Читать книгу The Cruise of the Snowbird: A Story of Arctic Adventure - Stables Gordon - Страница 5

The windows of the double-bedded chamber occupied by Allan McGregor’s guests overlooked both lake and glen. At one corner of it was a kind of turret recess; this had been originally used as a dressing-room, but Allan had gone to some trouble and expense in fitting it up as an own, own room for Rory. Ralph called it Rory’s “boudoir,” Rory himself called it his “sulky.” The floor of the curious little room was softly carpeted; the walls were hung with ancient tapestry; the windows neatly draped. There was a little bookcase in it, in which, much to his surprise, the young man found all his favourite poets and authors. His fiddle and music were in this turret as well; so it was all very nice and snug indeed.

Scarcely a day passed that Rory did not spend an hour or two in his “sulky,” generally after luncheon, when not on or at the lake; and even while reclining on his lounge the view that he could catch a glimpse of was just as romantic and beautiful as any boy poet could wish. There was no door between this and the bedchamber, only a curtain which could be drawn at pleasure.

Now, as I happen to love the truth for its own simple sake, I must tell you that neither Rory nor Ralph was very fond of early rising, practically speaking – theory being another thing. Allan was often away at the river hours and hours before breakfast, and the beautiful dishes of mountain trout that lay on the table, so crisp and still, had been frisking and gambolling only a short time before in their native streams. But Allan’s friends – well, it may have been the Highland air, you know, which is remarkably strong and pure, but anyhow, neither of them thought of stirring until the first gong pealed its thunders forth. It was not that they did not get a good example set them by the sun, for, it being now the month of May, that luminary deemed it his duty to get up himself, and to arouse most ordinary mortals, shortly after four o’clock.

The list of ordinary mortals, so far as the castle was concerned, included old Janet the cook, and most of the other servants and retainers, and all the dogs, and all the cocks and hens, and ducks and geese, and turkeys, to say nothing of pigs and pigeons, sheep and cattle; and as every single mortal among them felt himself bound as soon as his eyes were open to express his feelings audibly, and in his own peculiar fashion, you can easily believe that the din and the hubbub around Arrandoon at early morning were something considerable. Whether asleep or awake, Ralph had an easy mind, nothing bothered him. I believe he could have slept throughout general quarters at sea, with cannon thundering overhead, if he had a mind to; but with Rory it was somewhat different, and the cock-crowing used to fidget him in his dreams. If there had been only one cock, and that cock had crowed till his comb fell off, it would have been merely monotonous, and Rory would have slumbered on in peace, but there were so many cocks of so many strains. The game-cocks crowed boldly and bravely, and their tones clearly proved them kings of the harem; the bantams shrieked defiance at every other cock about the place, but no cock about the place took any heed of them; the cowardly Shanghais kept at a safe distance from the game-birds, and shouted themselves hoarse; and besides these there was the half-apologetic, half-formed crow of the cockerels, who got thrashed a dozen times everyday because they dared to mimic their betters.

These sounds, I say, fidgeted our poetic Rory; but when half a dozen fantail pigeons would alight outside the window, and strut about and cry, “Coo, coo, troubled with you, troubled with you,” then Rory would become more sensible, and he would open one eye to have a look at the clock on the mantelpiece. Mind you, he wouldn’t open both eyes for the world, lest he should awaken altogether.

“Oh!” he would think to himself, “only five o’clock; gong won’t go for three hours yet. How jolly!”

Then he would turn round on the other side and go to sleep again. The cocks might go on crowing, and the pigeons might preen their feathers and “coo-coo” as much as they pleased now. Rory heard no more until “Ur-ur – R-Rise, Ur-ur – R-Ralph and Rory,” roared the gong.

One particular morning Rory had opened his one eye just as usual, had his look at the clock, had rejoiced that it was still early, and had turned himself round to go off once more to the land of Nod, when, suddenly, there arose from beneath such an inexpressible row, such an indefinable din, as surely never before had been heard around the Castle of Arrandoon. The horses stamped and neighed in their stables, the cattle moaned a double bass, the pigs squeaked a shrill tenor, the fowl all went mad.

