From the very day on which Lady Alwyn stepped on board the _Alba_, and
joined the search for her lost son, and for tidings, however meagre, of
the good ship _Kittywake_, a new life seemed to spring up within her.
She seemed at once to have lost what she did not hesitate to call her
narrow-mindedness.
She began to see that all the world were brothers and sisters, and
dependent upon each other, not only for comfort, but for happiness
itself. She herself in her pride and exclusiveness had never really
known what happiness was before, because she had never been free.
Accustomed to exact and to receive homage from almost every one around
her, she had been living in a kind of fool's paradise, imagining that
she was not as other people, that because she had, not riches, but birth
and high pedigree, she was made of different material than the
"_plebs_," the common herd, could boast of.
Now the scales seemed falling from her eyes. She could see arightly;
she could even notice and learn that the world in general was
independent of her, but that she was dependent on the world.
Those hardy seamen, who went merrily about at their work, talking,
laughing, often singing, appeared not to know nor care that she, Lady
Alwyn, was in existence. If Jack at his duty came on the quarter-deck,
and she were in the way, politely but firmly Jack would tell her, "I'll
trouble you to shift for a moment, ma'am."
Some of the politest of these offered an arm, and the proud Lady Alwyn
was surprised at herself for accepting the kindly offered assistance.
She was surprised at herself, too, for positively feeling lost, unless
she had some one to talk to, and to find herself often conversing with
Captain Jahnsen as if he had been a brother, or with Meta as if she were
a sister.
The latter, indeed, became indispensable to Lady Alwyn even before the
ship had reached the longitude of Cape Farewell.
Before another fortnight had passed I think she really loved Meta; for
Meta had been so unremittingly kind and attentive to her. She had
calmed her fears when the winds or seas were raging and the storm
roaring through the rigging, and when the poor little yacht was
surrounded with floating icebergs so tall and so terrible in their
tallness and quiet but awful strength, that the vessel looked beside
them like a tiny fly on a crystal epergne.
Meta used to read to her, play to her, sing to her, and tell her tales;
but she never told her _the_ tale--she never told her the tale of her
love.
One day the book drooped listlessly in Meta's lap, and there came such a
sad far-away look in her eyes, that--they were alone in the cabin--Lady
Alwyn took her gently by the hand.
"What are you thinking about, dear child?" said the lady. "You have
something on your mind--some grief, some sadness."
For answer Meta burst into tears.
Had she dared she would have told her ladyship everything now; for Meta
could not get over the idea that she was playing a double part, and
night and day the thought troubled and vexed her. But dare she tell
her? No, she feared her pride too much.
She consoled herself by remembering her vow, that she would never, never
marry Claude without his mother's consent--not unless she joined her
hands and blessed them.
But then Claude--might he not even now be lying cold in death? No
wonder that Meta wept.
The _Alba_ sailed on and on, or steamed on and on, encountering all the
dangers usual to a passage out in these seas.
But every danger was bravely faced by the ladies, every trial was
cheerfully met, and but served to bind their hearts closer together in
the bonds of friendship.
Then one day, towards the latter end of April, the sun went down in a
yellow haze, through which he glared red and angrily. There was ice
about everywhere, bergs of every conceivable shape and size, some so big
that the _Alba_ took long minutes to steam past them, others with
pinnacled top so tall that they caught the sun's rays long after he had
dipped down behind the western waves. There was a look of such unwonted
anxiety on good Captain Jahnsen's face that Meta must go and embrace
him, and ask him if there was any danger.
"A little, dear," he replied. "You're a sailor's daughter, you know, so
comfort poor Lady Alwyn if it comes on to blow much, and keep up her
heart."
Meta promised she would.
The glass got suddenly hollow at top, and began to sink at an
aggravatingly rapid rate.
The night would not be a very long one, but it would be pitchy dark. A
heavy swell, too, was coming in from the south, that showed a storm had
been raging far out in the broad Atlantic.
Again and again the captain went to the glass, tapping it uneasily. It
fell, and fell, and fell.
A bit of sail was got ready, only a morsel to steady her, and the
fore-hatches were battened down none too soon.
The storm came on, accompanied by blinding snow. Lady Alwyn could not
sleep, though Meta sang and played to her.
