Born to Wander: A Boy's Book of Nomadic Adventures
trees, that had grown green summer after summer fora hundred years.
In the avenue of Grayling House it spent an extra dose of its fury, itbedded the ground with dead wood, and wrenched off many a lordly limbfrom elm and chestnut.
Effie heard the voice of the roaring wind, and saw the destruction itwas doing, and prayed for her brother and brother's friend, who were faraway at sea.
She stood by the parlour window beside her father, who was gazingoutwards across the lawn, and her hands were clasped, as if in fear,around his left arm. Mrs Lyle herself had retired to her room.
Suddenly a flash shot athwart the trees, so dazzling and blinding thatEffie was almost deprived of sight. The peal of thunder that followedwas terrific.
About ten minutes after this, while the wind still roared, while therain and hail beat the leaves ground-wards, and the grass was covered asdeep almost in white as if it were mid-winter, old Peter--he is lookingvery old and grey now--staggered into the room. He had not waited evento knock. "Sir, sir, sir!" he cried.
"Well, Peter, what is it? Speak, man! You frighten the child."
"Oh, sir, sir! Joe, sir, Joe!"
"Is dead?"
"Ay, as dead as a mawk. The great rock that o'erhung the water is rentin pieces, tons upon tons have fallen into the loch, the palin' iswashed away, Joe is dead, and there is an end to Glen Lyle. You mindthe gipsy's rhyme--
"`When dead yon lordly pike shall float, While loud and hoarse the ravens call, Then grief and woe shall be thy lot, Glen Lyle's brave house must fall.'"
"Hush, hush, hush, man!" cried Captain Lyle; "everything that lives mustdie; all things on earth must have an end. Why bother yourself aboutthe death of a poor pike, man? Come, Peter; I fear that you arepositively getting old."
"By the way, Effie," he added, turning to his daughter, "run and see howyour mother is."
Effie went away. She was used to obey. Dearly loved though she was byboth her parents, she had many lonely sad hours now that her brother hadbecome a wanderer, only to appear now and then at Glen Lyle to stay fora short time, he and Douglas, then disappear, and leave such a gloombehind that she hardly cared to live.
But she had never felt so sad as she did now. What was going to happento her father or to her brother? She did not go to her mother's room.She did not wish to show her tears. But she went to her own, threwherself on her bed, and cried and prayed till she fell asleep.
"Effie, child, are you here?"
It was her mother's voice, and she started up. The moon was throwing aflood of light into the room.
Next moment she was in her mother's arms, who was soothing her, andlaughingly trying to banish her fears.
We leave them there and follow the gale.
It had gone careering on, over mountain, moorland, and lake, seeming togather force as it went. It must have been at its height when it sweptover the bleak, bare islands of Shetland, and made madly off for theNorwegian coast. Old, old, white-haired men, who had lived their livesin this _ultima Thule_, never remembered a fiercer storm. On one of themost barren and bleakest islands, next morning, the beach was foundbestrewn with wreckage from some gallant ship, and the merciless waveshad thrown up more than one dead body, and there they lay as if asleep,with dishevelled hair, in which were sand and weeds, hands halfclenched, as if, in the agony of death, they had tried to grasp atsomething, and cold, hard, wet faces upturned to the morning sun.
The _Fairy Queen_ was trying to round a rocky cape when the white horsesof that gale of wind first appeared on the horizon, heading straight forthem. Once round the point they would be comparatively safe.
"Look!" cried Leonard to Douglas, whose watch it was. The sun was goingdown behind the western waves. Wild and red he looked, and shorn of hisbeams, and tinging all the water 'twixt the barque and the horizon abright blood-red.
On came the white horses. It was a race between the barque and the galeof wind. Before her loomed the rocky promontory. The cliffs rosestraight up out of the sea, and their heads were buried in haze. Closeto the wind sailed the barque, as close as ever could be.
On and on she speeds, but the white horses are almost close aboard ofher.
"Hands, shorten sail!"
The wind is on her. To shorten sail now were madness. The wind is onher, the brave ship leans over to it, till the water rushes in throughthe lee scuppers.
