeply imbued with the
spirit and true sentiment of religion. It is part and parcel of their
everyday existence. Religion is the weft in the beautiful web of such
lives as these.
When women like Meta love it is very pure love, for the very reason I
have stated, for Meta was not ashamed to go on her knees with her love.
A very peculiar girl, you say? Would to Heaven there were millions like
her in this fair land of ours.
On the very evening of their reunion, Claude left his bride-elect, and
went thundering away through the moonlight along the stony path on his
sure-footed pony.
He would come again, next day or next, he told her, but duty was duty,
and must be obeyed.
He was more happy than might be expected--happy because hopeful.
He found everything well on board, just as he had expected he would.
"I've engaged a few more hands, sir," the mate told him. "The right
metal I like a mixture of nationalities, and yet I don't. Bother the
foreign scum that they man British ships with nowadays, sir, leaving
honest English Jack on shore to starve.--But give me a crew like what we
now have, sir--a crew mostly Scotch and English; then I say one or two
Norwegians or Danes don't do much harm."
"Right, Mr Lloyd. And now I must tell you I am going to engage an
extra hand. Can you make room?"
"Put him in a bunk, sir."
"A bunk, Mr Lloyd? He'd never be able to get in, and if he did he
couldn't stick his legs out. He is seven feet high and over, and broad
in proportion."
"Ha, ha!" laughed the mate. "But I have it, sir; I've got a hammock big
enough to hold an elephant."
"That'll do. Good night, then."
As he took down his Book to read before retiring, out dropped the
telegram.
He read it again and again with conflicting feelings. Would his mother
relent? His own fate, as far as Meta was concerned, he determined
should not be altered. She might never marry him, but he himself, in
that case, would have but one bride for ever and ay--the sea. Still, as
he closed the Bible that night and restored the telegram, he allowed
himself to build just one castle in the air. In the cosy drawing-room
of this castle his mother was seated, and Meta and he were there, and
all were happy.
He slept and dreamt about this.
Duty kept him at Reykjavik next day and the day after, but Meta, lonely
and weary through waiting, heard the well-known click-click of the
pony's hoofs on the succeeding evening, and ran to the door to meet
Claude.
It was raining, but Byarnie took his cloak and the pony, and in he went,
looking rosy, fresh, and beaming with joy.
"Have you got good news?" was Meta's first question.
She answered it herself before he got time to speak.
"Yes, you have," she said; "I see it in your eyes. What is it? A
letter from your dear mamma?"
Claude's face fell just a little.
"I wish it were," he replied. "No, Meta, nothing so good as that, but
something I received before I left Aberdeen, and, strange to say, forgot
to say a word to you about. A telegram."
They went and sat down to read it.
"I don't like it," she said. "Why didn't she say more? Why does she
use such a funny bit of paper? Why so formal? And how funnily she
writes!"
Claude laughed, and explained all about telegrams, telling Meta that
people could not say all they wanted to in a semi-public document, but
that generally a good deal was left to be inferred, that the receiver
must often read between the lines.
Innocent Meta held the telegram up between her and the evening sunshine.
Claude laughed again, and caught her hand.
"I don't mean in that way, silly child," he said. "There; we will read
between the words in the way I mean."
Then he told her a good deal of his own history, and how much he knew
his mother loved him, and how he believed she really was sorry he had
gone away, but that pride forbade her saying so, though she doubtless
wanted him to be happy, and not to depart with a sore heart--and a deal
more I need not note.
"Don't you see, Meta?"
"Dark and dim, as through a glass," said Meta, musing. "Telegrams are
queer things, Claude, and I have never seen one before, but you must be
right, because you look happy."
"Well, I am, because I feel she will relent."
"I wonder what she is doing now?"
And Meta's question leads me to say a word or two about the Lady of the
Towers.
I lay down my pen and ring for old Janet. I am still writing in the old
red parlour at Dunallan Towers. I write by fits and starts, but I have
been steady at it all day, because it has been raining in down-pouring
torrents. I pity the very rooks on the swaying trees. Surely on a day
like this they must envy the owl in his shelter in the turret, though
they roar at him and laugh at him on sunshiny days, and call him
"Diogenes?" But here comes Janet at last.
