Chapter Three
Among Iceland Wilds

It was early morning. So early, indeed, that although it was sweet summer-time – and summer can he as sweet in Iceland as in any other part of the world – the birds had hardly yet uttered a note. Only the robin shook the dew from his wings (the American, not the English robin), and uttered a peevish twitter; and far away up among those wild hills, with their strange jagged peaks, you might have heard an occasional plaintive whistle or scream, the cry of the golden plover. Yet, early though it was, though the stars had not yet all fled from the west, sea-fowl were gracefully circling round – the gull, the tern, and the thievish skua. There was no wind, not a breath, but the dew lay heavy on the moss, on the green heather and stunted shrubs, and draggled the snow-white plumes of the lovely cotton grass. The wild flowers had not yet opened their beautiful petals when poor Claude Alwyn opened his eyes. Languidly, yet painfully, he raised himself on his elbow, and gazed dreamily around him. Where was he? How had he come here? These were questions that he asked himself. What is that on a stone yonder? A snow-bird gazing at him with one beautiful eye, and seeming to pity him. A snow-bird? His snow-bird?

“Alba! Alba!” he calls it; but the bird flies away. He was not at home, then, in bonnie Scotland, by the green banks of the Nith, as he had almost thought he was.

No, no; for look, yonder is his horse at the foot of the cliff – dead.

Dead? Surely not dead. He tries to crawl towards it. The movement gives him intense agony. He himself is wounded. And now he remembers all. How he left his yacht at Reykjavik a week ago; how he had been travelling ever since in search of incident and adventure, making sketches, gathering wild flowers, and enjoying the scenery of this strange, weird island; and how he was belated the evening before, and fell headlong over a cliff. That was all, but a dreadful all. He closes his eyes again and tries to think. Must he lie here and die? He shudders with cold and dread, starts up, and, despite the pain, staggers to his feet. He slowly passes the poor horse. Yes, there is death in that glazed eye, death in the drooping neck and stiffened limbs.

It takes Claude nearly an hour to drag himself to a neighbouring knoll, for one limb is smashed, and he has lost blood. He throws himself down now, or rather he falls, and when next he becomes conscious the sun is shining down warm on him from a bright blue sky; birds are singing near, and the wild flowers are open and nodding to a gentle breeze.

And yonder – oh, joy! – down there in the hollow, there is smoke curling up from an Icelandic farm. He shouts till hoarse, but no one appears.

Wearily he leans back, and once again his eyes are closed, and he is back once more in his own room at Dunallan Towers. No pain now, for his sad-eyed but beautiful mother is bending over him, and soothing him.

Is it so? Not quite.

“Jarl! jarl! Wake, jarl, wake?”

The jarl wakes. The jarl looks up.

Over him is bending a huge male figure, dressed in a long-sleeved waistcoat and lofty nightcap. Pained though he is, Claude cannot help thinking he is the ugliest man he ever saw. He is a giant in stature. He kneels beside young Alwyn, and there is a kindness visible in his little grey eyes, as he strokes Claude’s face, just as if he had been a colt. Byarnie, for such is this giant’s name, soon finds out how matters stand, and gently he lifts Claude in his arms and places him on his shoulder, and then marches off.

Preposterous and humorous thoughts will often pass through the mind, even when the body is in agony; and now, Claude could not help recalling the story of Jack the Giant-killer, and fancied himself Jack being carried away on the shoulders of Blunderbore. But not to a castle with a lawn littered with skulls and bones was Claude borne.

He had probably fainted with pain, and when he again became sensible he was no longer on Byarnie’s back, but in a comfortable warm bed in an antique but well-furnished room, and being attended to by a couple of old dames, both dressed alike, in gowns of dark rustling silk, and elevated steeple-like skull-caps of white net. And both, too, were alike wrinkled and ugly. They had almost finished dressing his leg.

“Thou must not speak, dear; thou must lie still and sleep.”

Good enough English, but spoken in a strange monotone – no rising or falling of the voice.

