“It is the change,” he remarked, smiling, “from a hard mattress to one far too soft and luxuriant for a sailor. Besides, mother, I dare say I miss the motion of the ship.”
His mother only sighed softly.
There came to Claude one night a dream as vivid as any reality. He was back again in Iceland. He was gazing on the face and form of her whom he loved, though she did not seem to see him. She was seated on a hill-top, a favourite spot, where beside her he had often sat, when the fields beneath were green, the far-off sea an azure blue, when wild birds sang above and around them, and the perfume of wild flowers filled the summer air.
But snow was all over the landscape now, save where dark rocks jutted through the white, and the ocean, foam-flecked, dashed high over the beetling cliffs. Yes, there sat Meta, but oh! the sad, sad look in those beautiful eyes! She opened her lips and spoke at last.
“No, no, no!” she murmured; “he will never come again.”
He thought he sprang towards her, but she faded away like the mist from a geyser, and he was alone on the snow.
He slept no more that night. But he formed a resolve.
“No,” he said to himself, “I am not a man; not a drop of proud Alwyn’s blood runs through my veins if I hesitate longer. It is a duty I owe to my mother and to her to speak my mind. Yes, Meta, I will come back again.”
Were I an artist, I should delight in painting only beauty and peace: the fairest, holiest faces should be transferred to my canvas; the most smiling summer landscapes, the sunniest seas. But, alas! I am but an author, and no pen-and-ink depiction of life would be complete without the shade and shadow of sorrow.
I will not needlessly dwell on the interview that took place in the very room in which I am sitting writing now, between the proud Lady Alwyn and her son. Indeed, the interview was brief in itself: I have thus some excuse for being brevity personified in my description.