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СКАЧАТЬ Janet said has sunk deep into my mind and rooted itself in my memory, and will never be effaced while I and time have any connection.

      Chapter Two

      Claude Alwyn’s Boyhood

      On the very day after the birth of Alwyn’s heir something strange occurred: a large flight of curious seagulls alighted in the park around Dunallan Towers. No one had ever remembered seeing such weird-looking birds there before, and Janet had averred that their arrival betokened no good. She was not wrong, for that same night it came on to blow from the north, oh, such a fearful gale! Many of the tallest and sturdiest trees were torn up by the roots, and even tossed about, and the Towers shook and trembled as if the very earth were quaking. It was eerisome to hear, at the dark midnight hour, the shriek of frightened wild birds around the house, high above the fitful roaring of the wind.

      The Nith, too, came down “in spate;” they could see its white flashing waters, nearly close up to the window of the red parlour in which I now am sitting at work. It brought along with it from the mountains, fallen trees, bushes, heather-clad turf, and boulders of solid rock, tons and tons in weight.

      All that night the storm raged, and though the wind went down about sunrise, the terrible rain still fell, and the river continued in raging spate. Great was the damage done to the lower-lying lands seawards; huts and even houses were laid low, sheep and cattle were drowned and borne away, so great is the fury and strength of a Highland river like the Nith when it “comes down,” as the people phrase it.

      But the sun shone forth at length, and the clouds went driving southwards, leaving lovely rifts of blue between them, and the rain ceased, and the poor people of the glens came forth to view the work of devastation and to mourn their losses.

      One of these, while walking in the park and not far from the mansion house, found, crouching under the gnarled root of an old tree, and gazing up at him with its bright crimson eye, or rather first with one eye then with the other, a snow-white gull of most graceful form.1

      He caught it – one wing was injured – and brought it round to the kitchen, where it was much admired and tenderly cared for. In little over a week it seemed as well and strong as it must have been before the storm. Yet it was in no hurry to leave.

      It stayed on and on and on, and became as tame as a dove, and most affectionate to all it knew. But to Janet in particular it attached itself. One day it followed her into the room where Alwyn’s heir lay in his little crib. Janet showed him the bird. He smiled and stretched out his arms with a fond cry, and next moment the snow-bird was nestling quietly on his breast.

      There was no keeping the gull out of Claude’s room after this, so it came to be called “baby’s bird.”

      When Claude Alwyn was about three years of age, an event happened down the glen that cast that gloom on Dunallan Towers that never yet has left it: Lord Alwyn was thrown from his horse and killed on the spot. Her ladyship left the glen after this, and went south, and Claude, childlike, would insist on taking his pet along with him.

      Years flew by, summers passed and winters passed, but smoke was hardly ever seen to hover over the Towers. Then one day the old steward came down to the village all a-quiver with excitement. He wanted tradesmen of all kinds to come forthwith to the mansion house. Lady Alwyn and young Claude – now grown a great lad, the steward felt sure of this – were to return in less than a month.

      Smoke enough now began to curl high over turret and tree; even the rooks seemed to feel the importance of the coming occasion, and positively crowed themselves hoarse.

      At the appointed time the family carriage, a very stately and gigantic kind of a concern, rattled up the long avenue through the park, and soon after the widow of Lord Alwyn was once more Lady of the Towers. She was greatly altered. Though still young and youthful in appearance, sorrow had stamped itself on her brow and saddened her eye. It was said that she seldom smiled.

      But she was even kinder to the poor of the district than she had been in the days of yore, and, wet day or dry day, she was never missed from the pew in church of a Sunday. And beside her always sat a sturdy bright-faced boy of about thirteen, with blue eyes, and short irrepressible locks of soft fair hair, that nothing on earth except scissors could have kept from tumbling over his brow. He was always dressed in the Highland garb as Highland lads ought to be, but his jacket was of black velvet and his kilt of the sombrest coloured tartan.

      He was the favourite of every one on the estate, and so was his bird. Wherever young Claude – he was seldom called Lord Claude, because he did not like to be – wherever he went his snow-bird went as well.

      And Claude was quite as fond of his pet as his pet was of him, and that was the secret of his success in taming this wild and strangely beautiful creature.

      Only those who have seen the snow-bird in its own country, sailing around great icebergs or glittering glaciers, its plumage rivalling the snow in the purity of its whiteness, its shape more graceful than that of a swallow, can have any idea of the extreme loveliness of the creature. No wonder that the humble people of the glens, deeply imbued as they were with that superstition peculiar to the Highland peasantry, often looked upon young Claude and his matchless bird with something akin to awe.

      “It is his good angel and nothing else,” one old crone used to remark, “his good angel, Heaven bless the bonnie boy.”

      Yes, and a bonnie boy he looked at all times. Had you seen him standing, alpenstock in hand, dressed in Highland garb, on the brow of a hill, well defined against the sky, up to which his face was turned, and in which the snow-bird kept sailing and sailing, following every motion of Claude’s upstretched, waving arm, you could not have helped admiring him.

      Claude spent much of his time fishing or shooting, but more particularly the former. Little he recked if the fish did not bite. He would then throw himself on his back among the ferns and flowers on the banks of the stream and pull out his “Burns” or his “Scott.” Meanwhile the snow-bird would perch upon a mossy boulder, or water-washed stone, and watch for the tiny troutlets, which sought for shelter and sunshine in the shallower water.

      Young lord though he was, Claude was a “people’s boy.” It would be an exaggeration of speech to say that any of the villagers would have died for him; but it is true that Claude brightened every doorstep he crossed. And this too, all and only, by means of his own handsome face, sunny smile, and kindly words. Not that he did not bring the poor folks gifts, for he was often sent on errands of mercy by his mother, and he brought them also of his own accord many a goodly string of trout.

      In a wild country like that in which our young hero dwelt and wandered, there are many dangers to life and limb, and Claude did not always escape quite scot-free. But when, on rushing down a lofty hillside once, he missed his foothold and fell over a crag full fifty feet high, he did not lose his presence of mind, but simply jumped up from the soft turf on which he had alighted, as if on a feather bed, and looked around for his bonnet, which he never saw again. The old shepherd who witnessed the involuntary exploit, told of it all over the parish, and the wise women alleged it was the bird that had saved him. When Claude’s gun burst in his hand and he escaped without a scratch, that too was in some way owing to the bird’s protecting care. When a branch on which he was leaning snapped beneath his weight and precipitated Claude into the roaring, foaming torrent beneath, where any one save a Webb would have been drowned, and when bleeding and cut he safely scrambled out, who but the bird, averred the wise old women, helped him out?

      Claude rather encouraged than otherwise the belief in the supernatural powers of this wonderful snow-bird of his. Rather mischievous of him, it must be confessed, but then he was only a boy.

      “My СКАЧАТЬ