Music below, sweet, soft, and plaintive; on deck the roaring, whistling,
and howling of the wind through the cordage; orders being almost
incessantly given to the man at the wheel, and the ship's course thus
altered a few points every minute. This was to avoid the clashing ice.
Bump, bump, bump, continually against smaller pieces that could not be
avoided.
The ship was proceeding very slowly, and the captain was forward
transmitting his orders aft through the trumpet, when suddenly there
came a terrible crash, and the shouting and screaming after this was so
dreadful that Lady Alwyn was fain to put her fingers in her ears.
The ship had been struck, her planks splintered and staved in right
abaft the starboard bow.
It was "two watches to the pumps" now, while the mate and a few hands
endeavoured to stem the leak by placing blankets overboard against the
hole and over it. In vain; the wind was too high, the waves too
merciless. With frozen fingers, the mate and his men had to desist.
Short though the night was, it was a terrible one to the ladies below.
They had quite prepared to meet death. But oh! death like this is death
in a dreadful form.
After what seemed an interminable time, the daylight shimmered in
through the dead light on the deck of the ladies' cabin, and up and down
across the glass in the scuttle the green seas could be seen washing and
lap--lap--lapping.
By-and-by they heard the captain's voice in the saloon, and immediately
after he sent to tell them that the danger was over, and the storm had
blown itself out.
By noon next day the sea had gone so far down that temporary repairs
were effected, and in a day or two more, in a calm blue sea, the ship
was heeled over, and these repairs made good and substantial.
Then the _Alba_ went on her adventurous voyage--adventurous, I mean, for
so small a yacht--and the ladies took heart and came on deck to gaze and
wonder at the marvels everywhere visible around them.
Into every creek went the _Alba_ searching for tidings of the lost
_Kittywake_.
In very few of these did they find inhabitants, and when they did, they
had no news, or only sadly confusing news to give.
One day Captain Jahnsen came off from a little Yack village with a
countenance beaming with hope and joy.
"I think," he told Lady Alwyn, "I have got news of your son. Bad news
partly."
"Oh!" she cried, "it cannot be bad if he but lives."
"Some months ago he was alive. I have met two Indians, who frankly
confess they basely deserted the party after the ship had been burned,
and a dearth of provisions followed. They are willing to be bribed to
conduct us to the spot."
The reader already knows who these Indians were. No time was now lost
in getting ready, provisioning, and equipping a sufficient number of
strong and ice-worthy sledges.
Captain Jahnsen made every endeavour to persuade Lady Alwyn from joining
the toilsome and hazardous expedition, but in vain.
The snows yet lay thick on hill and vale, though the sun had risen for
the day--the long Arctic day.
The ice on rivers and creeks was firm and safe, so that the course the
sledge party took was a straight one. As they had travelled the road
before, Jack and Joe could not now mistake it. Fast and well galloped
the dogs, and wonderful was each day's work that they put behind them;
yet to Lady Alwyn's mind and to Meta's they could hardly go quickly
enough.
The camping out at night, or during the hours that should have been
night, was terribly trying to poor Lady Alwyn. How much she must have
loved her son, how much she must have repented her false pride, ere she
could have exposed herself to hardships such as these.
But the journey is nearly at an end, they have passed unscathed through
every danger hitherto, and there is but a short fifty miles between them
and the inland sea, when suddenly the sky began to darken over and a
snow-wind to moan across the dreary wilderness. For days and days they
sheltered in a cave.
How trying to nerves and temper! Would the storm never abate? Would
the wind never cease to howl and rave? It did at length, and joyfully
the journey was resumed.
As soon as they were visible, Byarnie, who had been watching on an icy
cliff top, must needs take off his jacket to wave it--a cap would not
have met the requirements of the situation; then, still waving his
jacket aloft and shouting, he rushed down to the camp like a maniac
giant.
"They're coming! they're coming! they're coming!" he cried.
Boy Bounce ran out waving his ladle aloft; Dr Barrett himself ran to
meet and welcome the expedition; the men rushed to the tent door, the
hale supporting those who were maimed and sick, even Claude being among
the number.
But Paddy O'Connell--why, nothing less than dancing a jig could satisfy
Paddy O'Connell, or keep his feelings of joy in anything like control.
"Bedad!" he told a messmate many months afterwards, "if it hadn't been
for that jig I'd have bursted entoirely, and it's the truth I'm telling
ye, and never a word av a lie in it aither."