"Just one question, Janet, and I'll let you go. How did Lady Alwyn feel
when Claude went away?"
"Oh, sir," says Janet, "she was far too proud to express her feelings to
me in that way. You know, sir, when glad she always told me, but her
sorrow she invariably kept to herself."
"So, as she said nothing, you inferred she was unhappy?"
"For that reason I knew she was. Did I put in the diary, sir, that our
poor boy, Claude, told me about his dream--consulted me ere he had that
terrible interview with her ladyship?"
"Yes, yes, Janet, that is here."
"Well, sir, it was first Fingal's going away, trotting so sad-like after
his master, and _he_ never once looking back, and then the snow-bird
going next. That, I think, nearly broke her heart. But oh, she was
proud, sir."
"She never owned her grief, then?"
"No, sir; but I've caught her often in tears, though she tried to hide
them. She grew far more active than ever after that. She seemed to
hate the very sight of indoors, and, wet day or dry day, she would be
always out."
"Doing good, doubtless?"
"Visiting the sick, sir; ay, and often sitting down sewing in a sick
person's room. The neighbours noticed her grief. They all loved her,
they all pitied her. But it was at night, I think, she suffered most.
Her room was next to mine, and it is often, often I've heard her pacing
up and down the floor till nearly morning. On stormy nights, sir, when
the wind was roaring round the old turrets, and howling in the trees
then she would send for me.
"`Janet,' she would say, with her sad, beautiful smile, `I cannot sleep
to-night. You must read to me.'"
As Janet is now feeling in her pocket for her handkerchief, and tears
are choking her utterance, I gently dismiss her, and go on writing.
"Yes, Meta," replied Claude, "and I often wonder too; but there is one
thing that does give me joy, and that is this: she _knows_ I love her
and am not really unfilial."
Claude found Meta much more hopeful next day, and more happy. Sometimes
she was almost gay.
"By-the-by, Claude," she said, "I've something to show you. You must
promise to believe all I say."
"Implicitly."
"And not laugh at me?"
"Never a smile."
"Well, follow me."
Claude did.
She led him round to the back of the cottage, and there in a big
aviary--evidently the work of Byarnie's hands--were seven great
sea-birds.
"Now you're going to laugh," cried Meta, with a warning finger.
"Well, no wonder. Such queer pets, Meta!"
"But they're not pets, Claude, though I love them. They are all going
with you."
"All going with me! Those funny old things! Ha! ha! ha! Forgive me,
darling, I can't help it."
"Well, I do forgive you. And when I tell you that this particular
seagull makes the best carrier in the world, far before any pigeon,
because it can fly ten times as far, and never get lost at sea--"
"I reared those from the shell," interrupted honest Byarnie, his big
face all smiles. "And I've reared many such."
"Byarnie," said Claude, "you'll come with me, and look after these
birds, eh?"
Byarnie jumped and laughed, clapped his hand upon his leg, and jumped
and laughed again, and then went skipping round with all the grace of an
infant elephant, till Claude and Meta also laughed to see his uncouth
exuberance.
"My brother will come here, and my sister too, and look after the house
and farm," he cried. "He! he! ho! ho! Byarnie's the happiest man
'tween Reykjavik and Christiansund."
Day after day went by, but still Claude was at the little capital of
Iceland, or with Meta. He was waiting the arrival of the mail: she had
broken a shaft or something, and eager and able though he was to get
away to the land of the Northern Lights and the sea of ice, he did not
begrudge himself the respite.
The mail was sighted and signalled at last, however, and came puffing
and blowing in.
Claude had letters from his employers and from many a friend, but none
from his mother.
But Janet's letter must in some measure have made up for this, else he
would not have ridden right away out to Meta's dwelling.
Ah, well, it was their last day together anyhow!
There they were together now whom seas would soon sunder--two warm,
loving, hoping hearts. Would they ever meet again?