Читать книгу In the Land of the Great Snow Bear: A Tale of Love and Heroism - Stables Gordon - Страница 6

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.

“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.