Steve Young Part 62

"Feel cold, sir?"

"Who's to feel cold," puffed Steve, "after running miles like that? I'm getting hot."

"Then now let's walk, so that you don't cool down too fast."

"Why, here's old Skeny!" cried Steve, patting the dog's rough head. "I didn't see him."

"He has been trotting round just behind us all the time, sir," said Johannes, bending down in turn to pat the dog, who ruffled up his great thick frill and uttered a low growl.

"Ah!" cried Steve. "Quiet! Don't you know your friends yet, sir?"

The dog growled again; and this time apparently at his master.

"Ah! would you?" cried Steve; and the dog wagged his tail, making it flap up against the Norseman's leg; but he growled again.

"It isn't at us, sir," said Johannes. "He hears something ash.o.r.e. What is it, then, old fellow?"

The dog uttered a sharp bark, and ran to the bulwarks, reared up, and tried to look over.

"There's something coming over the ice. Hark!"

They listened breathlessly, while the dog uttered a low whine.

"Yes, I can hear it now, sir," whispered Johannes. "Listen!"

Steve was already listening to a strange whistling noise which sounded as if hundreds of boys were a long way off, making the lashes of as many whips whish through the air together; and this sound came nearer and nearer, till it grew close to them--over, beneath, around--and so strange in the darkness, lit up only by the stars which were gleaming on the ice as well as above, and the lambent rays of the aurora, that Steve felt a curious sensation of dread stealing over him, and he involuntarily crept closer to the Norseman, and whispered:

"It is--something coming from up by the glacier over the ice;" while the sound increased, and sounded so awe-inspiring that the lad could not help a s.h.i.+ver.

Johannes was silent and did not stir.

"Don't you hear it?" said Steve again. "Shall I get a gun?"

"No; and it is a pity to disturb the captain and doctor. It is not on the ice, sir," replied Johannes.

"But it is, I tell you."

"No, sir; I've heard it before. It is only echoed from the hard, flat surface. Hah! what a number we might shoot if we wanted them!"

"What do you mean?"

"Wild fowl, sir. They're not geese, or they would make a clanging noise. They must be ducks."

"Ducks?" cried Steve, staring upwards and seeing nothing.

"Yes, sir. Another sign of the cold weather. They're all banded together in one great flight, and are going south to the marshes of North Russia, where they'll stay till it begins to freeze there, and then go farther south."

"But are you sure? Oh, they wouldn't take flight in the dark!"

"Sure, sir? Listen to the whistling of their wings, hundreds and thousands of them flying over as fast as they can go. Yes, they always fly in the night when they're going from here south, and I believe birds come north in the same way, following after the frost as it is driven north. I've noticed it at home near Nordoe. To-day there would be no birds at all in the spring; next day there would be hundreds of them flying about. They must have come in the night."

Steve had not a word to say, but stood there silent, listening to the whirring of the thousands of wings which echoed from the ice and the sides of the fiord, sounding so close that he felt disposed to stretch out his hand and try to touch that which seemed to be within reach.

Then he began to wonder how many thousands there would be, and where they had come from; and then how it was that this plain, homely Norwegian should know so much better than he, and show that he had pa.s.sed his life picking up knowledge peculiar to his surroundings, so that he was able to teach those around him again and again.

"Isn't there going to be any end of them?" said the boy at last; for the peculiar whirring had been going on for quite half an hour.

"Oh yes, sir; they'll all be by soon," replied Johannes; and almost as he spoke the whirring sound grew fainter, fainter, and then died away.

"Hah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Steve, drawing a long breath. "How strange it sounded!"

He was about to say, "I am glad you were here, for it quite startled me," when the Norseman spoke:

"I remember hearing one of these night flights, sir when I was quite a lad somewhere about your age. I was out quite alone, and it frightened me so that I ran away. It was one night, and I was going straight home over the mountain when it began. First thing I did was to throw myself flat on my face; but the noise seemed to come close down to me, and I was so scared that I jumped up and began to run. But that did no good, for I started running in the same direction as the wild fowl were flying, and consequently the noise sounded as if following me, and kept on louder and louder till I reached home, dashed myself, out of breath, against the door, and rushed in to where my father and mother were sitting with the window open listening, as I thought, for me. In a moment I'd banged to and barred the door, and then I turned to my father.

"'Shut the window,' I said. 'Quick! they're coming in.'

"'What are?' said my father.

"'I don't know. I think it's a pack of wolves,' I panted as I sank in a chair. 'Get the gun.'

"'Oh yes,' said my father. 'Perhaps it is flying wolves with feathers instead of fur coats, and they were after you to eat you.'

"'Yes, father,' I said, 'I thought so.'

"'Then don't be such a bull goose again,' said my father. 'Here, mother, try and teach this boy to think better, and not go and believe that every sound he hears is all troll and hobgoblin. Feathered wolves that fly, eh, Johannes? That kind of fowl has not been hatched yet, my boy. Now, the next time you hear a flight of fowl going south in the night, you'll know better, won't you?'

"I said, 'Yes, father,' very sharply, for I was horribly ashamed of having been frightened at the flight of wild fowl; but I didn't know any better, and it was very dark, like to-night; and it is startling to hear such sounds when you don't know what they are."

"Yes, very," said Steve consciously.

"Why, if the lad Watty had been on deck, I don't know what kind of creature he would have thought it was. Hark!" he whispered, for Skene uttered another low whine. "Here they are again, sir. This frost has started them in a hurry. Yes; geese this time."

For from out of the black darkness ahead came a long-drawn, weird, clanging noise, growing louder and louder till it swept over their heads and into the distance, hushed, as it were, by the whir and whistle of the heavy pinions beating the air.

"The captain was right," said Johannes after they had listened for a time. "There is nothing like laying in a store when you have the chance. We shall have to go far enough now to pick up a few birds for some months to come."

The wild-geese flight pa.s.sed over, and the walk up and down the deck was resumed; and now Steve noted that the aurora was growing paler, with the effect of making the stars s.h.i.+ne out more brightly. Then all at once the strange glow sank down lower and lower, and then disappeared as the glow cast upon a cloud of mist disappears when the electric light is turned aside.

"Yes, it comes and goes like that," said Johannes; "and I have never known yet, sir, any one who could explain it to make it seem clear and reasonable to me. But it is very good."

"Good! What does it do?"

"Gives us light through the long, black winter, sir, when we're glad of anything that brightens the sky where there is no sun. Hark! That's not birds."

Skene had heard it, and he emitted a deep growl now at the long, low noise faintly heard, apparently from the valley by the glacier.

"What is it?" whispered Steve. "There it is again. Why, it must be wolves. There, that sounds like two or three!"

"And I should say it was the cry of wolves, sir, if there are any. But we have not seen a sign."