“Whack, whack, whack!” roared the ducks.

“Kank, kank, kank?” cried the geese.

“Hubbub – ub – ub – bub!” yelled the turkeys.

Rory sat bolt upright in bed, with both eyes open, more fully awake than ever he had felt in his life before.

“Hubbub, indeed!” says Rory; “indeed, then, I never heard such a hubbub before in all my born days. Ralph, old man, Ralph. Sit up, my boy. I wonder what the matter can be.”

“And so do I,” replied Ralph, without, however, offering to stir; “but surely a fellow can wonder well enough without getting out of bed to wonder.”

“Ooh! you lazy old horse!” cried Rory; “well, then, it’s myself that’ll get up.”

Suiting the action to the word, Rory sprang out of bed, and next moment he had thrown open his “sulky” window and popped his head and shoulders out. He speedily drew them in again and called to Ralph, and the words he used were enough to bring even that matter-of-fact hero to his side with all the speed he cared to expend.

What they saw I’ll try to explain to you.

Eagles had been far more numerous this season than they had been for years. McBain knew this well, and Allan McGregor knew it to his cost, for in an eyrie on a distant part of his estate a pair of these kingly birds had established themselves, and brought forth young, and, judging from the number of lambs they had carried off, a terribly rapacious family they were. Although five miles from the castle, Allan had several times gone to the place at early morn for the purpose of getting a ride-shot at these birds; but although he knew the very ledge on which the nest was laid – there is little building about an eagle’s nest – he had always been unsuccessful, for the favourites of Jove were wary, and could scent danger from afar.

So day by day the lambs went on diminishing, and the shepherds went on grumbling, but they grumbled in vain. Upwards and upwards in circling flight the eagles would soar, as if to hide themselves in the sun’s effulgence, until they were all but invisible to the keenest eye. They would then hover hawk-like over their innocent prey, until chance favoured them, when there would be a swift, unerring, downward rush, and often before the very eyes of the astonished keepers the lamb was seized and borne in triumph to the eyrie.

The glen, or rather gorge, which the eagles had chosen for their home, is one of the wildest and dreariest I ever traversed; at the bottom of it lies a brown and weird-looking loch about two miles long, one side of which is bounded by birch-trees, through which a road runs, and if you gaze across this loch, what think you do you see beyond? Why, a black and beetling wall of rock rising sheerly perpendicular up out of the water, and towering to a height of over one thousand feet. Although the loch is five hundred yards wide, you can hardly get rid of the impression that this immense wall of rock is bending towards you from the top, and about to fall and crush your pigmy body to atoms. No wonder the loch itself is still and dark and treacherous-looking, and no wonder the natives care not to traverse the glen by day, or that they give it a wide berth at night, for the place has an evil name, and they say that often and often at the hour of midnight the water-kelpie’s fiendish laugh is heard at the foot of the rock, followed by the plash and sullen plunging sound which a heavy body always emits when sinking in very deep water.

Remember that I do not myself believe in water-kelpies, nor any other kelpies whatever, and I have fished for char (the Salmo umbla) in the loch, and traversed the glen in the starlight, yet I never came across anything much worse-looking than myself – so there!

Now it was in the middle of this rocky precipice, on a ledge of stone, that the kingly birds had made their nest of sticks and turf, with just as little regard to the laws of avine architecture as the cushat of the English copse evinces. It was an airy abode, yet for all that a prettier pair of young ones than the two that lay therein, both the father and mother eagle averred, had never yet been seen or hatched. It is needless to say that they were very fond of their progeny, and also very fond of each other, so that when one lovely morning the she-eagle said to the he one, —

“What is for breakfast, dear?” it was only natural that the he one should reply, “Anything you like, my love.”

