A SAILOR'S COTTAGE--THE TELEGRAM--"SOMETHING'S IN THE WIND"--THE GOOD YACHT "POLAR STAR"--HOPE FOR THE WANDERERS.

A cottage on a cliff. A cliff whose black, beetling sides rose sheer up out of the water three hundred feet and over; a cliff around which sea-birds whirled in dizzy flight; a cliff in which the cormorant had her home; a cliff against which all the might of the German Ocean had dashed and chafed and foamed for ages. Some fifty yards back from the edge of this cliff the cottage was built, of hard blue granite, with st.u.r.dy bay windows--a cottage that seemed as independent of any storm that could blow as the cliff itself was. In front was a neat wee garden, with nicely gravelled walks and edging of box, and all round it a natty railing painted an emerald green. At the back of the cottage were more gravelled walks and more flower garden, with a summer-house and a smooth lawn, from the centre of which rose a tall ship's mast by way of flagstaff, with ratlines and rigging and stays and top complete.

Not far off was a pigeon-house on a pole, and not far from that still another pole surmounted by a weather-vane, and two little wooden blue-jackets, that whenever the wind blew, went whirling round and round, clashing swords and engaging in a kind of fanatic duel, which seemed terribly real and terribly deadly for the time being.

It was a morning in early spring, and up and down the walk behind the cottage stepped a st.u.r.dy, weather-beaten old sailor, with hair and beard of iron-grey, and a face as red as the newest brick that ever was fashioned.

He stood for a moment gazing upwards at the strutting fantails.

"Curr-a-coo--curr-a-coo," said the pigeons.

"Curr-a-coo--curr-a-coo," replied the sailor. "I dare say you're very happy, and I'm sure you think the sun was made for you and you only.

Ah! my bonnie birdies, you don't know what the world is doing. You don't--hullo?"

"Yes, my dear, you may say hullo," said a cheerful little woman, with a bright, pleasant face, walking up to him, and placing an arm in his.

"Didn't you hear me tapping on the pane for you?"

"Not I, little wife, not I," said Silas Grig. "I've been thinking, la.s.s, thinking--"

"Well, then," interrupted his wife, "don't you think any more; you've made your hair all white with thinking. Just come in and have breakfast. That haddock smells delicious, and I've made some nice toast, and tried the new tea. Come, Silas, come."

Away went the two together, he with his arm around her waist, looking as happy, the pair of them, as though their united ages didn't make a deal over a hundred.

"Come next month," said Silas, as soon as he had finished his first cup of tea--"come next month, little wife, it will just be two years since I first met the _Arrandoon_. Heigho?"

"You needn't sigh, Silas," his wife remarked. "They may return.

Wonders never cease."

"Return?" repeated Silas, with a broken-hearted kind of a laugh, "Nay, nay, nay, we'll meet them no more in this world. Poor Rory! He was my favourite. Dear boy, I think I see him yet, with his fair, laughing face, and that rogue of an eye of his."

Rat-tat.

Silas started.

"The postman?" he said; "no, it can't be. That's right, little woman, run to the door and see. What! a telegram for me!"

Silas took the missive, and turned it over and over in his hand half a dozen times at least.

"Why, my dear, who _can_ it be from?" he asked with a puzzled look, "and what _can_ it be about? _Can_ you guess, little wife? Eh? can you?"

"If I were you, Silas," said his wife, quietly, "I'd open it and see."

"Dear me! to be sure," cried Silas. "I didn't think of that. Why, I declare," he continued, as soon as he had read it, "it is from Arrandoon Castle, and the poor widow, Allan's mother, wants to see me at once.

I'm off, little woman, at once. Get out my best things. The blue pilots, you know. Quick, little woman--quick! Bear a hand! Hurrah!"

Silas Grig didn't finish that second cup of tea. He was dressed in less than ten minutes, had kissed his wife, and was hurrying away to the station. Indeed, Silas had never in his life felt in such a hurry before.

"It'll be like my luck," he muttered, "if I miss this train."

But he did not miss it, and it was a fast one, too, a flying train, that every day went tearing along through Scotland, and was warranted to land him at Inverness six hours after he first stepped on board.

No sooner was Silas seated than he pulled out the telegram again, and read it over and over at least a dozen times. Then he looked at the back of it, as if it were just possible that some further information might be found there. Then he read the address, and as he could not get anything more out of it he folded it up and replaced it in his pocket, merely remarking, "I'll vow something's in the wind."

Silas had bought a newspaper. He had meant to read; he tried to read as hard as ever he had tried to do anything, but it was all in vain. His mind was in too great a ferment, so he threw down the paper and devoted himself to gazing out of the window at the glorious panorama that was pa.s.sing before him; but if anybody else had been in the same compartment, he or she would have heard this ancient mariner frequently muttering to himself, and the burden of all his remarks was, "Something's in the wind, I'm sure of that!"

