The Adventure Calendar of Mr Timothy Hope is a seasonal story of unlikely accidents and hair-raising escapes told in 24 letters sent home by Timothy Hope as he journeys in the Arctic Circle. Featuring characters such as the unhinged big-game hunter Baronet Oxshott, the scatter-brained genius Professor Cumulus and the always inventive Timothy Hope, the story is a frequently silly, always exciting sleigh ride across crevasses, through wolf packs, into the heart of Christmas itself.
12th December
My Dear Lady Misericordia,
I hope this letter finds you well.
You certainly do seem to be having a jolly time at the tea table with Viscount Fox while we are away. I know that I have not always been approving of your friendship with that young man - but I must say he can be very clever at times.
His remark that you repeat about it being difficult to tell which is the more dangerous wild animal, the shark, the wolf or Baronet Oxshott, is very witty and observant. Tell him well done from me.
Of course you are right that it was very brave and kind of Oxshott to save me from that wolf, but that doesn't excuse him hanging its mounted head outside of my cabin on the train so that it gave me a shock everytime I went out to the restaurant car.
Anyway, Oxshott has had to pack his heads away now because our train has gone as far as it can and I woke up this morning to discover that we were already deep into the Finnmark, the far North of Norway.
But you told me in your last letter that now you didn't have a tutor any more, you didn't need any more geography lessons - so perhaps what happened next will interest you more. For there, waiting for us as we disembarked from the train, were drawn up sleighs: genuine reindeer-drawn sleighs.
The Professor had, evidentially, made arrangements with a tribe of local Lapplanders, or Sami, as I discovered they are properly called. They were to convey us by sleigh to their camp, where they would furnish us with a guide and we would pursue our journey onwards by dog sled.
But, those sleighs! I would try and describe to you just how cunningly and pleasingly they were made, how well they ran, how comfortable and excellently sprung they were, but I suspect that might sound a little too much like a lesson for you. And, anyway, none of that can describe the sheer delight of that journey.
The clear, keen air in your face, the huffing and snorting of the reindeer, their breath steaming out behind them, rime forming on their antlers. The jingling of the tiny bells on their harness ringing in time to the crunch of the snow under the runners. The joyous red and blue clothes of our Sami guides against the limitless and untouched horizon. The snow crunching beneath the runners glowing gold in the low sun and the woods dim and deep around us.
It was a journey out of a childhood dream, and quite one of the most wonderful experiences of my life.
There was only one small fly in the ointment. The boy Harry and I shared a sleigh with some of the scientific equipment and we managed to have a completely unnecessary and foolish argument for no reason at all.
We were reveling in the simple joy of our sleigh ride, when I happened to remark that I thought that you, my Lady, would also enjoy it immensely. To my surprise the lad turned suddenly bad tempered and said, rather fiercely, that he suspected that you would probably only "complain about the cold, and the smell of the deer, and the brightness of the sun and a thousand other things and would probably be happier stuck inside some drawing room somewhere playing cards with a load of gossips."
Well, I can assure you that I reprimanded the fellow in the strongest possible terms, reminding him that it was not his place to speak such of a lady, and anyway that he was quite mistaken. At this he simply pulled his cap down over his eyes (he never seems to take the silly thing off) and fell into a sulk.
Quite an inexplicable outburst and one which left me hurt, for your sake, and rather confused. How the young man could have got such an impression, I cannot guess. I must admit, as must you, my Lady, that you are not unacquainted with the drawing room and the card table, but how he can know anything about it, I don't know. Besides, who could not enjoy such a pastime as a sleigh ride?
But we should not dwell on such things - especially not when the wonders of today were not limited to reindeer.
We arrived at the Sami encampment quite safely and quickly found them to be the most friendly and welcoming of hosts, more than happy to share everything they had with us and feed us sumptuously, even if that supper was, I strongly suspect, of reindeer meat. I daren't ask as it was delicious and I was starving hungry and was afraid that if I knew for sure it was a reindeer, I might not be able to eat it...
Far more exciting was the prospect of sleeping in Sami tents, right there out on the snow. A real teepee made from reindeer hides, set out, under the freezing stars. True, the tent might have smelt a bit of the animals it was made out of, and the stars might have been a little too freezing, but surely this is the true stuff of adventure, the intrepid life of the outdoors?
But the true wonder was waiting for us in the middle of the night. I was awoken in the dead of night by an icy breeze: the tent flap was open and Harry was sitting, looking out, silhouetted against an unearthly, wavering green glow. I hissed at him to close the flap, but he just turned and beckoned to me, with an urgency that made me scramble upright in my sleeping bag (it was cold) and hop over to where he stood.
And what a sight greeted me: high up in the sky, stretching endlessly above the distant mountains, was a tenuous, ghostly curtain of green fire, that flowed across the heavens in an eerily silent wave: the Northern Lights! The Aurora Borealis itself!
I have never seen anything so strange, so bewitching and haunting, my Lady, saving yourself, of course. Now a series of flickering, electric ripples that burned across the stars, now a drawn bow of fire, whispering over our heads, now great curtains and walls of light, stretching up into the night, lighting up and disappearing again in a bewildering dance.
In the pale light I could see that the camp was full of upturned faces, all watching the display in a rapt silence, even Professor Cumulus, although he couldn't quite repress the occasional squeak of excitement. But then:
"What the deuce are you all doing? Why have I been woken up? It's the middle of the demmed night!" Oxshott came blundering out of his tent into the snow and pointed wildly into the sky, "What on earth is that?"
The Sami all leapt up, all waving at and admonishing him, trying to keep him quiet, but this only excited him more.
"They're attacking!" he shouted, gleefully, "Get to the sleighs, your Lordship! Gun! My gun!"
And he was off, shouting for his gun, pursued by the Sami, all waving their hands and whispering at him. It was a peculiar scene, the shouting man chased round and round the group of tents by the silent horde all under the electric and dancing sky.
It took a good half an hour to sort everyone out. It turned out that the Sami believe that one should always remain quiet in the presence of the Northern Light and should always be careful not to make fun or insult them.
They were afraid, I think, that Oxshott might anger the lights in some way and so were desperate to quiet him down. They weren't to know that they were only going to make him louder.
In the end everyone was calmed down and returned to their beds, although I could still hear Oxshott grumbling in the darkness, and we settled down to dream of the strange wonders of the Arctic.
Yours,
entranced and amazed
Timothy Hope, Esq
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