“Well then,” said she, “we’ve been having nothing but mutton, mutton, mutton for weeks. I’m sure the children would like a change, and I know I should.”

Then the royal eagle lowered his eyebrows, and scratched his ear with one great toe, as if very deep in thought, and then his countenance cleared all at once, a grim smile stole over his face, and he said, —

“I have it. Babies are scarce, you know, but I’ll bring you a turkey.”

“Oh!” said her royal highness, “that will be nice, and the feathers will help to keep the children warm.”

So away the eagle soared, and about ten minutes afterwards he alighted with a rush right in the middle of the poultry yard at Arrandoon Castle. Hence the hubbub which had aroused both Ralph and Rory.

Now had the bird of Jove not been so greedy, I feel bound to believe he could have left the yard almost as quickly as he had entered it one turkey the richer, and his royal helpmeet and children would not have been disappointed in their breakfast. But no, “I may just as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,” he thought to himself, and so he alighted on the back of the oldest and biggest turkey cock he could see. But he did not find this bird so easy a prey as he could have wished; indeed the turkey at once made up his mind to have a tussle for it; he did not mean to accept so hasty an invitation to breakfast – in an eyrie of all places. So by hook and by crook he managed to scramble half-way under the wooden grain-house, eagle and all. Next moment the eagle bitterly repented of his rashness, for every bird in the place attacked him, and Ralph and Rory were roaring success to them from the “sulky” window. An old turkey is usually a tough one, and do what he would the eagle could only disengage one talon from the back of his captive, if captive he could now be called, and with this and his beak he had to do battle.

Now, that discretion is the better part of valour, even an eagle knows, so when at last he did manage to disengage his other talon, although several of his foes lay dead and dying around, the eagle had had quite enough turkey, and prepared to soar.

But behold! quite an unexpected combatant makes his appearance, and goes to work at once on the eagle’s breast, and this was none other than Allan’s pet Skye, a little dog of determination, for whenever he made up his mind to lay hold of anything he did it, and stuck to it. With such a weight attached to him in such a way, rapid flight was out of the question; the eagle had only strength enough left to flutter out of the yard, and fall on the ground on the other side, there to meet – pity me, reader, for how shall I name it? Were I not writing facts this brave but discomfited eagle should have a nobler end – there to meet old Janet with a broom-handle!

“Hold, Janet, hold?” cried our gallant English Ralph from the “sulky” window; “fair play, Janet, fair play.”

Too late! The king of birds lies dead.

“Ten feet from tip to tip of his wings,” said McBain, as he stood over him about an hour after. Allan, and Ralph, and Rory were all there. “Eagle, eagle,” Rory was saying, —

“Hunter’s shaft, indeed,” laughed Ralph; “old Janet’s broom-handle; but come, boys, I know you are both of you game enough for anything, so I propose we go and try to bag the disconsolate widow of this royal bird. We can capture the young ones and rear them.”

“It would indeed be a pity to leave the widow to mourn,” said Rory.

“It’s a sad pity my sheep must mourn,” said Allan. When at the breakfast-table that morning, Allan said, in a seemingly unconcerned voice, —

“Mother, we mean to have a day among the eagles; they have commenced it, you know.” His mother knew well he was asking her consent, and she gave it because she would not see him unhappy. But nevertheless, she whispered to him as he left the room, —

“Oh, child! do take care of yourself, and take care of Rory. I had strange dreams about you last night.”