The wind increases in force every moment.
The great black rocks are close above her lee bow. Looking upwards, thewild flowers can be seen hanging to the banks and cliffs--saxifrages,heath, broom, and golden gorse. So close is the barque that thesea-birds that have alighted on the cliffs as the sun kissed the waves,startled by the flapping canvas, soar off again and go screamingskywards.
The sun is down now altogether, and the gale has rushed at the vessellike a wild beast seeking its lawful prey; the seas are dashing overher, the spray flying high over the bending masts.
The gale has leapt upon them, too, from a pillar of cloud, and withforked and flashing lightning.
Are they round the point? No one on that deck can tell as yet. Theroar and the surge is deafening. The gloom is appalling, men can hardlybreathe, the words the captain tries to shout to those at the wheel arecarried away on the wind. The crew clutch at the rigging, and feelchoking, drowning.
"Keep her away now!" It was Leonard's voice in a wheelman's ear. Theywere round the point!
The barque is flying. The topsails are rent in ribbons. What mattersit? The open sea is before them. Yes, but like a tiger baulked of itsprey, the squall suddenly increases to the force of a hurricane, andnext moment the good ship is helpless on her beam ends.
Had the force of the gale been kept up many minutes the ship would havefoundered, none would have been left alive to tell the tale. In somesandy bay in through those rocks and cliffs other dead swollen bodieswould have been cast up like those on the Shetland shores, to lie withlustreless eyes in the morning's sunshine.
The squall abated, the sky cleared, the gale itself has spent its fury,and goes growling away to leeward.
With hatchet and knife in hardy hands the wreck is cleared away at last,and the _Fairy Queen_ rides in the moonlight on an even keel.
The captain shakes hands with Leonard and Douglas. "You saved her," hesaid. "My boys, you saved her! It was excellent seamanship. Had youshortened sail when the wind got stiff we never would have rounded thatpoint, and the sharks would have had what was left of us."
"Captain Blunt," said Douglas, "take credit to yourself as well, for yousuperintended the ballasting of the barque. Had that shifted, then--"
"Davy Jones, eh?" said the skipper, laughing.
He could afford to laugh now.
There was much still to be done, so no more was said. All hands werecalled to make the barque as snug as could be for the night.
When morning broke in a grey uncertain haze over the sea, and the rockyshore began to loom out to leeward and astern, the extent of the damagewas more apparent, but after all the ship had come out of it fairlywell. The fore topmast was gone, the mizzen damaged, the bulwarksbroken, and more like sheep hurdles than anything else, but there waslittle other damage worth entering in the log-book.
The sky cleared when the sun rose, and after breakfast the men were setto work repairing damages.
The _Fairy Queen_ had little business on the Norwegian coast at all, butshe had been driven far out of her course by adverse winds.
In a few more days the breeze was fair, and the ship was making good waywestwards, albeit she was jury-rigged. It was sincerely hoped by all onboard that the terrible gale they had just encountered was the worstthey would meet. The ship had borne it wonderfully well, and leaked notin the least; for many a day, therefore, everything went as merry asmarriage bells on board.
Captain Blunt was happy, so were our heroes, and so, for the matter ofthat, was every one fore and aft. The crew of the _Fairy Queen_ wereall picked men. They were not feather
-bed sailors; most of them hadbeen in the Arctic regions before, and knew them well. But albeit agood seaman is not afraid to face danger in every shape and form, he isnevertheless happiest when things are going well.
So now, every night, around the galley fire, songs were sung and storiestold, and by day many a jocund laugh around the fo'c's'le mingling withthe scream of the circling sea-birds told of light hearts and minds thatwere free from care.
Everything in these seas was new to young Douglas and Leonard. Theypassed the strange-looking Faroe group of islands to the north, and ingood time Iceland to the south, and bore up, straight as a bird couldfly, for Cape Farewell, the southernmost point of Greenland.
Those Faroe Isles, as seen from the sea, are indescribably fantastic andpicturesque. Let me see if I cannot find a simile. Yes, here it is:take a number of pebbles and stones, with a few good-sized smithycinders. Let these be of all sizes.