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

every spear and helmet.

      “What a grand thing,” he said to Allan, “it is to have had ancestors! Never one had I, that I know of – leastways, none of them ever troubled themselves to sit for their portraits. More by token, perhaps, they couldn’t afford it.”

      If Ralph enjoyed himself at the castle – and I might say that he undoubtedly did – he did not say a very great deal about it. To give vocal expression to his pleasure was not much in Ralph’s line, but it was in Rory’s, who, by the way, although nearly as old as his companion, was far more of a boy.

      The feelings of the young chief of the McGregors, while showing his friends over the old castle, the ancient home of his fathers, were those of sadness, mingled with a very little touch of pride. Every room had its story, every chamber its tale – often one of sorrow; and these were listened to by Ralph and Rory with rapt attention, although every now and then some curious or quaint remark from the lips of the latter would set the other two laughing, and often materially damage some relation of events that bordered closely on the romantic.

      “If ever I’m rich enough,” said Allan, leading the way into the ancient banqueting-hall, “I mean to re-roof and re-furnish the whole of the older portion of the castle.”

      “But wherever has the roof gone to?” asked Rory, looking upwards at the sky above them.

      “Fire would explain that,” replied Allan; “the whole of this wing of the building was burned by Cumberland in ’45 – he who was surnamed the Bloody Duke, you know.”

      “Were your people ‘out,’ as you call it, in ’45?” asked Ralph.

      Allan nodded, and bit his lips; the memory of that terrible time was not a pleasant one to this Highland chief.

      The little turret chambers were a source of both interest and curiosity to Allan’s companions.

      “Bedrooms and watch-towers, are they?” said Ralph, viewing them critically. “Well, you catch a beautiful glimpse of the glen, and the hills, and woods, and lake from that little narrow window, with its solitary iron stanchion; but I say, Allan – bedrooms, eh? Aren’t you joking, old man? Fancy a great tall lanky fellow like me in a bedroom this size; why, I’d have to double up like a jack-knife!”

      “Oh! look, Ralph, at these dark, mysterious stains on the oaken floor,” cried Rory – “blood, of course? Do you know, Allan, my boy, what particular deed of darkness was committed in this turret chamber?”

      “I do, precisely,” replied Allan.

      “Och! tell us, then – tell us!” said Rory.

      “Ay, do,” said Ralph. “I shall lean against the window here and look out, for the view is delightful, but I’ll be listening all the same.”

      “Well, then,” said Allan, “I made this little room my study for a few months last summer, and I spilt some ink there.”

      “Now, indeed, indeed,” cried romantic Rory, “that is a shame to put us off like that. Never mind, Ralph; we know it is a blood-stain, and if Allan won’t tell us the story, then, we’ll invent one. Sure, now,” he continued, “I’d like to sleep here.”

      “You’d catch your death of cold from the damp,” said Allan.

      Rory wheeled him right round to the light, and gazed at him funnily from top to toe, and from toe to top.

      “You’re a greater curiosity than the fine old castle itself,” said Rory; “and I don’t believe there is an ounce of romance in the whole big body of you. Now, if the place was mine, there isn’t a room – why, what is that?”

      “That’s the gong,” said Allan, “and it says plainly enough, ‘Get r-r-r-r-ready for dinner.’”

      “Well, but,” persisted Rory, “just before we go down below show us the corridor where the ghost walks at midnight, and the door through which it disappears.”

      “A ghost!” said Allan; “indeed, I never knew there was one.”

      “Ah! but,” Rory continued, “you never knew there wasn’t. Well, then, say probably there is a ghost, because you know, old fellow, in an ancient family like yours there must be a ghost. There must be some old fogey or another who didn’t think he was very well done by in this world, and feels bound to come back and walk about at midnight, and all that sort of thing. Pray, Allan, don’t break the spell. You’re welcome to the stains if you please, but ’deed and indeed, I mean to stick to the ghost.”

      The first few days of their stay in Glentroom were spent in what Allan called “doing nothing,” for unless he left the castle for the hill, the river, or the lake, he did not consider he was doing anything. Within the castle walls, however, Rory for one was not idle. There was, in his opinion, a deal to be seen and a deal to be done: he had to make acquaintance with every living thing about the place – ponies and dogs, cattle and pigs, ducks, geese, fowl, and pigeons.

      Old Janet averred that she had never seen such a boy in all her born days – that he turned the castle upside down, and kept all the “beasties” in an uproar; but at the same time she added that he was the prettiest boy ever she’d seen, and “Heaven bless his bonnie face,” which put her in mind of her dear dead boy Donald, and she couldn’t be angry with him, for even when he was doing mischief he made her laugh.

      The parish in which Glentroom lies is a very wide one indeed, and contained at the time our tale opens many families of distinction. Nearly all of these were on visiting terms with the McGregors, and many a beautifully-fitted sledge used to drive over the drawbridge of Arrandoon Castle during the winter months – wheels, of course, were out of the question when the snow lay thick on the ground – so that life in Allan’s family, although it did not partake of the gaiety of the London season, was by no means a dull one, and both Ralph and Rory thought the evenings spent in the drawing-room were very enjoyable indeed. Ralph was a good conversationalist and a good listener: he delighted in hearing music, while Rory delighted to play, and, for his years, he was a violinist of no mean order. He had never been known to go anywhere – not even on the shortest of holiday tours – without the long black case that contained his pet instrument.

      Now, as none of “the resident gentry,” as they were called, who visited at the castle have anything at all to do with our story, I shall not fatigue my readers by introducing them.

      And why, it may be asked, should I trouble myself about describing life at the castle at all? And where is the Snowbird? – for doubtless you have guessed already that it is a ship of some kind. The Snowbird ere very long will sail majestically up that Highland lake before you, and in her, along with our heroes, you and I, reader, will embark, and together we will journey afar over the ocean wave, to regions hitherto but little known to man. Our adventures there will be many, wild, and varied, and some of them, too, so far from pleasant, that while exiled in the frozen seas of the far North, our thoughts will oftentimes turn fondly homewards, and we will think with a joy borrowed from the past of the quiet and peaceful days we spent in bonnie Arrandoon.

      Ralph and Rory had kept the promise they had made to each other on the morning succeeding their arrival at Arrandoon; they left McBain to dream over his “idea” in peace. They did not behave like squaws, and I think it was the third or fourth evening before Allan’s foster-father said another word about it. They were then all around the fire, as they had been before; the ladies had retired, and the dogs were making themselves as snug and comfortable as dogs know how to whenever they get a chance.

      “Well,” said McBain, after there had been a lull in the conversation for some little time, “we’ve been all so happy and jolly here for the last few days, that we haven’t had time to think much or to look ahead either; but now, if you don’t mind, young gentlemen, I will tell you what I should propose in the way of spending a few of the incoming spring and summer months, in what I should call a very pleasant fashion.”

      “Yes,” cried Rory, “do tell us, we are burning to hear about it, and if it be anything new it is sure to be nice.”

      “Very well,” said McBain. “Allan there tells me he means to stick