Our three heroes, accompanied by men carrying the wooden well-windlass with a plank or two, and plenty of length of rope, made their way over the mountain to the top of the precipice before described. McBain with his trusty rifle went down the glen, among the birch-trees at the other side of the lake. He was not only eagle-slayer, but signalman to the expedition. Keeping close to the loch, he walked onwards for fully three-quarters of a mile, then he stopped and fired his rifle in the air. He stood now as still as a statue, and so remained for fully half-an-hour, until his party had fixed the windlass to the brink of the cliff. Had this latter been flat at the top the danger would have been but small, but the ground sloped towards the brink, so that a false step or a slip meant something too awful to contemplate. Right down beneath them is the eyrie, quite one hundred feet from the top. Circling high in air, far, far above them, is the she-eagle. She is watching and wondering. If any one dares descend she will rend them in pieces. But see, something leaves the cliff-top, and goes downwards and downwards nearer and nearer to her nest. With a scream of rage she rushes from her hover, passes our friends swift as a thunderbolt, and is lost to view. She is expending her anger now, she is having revenge, and fragments of a torn garment flutter down towards the lake. McBain has thrown himself on his face; he is no mean marksman, but he will need all his skill and steadiness now, and this he knows right well.

Seconds, long, long seconds of suspense – so at least they seem to those on the cliff. Then a puff of white smoke and at the very moment that the crack of the rifle falls on their ears, McBain is on his legs again, and waving his gun in joy aloft. The eagle is slain, and downwards with drooping head and outstretched pinions is falling lakewards. Then the lure, rent in ribbons, is drawn back, and Rory, the lightest of the three, prepares to descend. He laughs as he puts his limbs through the bight.

“Troth, I’ll have the youngsters up in a brace of shakes,” he says, “now the ould mother of them is slain. And there isn’t a taste of danger in the whole business. Lower away.”

And they do lower away slowly and steadily. Rory disappears, and Allan’s heart sinks and seems to descend with his friend. A thousand times rather would he have gone down himself, but Rory had opposed this wish with the greatest determination; he was the lightest weight, and it was his privilege.

They watch the signalman; he stands with one arm aloft, and they lower away until that arm falls suddenly by his side. Then they stop, and the “pawl” holds the windlass fast. Rory has reached the eyrie, he grasps the rock, and scrambles on to the projecting ledge.

“Shut your mouths now, and be quiet with you,” he says to the woolly young eaglets; “there’s neither bite nor sup shall go into the crops of you until you’re safe in Arrandoon.”

He placed the birds in the basket, tied it to the rope, signalled to McBain, who signalled to the cliff by raising two arms, and up to the brink went the precious burden. A few minutes afterwards and the rope once more dangled before Rory’s eyes.

But why does poor Rory turn so pale, and why does he tremble so, and crouch backward against the wet rock’s side?

The rope dangles before his eyes, it is true, but it dangles a goodly foot beyond his reach. The top of the cliff projects farther than the eyrie itself; in his descent the rope had oscillated with his weight, and he had unknowingly been swung on to the ledge of rock. But who now will swing him the empty bight of rope?

Rory recovered himself in a few moments. “Action, action,” he said aloud, as if the sound of his own voice would help to steel his nerves. “Action alone can save me, I must leap.”

As he spoke he cleared the ledge of rock of the rotting sticks and of the bones, for these might perchance impede his feet, and signalled to McBain to lower the rope still farther. Then he stood erect and firm, leaning backwards, however, against the precipice, for nearly a minute. Rory is no coward, but see, he is kneeling down with his face to the cliff; he is seeking strength from One more powerful than he.

Reader, at five bells in the morning watch on board a man-o’-war, the midshipmen are roused from their hammocks, and many of them kneel beside their sea-chests for some minutes before they dress, and not one of these did I ever know who was not truly brave at heart, or who failed to do his duty in the hour of danger.

Now Rory is erect again, his elbows and back are squared, his hands half open, his face is set and determined, and now he – he springs.

Has he caught it? Yes; but he cannot hold it. It is slipping through his grasp, struggle as he may; but now, oh! joy, his foot gets in the bight, and he is saved!

He is soon to brink, and his comrades receive him with a joyful shout Rory says but little; but when they reach the head of the glen he runs forward at the top of his speed to meet McBain.

“McBain,” he says, quickly, “not one word of what you saw, to either Ralph or Allan.”

“Give me your hand, dear boy,” replied McBain, with a strange moisture in his eyes; “I appreciate your kindly motive as much as I admire the brave heart that prompts it.”