The White Wolf

The White Wolf and Other
Fireside Tales

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Tales
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Title: The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales
Author: Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
Release Date: January 27, 2005 [EBook #14817]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHITE
WOLF AND OTHERS ***

Produced by Lionel Sear

THE WHITE WOLF AND OTHER FIRESIDE TALES.

By Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch ('Q').

CONTENTS.
MIRACLE OF THE WHITE WOLF.
SINDBAD ON BURRATOR.
VICTOR.
THE CAPTURE OF THE _BURGOMEISTER VAN DER WERF.
KING O' PRUSSIA.
THE MAN WHO COULD HAVE TOLD.
THE CELLARS OF RUEDA.
THE HAUNTED YACHT.
PARSON JACK'S FORTUNE.
THE BURGLARY CLUB.
CONCERNING ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.
COX VERSUS PRETYMAN.
THE BRIDALS OF YSSELMONDE.
ENGLAND!
JOHN AND THE GHOSTS.
THREE PHOTOGRAPHS.
THE TALKING SHIPS.

THE KEEPERS OF THE LAMP.
TWO BOYS.
THE SENIOR FELLOW.
BALLAST.

THE MIRACLE OF THE WHITE WOLF.
I.--THE TALE OF SNORRI GAMLASON
In the early summer of 1358, with the breaking up of the ice, there
came to Brattahlid, in Greenland, a merchant-ship from Norway, with
provisions for the Christian settlements on the coast. The master's name
was Snorri Gamlason, and it happened that as he sailed into Eric's Fiord
and warped alongside the quay, word was brought to him that the
Bishop of Garda had arrived that day in Brattahlid, to hold a
confirmation. Whereupon this Snorri went ashore at once, and, getting
audience of the Bishop, gave him a little book, with an account of how
he had come by it.
The book was written in Danish, and Snorri could not understand a
word of it, being indeed unable to read or to write; but he told this
tale:--
His ship, about three weeks before, had run into a calm, which lasted
for three days and two nights, and with a northerly drift she fell away,
little by little, towards a range of icebergs which stretched across and
ahead of them in a solid chain. But about noon of the third day the
colour of the sky warned him of a worse peril, and soon there came up
from the westward a bank of fog, with snow in it, and a wind that
increased until they began to hear the ice grinding and breaking up-- as
it seemed--all around them. Snorri steered at first for the southward,
where had been open water; but by and by found that even here were
drifting bergs. He therefore put his helm down and felt his way through
the weather by short boards, and so, with the most of his men stationed

forward to keep a look-out, fenced, as it were, with the danger, steering
and tacking, until by God's grace the fog lifted, and the wind blew
gently once more.
And now in the clear sunshine he saw that the storm had been more
violent than any had supposed; since the wall of ice, which before had
been solid, was now burst and riven in many places, and in particular to
the eastward, where a broad path of water lay before them almost like a
canal, but winding here and there. Towards this Snorri steered, and
entered it with a fair breeze.
They had come, he said, but to the second bend of this waterway, when
a seaman, who had climbed the mast on the chance of spying an outlet,
called out in surprise that there was a ship ahead of them, but two miles
off, and running down the channel before the wind, even as they. At
first he found no credit for this tale, and even when those on deck spied
her mast and yard overtopping a gap between two bergs, they could
only set it down for a mirage or cheat of eyesight in the clear weather.
But by and by, said Snorri, they could not doubt they were in chase of a
ship, and, further, that they were fast overtaking her. For she steered
with no method, and shook with every slant of wind, and anon went off
before it like a helpless thing, until in the end she was fetched up by the
jutting foot of a berg, and there shook her sail, flapping with such noise
that Snorri's men heard it, though yet a mile away.
They bore down upon her, and now took note that this sail of hers was
ragged and frozen, so that it flapped like a jointed board, and that her
rigging hung in all ways and