The Cruise of the Snowbird: A Story of Arctic Adventure. Stables Gordon

meet you on your return and lisp out, ‘Oh, been to the moon, have you! awfly funny old place the moon. Did you call on the Looneys when you were there? Jolly family the Looneys.’”

      “There is a kind of metaphorical truth in what you say, Rory,” Ralph replied; “but I say, Allan, wouldn’t it be nice to go somewhere where no one – no white man – had ever been before, or do something never before accomplished?”

      “It would indeed,” said Allan; “and I for one always looked upon Livingstone, and Stanley, and Gordon Cumming, and Cameron, and men like them, as the luckiest fellows in the world.”

      “Now,” said Ralph, “I’m just nineteen. I’ve only two years more of what I call roving life, and if I don’t ride across some continent before I’m twenty-one, or embark at one end of some unknown river and come out into the sea at the other, I’ll never have a chance again.”

      “Why, how is that?” said McBain.

      “Well,” replied Ralph, “Sir Walter Leigh, my father, told me straight that we were as poor as Church mice, and that in order to retrieve our fortunes, as soon as I came of age I must marry my grandmother.”

      “Marry your grandmother!” exclaimed McBain, half rising in his chair.

      “Well, my cousin, then,” said Ralph, smiling; “she is five-and-forty, so it is all the same. But she has oceans of money, and my old father, bless him! is very, very good and kind. He doesn’t limit me in money now; though, of course, I don’t take advantage of all his generosity. ‘Go and travel, my boy,’ he said, ‘and enjoy yourself till you come of age. Just see all you can and thus have your fling. I know I can trust you.’”

      “Have your fling?” cried Rory; “troth now that is exactly what my Irish tenants told me to do. ‘The sorra a morsel av rint have we got to give you,’ says they, ‘so go and have your fling, but ’deed and indeed, if we see you here again until times are mended, we’ll shoot ye as dead as a Ballyshannon rabbit.’”

      “Well, young gentlemen,” said McBain, after a pause in the conversation, during which nothing was heard except the crackling of the blazing logs and the mournful moaning of the wind without, “you want to do something quite new. Well, I’ve got an idea.”

      “Oh, do tell us what it is?” cried Ralph and Rory, both in one breath.

      “No, no; not to-night,” said McBain, laughing; “besides, it wants working out a bit, so I’m off to bed to dream about it. Good night.”

      “Depend upon it,” said Allan McGregor, as he parted with his friends at their chamber door, “that whatever it is, McBain’s idea is a good one, and he’ll tell us all about it to-morrow. You’ll see.”

      Chapter Three

      Life at the Old Castle – McBain Explains his “Idea” – Allan’s Dream

      To say that our heroes, Ralph and Rory, were not a little impatient to know something about the scheme McBain was to propose for the purpose of giving them pleasure, would be equivalent to saying that they were not boys, or that they had men’s heads upon boys’ shoulders. So I willingly confess that it was the very first thing they thought about next morning, immediately after they had drawn up the blinds, to peep out and see what kind of a day it was going to be.

      But this peeping out to ascertain the state of the weather was not so easily accomplished, as it would have been in the south of England. For fairy fingers seemed to have been at work during the night, and the panes were covered with a frost-work of ferns and leaves, more beautifully traced, more artistically finished, than the work of any human designer that ever lived. The whole seemed floured over with powdered snow. It was a pity, so thought Rory, to spoil the pattern on even one of the panes, but it had to be done, so by breathing on it for quite half a minute, a round, clear space was obtained; and gazing through this he could see that it was a glorious morning, that the clouds had all fled, that the sky was bluer than ever he had seen a sky before, that the wind was hushed, and the sun shining brightly over hills of dazzling white. The stems of the leafless trees looked like pillars of frosted silver, while their branches were more lovely by far than the coral that lies beneath the blue waves of the Indian Ocean.

      “How different this is,” said Rory, “from anything we ever see in England! Ah! sure, it was a good idea our coming here in winter.”

      “I wonder where McBain is this morning?” said Ralph.

      “And I know right well,” said Rory, “what you’re thinking about.”

      “Perhaps you do,” Ralph replied.

      “Ay, that I do,” said Rory; “but don’t be an old wife, Ralph – never evince undue curiosity, never exhibit impatience. In other words, don’t be a squaw.”

      “Oho!” cried Ralph, “now I see where the land lies. ‘Don’t be a squaw,’ eh? You’ve been reading Fenimore Cooper, you old rogue, you! The centre of a great forest in the Far West of America – midnight – a council of war – chiefs squatting around the camp fire – smoking the calumet – enter Eagle-eye – scats himself in silence – everybody burning to hear what he has to say, but no one dares ask for the world – ugh! and all that sort of thing. Am I right, Rory?”

      “Indeed you are,” said the other, laughing; “you’ve bowled me out, I confess. But, after all, you know, it will be just as well not to seem impatient, and so I move that we never speak a word to McBain about what he said last night until he is pleased to open the conversation.”

      “Right,” said Ralph; “and now let us go down to breakfast.”

      Both Mrs McGregor and Allan’s sister Helen were very different from what Ralph and Rory had expected to find them. They had taken their notions of Highland ladies from the novels of Walter Scott and other literary worthies. Before they had come to Glentroom they had pictured to themselves Mrs McGregor as a kind of Spartan mother – tall, stately, dark, and proud, with a most exalted idea of her own importance, with an inexorable hatred of all the Saxon race, and an inordinate love of spinning. Her daughter, they had thought, must also be tall, and, if beautiful, of a kind of majestic and stately beauty, repellent more than attractive, and one more to be feared than loved. And they felt sure that Mrs McGregor would be almost constantly bending over her spinning-wheel, while Helen, if ever she condescended to bend over anything, which they had deemed a matter of doubt, would be bending over a very ancient piece of goods in the shape of a harp.

      These were their imaginings prior to their arrival at the castle, but these ideas were all wrong, and very delighted were the young men to find them so. Here in Mrs McGregor was no stiff fastidious lady; she was a very woman and a very mother, loving her children tenderly, and devoted to their interests, and rejoiced to hold out the hand of welcome to her children’s friends. On the sunny side of fifty, she was slightly inclined to embonpoint, extremely pleasant both in voice and manner as well as in face. Rory first, and Ralph soon afterwards, felt as much at home in her presence and company as if they had known her all their lives.

      As to Helen Edith, I do not think that any one would have been able to guess her nationality had they met her in society in town. She had been educated principally abroad, and could speak both the Italian and French languages, not only fluently, but, if I may be allowed the expression, mellifluently, for she possessed perfection of accent as well as exceeding sweetness of voice. She was rather small in stature, with pretty and shapely hands, and a nice figure.

      Was she beautiful? you may ask me. Well, had you asked her brother he would have said, “Indeed, I never gave the matter a thought,” but Rory and Ralph would have told you that she was beautiful, and they would have added the words, “and sisterly.” I do not know whether or not Helen was a better or a worse musician than most young girls of her age – she was just turned seventeen. She sang sweetly, though not loudly; she never screamed, but sang with expression, as if she felt what she sang; and she accompanied herself on the harp. But as for Mrs McGregor’s spinning-wheel, why, our young heroes cast their eyes about in vain for it.

      The portion of the castle now occupied by the McGregors was furnished