In a few minutes the work was done, and poor Claude found infinite relief. Then they brought him coffee and milk, and made him drink, and a little dram of schnapps which he also had to swallow. They evidently thought him a child, and stroked his face as Byarnie had done. One left the room, and the other took her seat beside the bed, and, still gently passing her hand downwards over Claude’s face, began to “croon” over that beautiful English lullaby —

 
“Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber,
    Holy angels guard thy bed;
Countless blessings without number,
    Gently falling on thy head.”
 

The voice was quavering, but the music was sweet. How soft the pillows felt – they were eider-down. How light the quilt – that also was of the same. Under such circumstances it is little wonder that Claude soon forgot everything and fell into a deep and childlike slumber.

The scenes, it seemed to Claude, were continually shifting. He did not feel that he had slept, only that he had just closed his eyes and opened them again, when lo! the crones were gone, the sunlight was no longer shimmering in through the crimson and yellow flowers in the little window as he had last seen it. The room was lighted by a lofty lamp that stood on an ancient high-backed oaken piano, throwing a flood of light over all the apartment. A great grey cat was singing herself to sleep on the piano stool, a fire was burning on the low hearth – a fire of peat and wood, that looked very cheerful – and above the window, in a tiny wicker cage, hung a tiny and miserable-looking snow-flea.

Claude took all this in at a glance. But none of these things interested him. His eyes were riveted on the only figure now in the room. A beautiful young girl, almost spirit-like she looked. So thought Claude. She stood leaning against the piano reading a tiny gilt-edged book. She was dressed in a long flowing robe of crimson adorned with snow-white fur. Her fair hair floated free over her shoulders, and her sweet face seemed very sad as she read, all unconscious of Claude’s wondering gaze. But presently she became aware of it. A slight tint of crimson suffused her face, but next moment she advanced boldly towards the bed, and laid her hand – such a tiny hand – on his brow.

Claude would have spoken, but she lifted a finger and beckoned him to lie silent.

Lie silent? Yes. Claude would not have disobeyed the behests of so sweet a nurse whatever they might have been.

There was food to be partaken of; he took it. Nauseous brown medicine also; he quaffed it.

Presently, however, there was a change of nurses. One of the droll old ladies came back, and remained an hour. Claude thought it ten, and felt in the third heaven when his young nurse again returned.

She seated herself at a little table facing Claude, and without even knocking at the door, Byarnie the giant stepped in, and placed a zither in front of her. It was a strange household, but, altogether, Iceland is a strange place.

She was going to play to soothe her patient. And sweetly she played too. Old-world airs, but how delicate the touch, how tasteful the fingering. And now she sings. “Who,” thought Claude, “can have taught her that wild sad song? Can a girl so young as she have loved and lost?”

 
“She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps,
    And lovers around her are sighing;
But coldly she turns to his grave and weeps,
    For her heart with her hero is lying.”
 

But Claude’s sorrow was to come. Inflammation was succeeded by high fever, and for days he lay in a state of delirium – dreamful, racking, burning delirium.

Then came peace and calmness.

Chapter Four
Idyllic Life in Iceland

Iceland! land of flowers and sunshine? Ah no; but Iceland! land of storms; land of the thunder-cloud; land of lordly hills, whose strange, jagged peaks pierce the clouds by day, and at night seem to nod to stars or moon; land of rugged shores, around which for ever toss and roll the arctic billows; land of glorious sunsets; land of the Aurora; land of romance too, a romance of the olden time, for do not ancient Vikings slumber on its shores in their wave-rocked graves? Iceland! land of peace and innocence? Yes. Iceland! land of love? Yes, land of love – of love as pure and true, if not so passionate, as ever budded and bloomed beneath the sunny skies of fair Italia.

It was the evening of the eighth day since poor Claude’s accident. The fever had all gone and left him. He lay there pale and weak and thin, as quiet and as obedient as a child.

