"Something tells me, too, he won't be long," Janet would reply; "and do you know, my lady, that Alba seems to know it also? He cried, 'Claude!

Claude! Claude!' last night quite distinctly in his sleep, and the sound thrilled every nerve in my body. Oh! I hope nothing has happened to him, my lady."

"Hush! hush!" replied her ladyship; "you are superst.i.tious, Janet; but you mustn't try to make me so."

Even as they spoke there came a patter of tiny feet along the pa.s.sage, like the rattle of hail on a summer-house roof, and the next moment Alba himself appeared. He flew up, and on to the back of a quaint old chair, and gazed first at Janet and then at her mistress with his garnet eyes.

Lady Alwyn smoothed the graceful creature, and it bent low on its perch, as if enjoying the gentle caress.

"Do you not notice," said the lady, "how white and snowy its plumage has become of late? It is always thus before my boy arrives."

"Dear Lady Alwyn, I did not like to tell you before; but all the three days you were at Dumfries Alba was lost, and I never thought to see him again. He was whiter when he came back than the snows on the mountains."

"How strange!" said Lady Alwyn, meditatively.

"Claude, Claude!" cried Alba.

There is nothing strange in hearing a seagull talking, and Alba's vocabulary was not a small one.

Lady Alwyn held out her hand; the bird perched on it, and presently was nestling fondly on her breast. This did not altogether please Fingal, Claude's favourite deerhound. He must needs get up from the skin on which he had been reclining, and lean his n.o.ble head on the lady's lap.

And she could spare a hand to fondle the head.

Yes, everything was bright and pleasant. What though the early winter winds were raving through the leafless trees without, where swayed the rooks near their cheerless nests? what though the blasts were biting and cold in the uplands, and the Nith--brown and swollen--roared angrily over its rocky bed? Bright fires burned in every grate, and were reflected in patches of crimson from the ma.s.sive mahogany furniture.

And Lady Alwyn's face was cheerful too. Resigned and calm though she always appeared, to-day there was a sparkle in her eyes, that made her look almost young.

Rat-tat! It was a double knock at the front hall door which resounded through all the house.

Lady Alwyn started from her seat, and stood eager and expectant. She even went to meet the liveried servant, who presently entered with the telegram.

"Yes, yes!" she joyfully exclaimed in answer to Janet's inquiring look.

"My boy is coming to-day. I knew he would be. Alba, your master is coming."

She embraced the bird again. Fingal, sure that something more than usual was on the _tapis_, began to scamper round the room, jumping over the chairs--a way he had when excited. He jumped all round the room twice, then he playfully s.n.a.t.c.hed the telegram from Lady Alwyn's hand and went jumping round again with that.

How much or how little of the truth Fingal guessed I cannot pretend to say. It was but a telegram. Had it been a _letter_ written by his loved master's hand, Fingal would have known it, even had the wanderer been years away.

So when Claude stepped briskly out of the train at the little station of P--, there, sure enough, was the great stately old carriage, with its two splendid dark bays, in their silvered harness, waiting to receive him.

His mother was not there; but Fingal was, and almost pulled his master down in the exuberance of his joy.

It was a long five-mile drive from the station to Dunallan. Charming enough, in all conscience, during the spring and summer months, and even when autumn tints were on the trees, but cold-looking and dreary now.

All the more so that night was coming on apace, the little of lurid light which the sun had left in the west getting quickly absorbed in the heavy banks of rising cloud.

Claude's spirits fell lower now than they had yet fallen. There was something even in the sombre grandeur of the family carriage that brought dark clouds around his heart.

Not one thought except those of love for the fair and innocent maiden far away mingled with these. But his mother? His proud, good, gentle mother?

How would the Lady Alwyn, the Lady of the Towers, herself of ancient family, like the idea of her only son marrying a poor Iceland orphan unblessed with a pedigree?

And he--a lord--Lord Alwyn! Yes, Lord Alwyn. He could not deny it, though he hated the t.i.tle, hated it now more than ever for the sake of Meta.

There was some relief from his present gloom and doubts and fears in placing his arm round great Fingal--seated so lovingly by his side,--and breathing into his ears the strange story of his love.

Fingal could listen and sympathise, even if he did not know one whit what it was all about.

Fingal was a wise old dog, so he wisely held his peace, and offered no advice on the matter either way. He gave his master one lick on the cheek, however, as much as to say--

"Whatever you think, dear master, must be right, and whatever you do can't be wrong in my eyes, so there?"

Mother and son had much to talk of that night. Lady Alwyn's life since the _Alba_, her son's ship, bore away for the far North, had been uneventful enough; but _he_ had had adventures numerous indeed-- although, mind you, he did not speak of them as such. Hardly ever is a rover off the stage heard making use of the word "adventures." Modesty is one of the leading characteristics of your true hero.

There were times on this first evening when Claude would suddenly lapse into silence, almost into moodiness. He might be looking at his mother or not, but his mind was evidently abstracted, preoccupied, and his eyes had a far-away look in them. This did not escape his mother's notice.

"Could he have any grief?" she thought. "Could he be ill and not know it?"

"You are sure," she said once, "my dear Claude, that you have quite recovered from your terrible accident?"

"What, mother? Accident? Oh yes; indeed I had almost forgotten."

"And your nurses, your kindly nurses, Claude: you must never forget them, dear."

"I'm not likely to," he said, with on emphasis which she thought almost strange. "Never while I live."

He gazed into the fire.

"Would not this be the right time," he was thinking, "to tell her all: to tell her I had three nurses instead of only two?"

But no; he dared not just yet. He would not run the risk of bringing a care to her now happy face. He thought himself thus justified in putting the evil day--if evil day it were to be--further off.

Claude was no coward, as I believe the sequel of my story will show, but still he dreaded--oh, how he dreaded!--the effect which the intelligence he was bound soon to give her would have upon her.

Claude slept but little that night, and slept but ill. More than once he started from some frightful dream, in which his mother was strangely mixed up, and not his mother only, but his Meta.

It was about five o'clock, though it would not be daylight for a long while yet. Claude was lying partially asleep: I say partially, because he seemed listening to the wind roaring through the leafless boughs of the trees, and every now and then causing the twiglets to tap and creak against the panes; but he thought he was at sea, and that the rushing sound was the rushing of waves, the creaking the yielding of the ship's timbers to the force of the seas.

Suddenly he sprang half up in bed and listened intently, painfully.

He had distinctly heard some one in the room calling him. He could not be mistaken, and the voice seemed Meta's.

"Claude! Claude!" cried the voice again, and his heart almost stood still for a moment as he saw a figure, which his imagination magnified a hundredfold, near the bed. "Claude?"

Next moment Alba, the snow-bird, alighted on his breast.

He slept soundly soon after this, but still when he appeared at breakfast he was so jaded looking and restless as to cause his mother considerable anxiety. He stoutly refused to see a medical man, however.

"It is nothing," he laughed. "Nothing, dear mother, only slight fatigue. A sailor like myself thinks little of travelling a thousand miles by sea, yet dreads the rolling, jolting train."

There was plenty to do and think about all day, well calculated to banish care. The villagers, the tenants, and neighbours all round were delighted to see the manly face and handsome figure of young Claude Alwyn once more among them, still accompanied by his pet--his spirit-bird, as the older cottagers had come to call it.