A fast train? A flying train? Yes, a deal too much so, many would have thought, but she could not fly a bit too fast for Silas. Yet how she did rattle and rush and roar along the lines, to be sure! The din she made only deepening for a moment as she dived under a bridge or brushed past a wayside station, too insignificant by far to waste a thought upon! Now she pa.s.ses a country village, with rows of trim-built cottages and tidy gardens, with lines for clothes to dry, and fences where children hang or perch and wave their caps at the flying train.

Now she shaves past rows of platelayers, who stand at attention or extend their grimy arms like signal yards, while a blue-coated jack-in-a-box waves a white flag from his window to show that all is safe. Now she ploughs through some larger junction, over a whole field of rails that seems to run in every conceivable direction; but she makes her way in safety in a whirl of dust, and next she shrieks as she plunges into the darkness of a long, dreary tunnel. Ah! but she is out again into the glare of the day, and again the telegraph posts go popping past as fast as one could wink. Five miles now on a stretch of level country as straight as crow could fly, through fields and woods and past thriving farms, with far beyond on the horizon hills, hills, hills.

'Tis spring-time, spring changing into summer, summer coming six good weeks before its time. Look, Silas, look! crimson flowers are already peeping red through the greenery of cornfields, drowsy-looking cows are wading knee-deep in gra.s.s and b.u.t.tercups, the braelands are snowed over with the gowan's bloom. Birds are singing in meadow and copse, the yellow furze is blossoming on heathy moorlands. Great black spruces raise their tall heads skywards, and their every branch is tipped with a ta.s.sel of tender green; rowan-trees seem studded with roses of a pearly hue, and the feathery larches are hung round with a fringe-work of darkest crimson. Is it not glorious, Silas? is it not all beautiful?

Did ever you see a sky more blue before, or cloudlets more fleecy and light?

"I'll stake my word," replies Silas, "that something's in the wind."

Wilder scenery now, dark, frowning mountains, lonely glens, heathlands, highlands, canons, and tarns, then a long and fertile flat, every sod of which marks a Scottish warrior's grave.

Inverness at last!

"Boat gone, is it?" cried Silas. "Like my luck. But why didn't she wait for the train? Tell me that, eh?"

"Yes, sir; dare say I could, sir." This from an ostler in answer to another query of friend Silas. "Five-and-twenty mile, sir. I've just the horse that'll suit. Three hours to a tick, sir, rough though the road is, sir. I'll be ready in twenty minutes. Thank'ee, sir, much obliged. Now then, Donald, bustle about, will you? Get out the bay mare. Look sharp, gentleman's only got five minutes to feed."

"It can't be Captain Grig already," said Mrs McGregor.

"And yet who else can it be?" said Helen Edith.

"I'll run out and see," said Ralph's father, who had been spending some weeks at the castle.

"Ha! welcome, honest Silas Grig," he cried, rushing up and literally receiving Silas with open arms as he jumped from the high-wheeled dogcart. "A thousand welcomes. Well, I do declare you haven't let the gra.s.s grow under your feet. How your horse steams! Take him round, driver, and see to his comfort, then go to the kitchen and see to your own. Old Janet is there. Now, Silas," continued Mr Leigh, "before you go to talk to the ladies, I'll tell you what we have arranged. We have thought well over all you said when you were here in the autumn, and I've chartered a German Arctic cruiser, and we're going to put you in command. She is lying at Peterhead, everything ready, crew and all, stores and all. Our prayers will follow you, dear Captain Grig, and if you find our poor boys, or even bring us tidings of their fate, we will be ever grateful. Nay, nay, but 'grateful' poorly expresses my meaning.

We will--"

"Not another word," cried Silas, "not one single word more, sir, or as sure as my name is Silas Grig I'll clap my fingers in my ears."

He shook Mr Leigh's hand as he spoke.

"I'll find the boys if they be alive," he said. "I knew, sir, when I got the telegram there was something in the wind. I told my little wife I was quite sure of it. Ha! ha! ha!"

Silas was laughing, but it was only to hide the tears with which his eyes were swimming.

"When can you start, my dear Silas?"

"To-night. At once. Give me a fresh horse and five minutes for a mouthful of refreshment, and off I start; and I'll take command to-morrow before the sun is over the foreyard."

"To-night?" cried Mr Leigh, smiling. "No, no, no."

"But I say 'yo, yo, yo,'" said Silas, "and 'yo heave, O,' and what Silas says he means. There! Ah, ladies, how are you? Nay, never cry, Miss McGregor. I'm going straight away to the Arctic Sea, and I'm sure to bring your brother back, and Rory as well, to say nothing of honest Ralph and Peter the piper. So cheer ye up, my little la.s.s, If Silas Grig doesn't come back in company with the bonnie _Arrandoon_, may he never chew cheese again!"