It was very still in that ancient room; the purring of the great grey cat seemed very loud, so did the gentle twitter of the snow-flea in his wee wicker cage, and when an old raven, perched on a stool near the fire, rustled his feathers, the noise sounded harsh and startling.

It was near sunset, for the window was in the west, and the sun shimmered in through the red and green and yellow of the flowers.

“Dear nursie, what is your name?”

The words appeared to fall unconsciously from the lips of our stricken hero.

In his fever dreams, he just dimly remembered hearing it, but he was not quite certain. Anyhow, he wished to hear it from the girl herself.

“Dear nursie, what is your name?”

“My name is Meta?” – this from the maiden, with a blush and a smile.

There was a pause. He would have liked her to have asked, “And what is yours?”

But she did not. She only sat silently there, with the book on her lap, as she had been sitting for the last half-hour.

“Mine is Claude,” he said at last. “May I call you Meta?”

“Ye-es,” with modest hesitation.

“Do call me Claude?”

“Claude,” said the girl, advancing towards him with a very serious countenance, and laying a tiny hand on his pulse, “I think you are going to die. Oh! I trust not. But there is a strange glitter in your eyes to-night – a look I like not, and your pulse flickers feebly. I will call aunt.”

She was hurrying away.

“Meta!”

She came back.

“Meta, I will not die if – ”

He paused hesitatingly.

“If what?”

“If you – if you will stay and nurse me.”

“I will; but now sleep. You are very weak, and, see, twilight is creeping up from the fiord. Close your eyes, and I will play to you.”

“Meta,” said Claude next day.

“Yes, Claude.”

Claude felt happy to be called Claude. Remember, he was very weak and ill, and in this condition even men grow childish.

“Tell me something about yourself. You were not always in this island. You even talk sweetly beautiful English.”

“I am Norwegian. My father was a sailor, the captain of a barque. He always took mother and me everywhere. We were all he had. Thus I learned English. We often traded to Reykjavik. My two aunts used to live there.”

“Yes, Meta; and your parents?”

“Alas! we were wrecked on this wild coast; both were drowned. My dear mother lies buried in the little graveyard yonder. My poor father was – never – found.”

Her face was hurriedly buried in her hands, and tears welled through her fingers.

Tears filled Claude’s eyes too, but he spoke not. He knew well how sacred grief and tears like hers are.

But soon she lifted her tearful face.

“They are both in heaven, Claude,” she said.

Claude hastened, with good tact, to change the subject. When he told her of his father’s sad death and of his mother’s perpetual sorrow, then even Meta felt that something had suddenly grown up in their hearts to draw them together in friendship.

We will be brother and sister, she thought; but, alas! he will go, and I shall see him never more again.

After this, though Meta still played, sung, and read to her patient as before, patient and nurse talked more together.

Meta told Claude of her early life, and Claude exchanged confidences.

“I would dearly like to see your great lady mother,” said Meta one day, about two weeks after their first earnest conversation.

“You may one day,” said Claude, thoughtfully.

“What? she may come here? – here in your ship? Is she very, very proud? She might not deign to speak to a sailor’s daughter,” she added.

“Oh yes, dear Meta,” exclaimed Claude, with enthusiasm; “she would speak to you. She would thank you – she would bless you for having saved the life of her only son.”

“My aunts did that; not I,” said innocent Meta.

“No, Meta, no; but you, and you alone, saved my worthless life – worthless to all but my mother.”

There is a joy in returning health and strength that only those who have been really and dangerously ill can understand. It was still the sweet summer time when Claude was able to go out once more. Very feebly went be at first, but in the keen, fresh, mountain air, vigour came fast. He was soon able to take long rambles, then longer rides. How delightful these rides were; how glorious, but sometimes how terrible and awesome, was the scenery!

They rode on ponies, Meta and Claude, while the great, unwieldy Byarnie trotted along by their side, or ran on ahead; for often there were rivers to ford, and gorges to descend, without e’er a path except that found, extempore, by this honest, but ghoul-like groom.

Many and many a day after, when imprisoned in the icy North without hope of deliverance, except through the valley of death, did Claude Alwyn look back with joy and pleasure to these excursions. He remembered every feature of the scenery – the frowning cliffs, the towering mountains, the broad, shallow rivers, the deep ravines and glens, the cliffs and rocks, the great boulders that seemed about to topple over and hurry them to destruction, the wild birds, the green, green sward, the beautiful mosses, and the still more lovely wild flowers. But, above all, he remembered the innocent, childlike face of Meta, that used to look into his so trustingly as she called him “brother Claude.”

Sometimes they would seat themselves together by the banks of a stream where Byarnie would be fishing, and Meta would tell her brother such wondrous tales – mostly Icelandic and Norse fairy stories, about which there is so great a charm. Claude loved to hear her talk; there was such an earnestness about her while she related tales of folk-lore, as if she really believed them all herself. But when she came to speak of the ancient Vikings, and their deeds of valour and prowess, then the maiden’s eyes sparkled, and there came a brighter glow in her cheeks, that told of a bold heart that beat within her breast, a heart that could not only love but dare.

So weeks sped on, so even months passed by, and surely Paul and Virginia led no more idyllic life than did Claude and Meta during this time.

They sat near a geyser one lovely day in July. There was no great eruption that day, no startling and awful upthrow of boiling water, only now and then a bubbling, rumbling sound, which made a rude bass to the song of the birds that hovered near.

Giant Byarnie had boiled some eggs in a spring. Byarnie always provided luncheon for the party of one kind or another. He had placed the eggs in the sun, and had gone away to a distance to milk a cow. I am really afraid that Byarnie was not particular whose cow it was. Cows are often public property in Iceland. Anyhow he found a cow, two of them for that matter, so he went to pull some of the sweetest grass to lay before one to keep her quiet while he filled his pannikin.

Meanwhile Meta and brother Claude sat on a bank near the spring. The sunshine was very soft and warm, and the air was filled with the odour of wild thyme.

Meta was silent and sad, for to-morrow Claude was going away – never, never, she thought to return again. She could not speak much. Very little would have made her cry, and she felt determined not to do that.

Claude was silent also.

And Byarnie, away down in the valley yonder, went on milking his cow – or rather somebody else’s cow – and singing in Norse to himself. Presently Claude put out his hand and took that of Meta. It was very cold.

“Dear sister Meta,” he said.

She felt she wanted to cry more than ever now.

“I am going away to-morrow – south to my mother, dear; south to my own bonnie land. I am going away – ”

Oh, how the tears rained now! There was no keeping them back. She threw herself on the grass and sobbed as if her heart would really burst.

Claude could say nothing for a moment or two.

“Meta! Meta!” he cried at last, “look up – speak to me. Listen, dear; I am going south to tell my mother I will never many any one except you, dear Meta. Do not speak; I know you love me as I love you. I will not be long away. You will long for my return, even as my dear mother is longing now. My mother will be your mother, Meta; my home and country will be yours.”

Meta was smiling now through her tears. What more was said, if anything, may never be known, but when Byarnie came floundering back with his pannikin of milk, he found his mistress and master, as he called them, both happy and gay, and wondered at this very much, because he had left them both sad and quiet.

A little Norse maiden knelt in prayer that night beside her dimity-curtained bed, and thanked the kind Father for the hope and joy of pure love, the hope that as she had a mother in heaven, she yet might have one on earth as well.

And Claude’s yacht spread her wings to the breeze, and south and south she flew. Past the Westmann Isles, past lonely Stramoe, past the rugged Faroes, past the Shetlands, past the Hebrides themselves.

And now Claude slackens sail His men notice that he is no longer so buoyant and happy. He treads the deck with a quicker step, as if to keep time with those thoughts.

“Oh?” he was saying to himself, “what will mother say? How will mother take it? How will the proud Lady Alwyn look, when I tell her I am betrothed to a simple Iceland maiden?”