Chapter Twenty Five.Breaking Up of the Great Ice Pack—In the Nips—The “Canny Scotia” on her Beam-Ends—Staving of the “Arrandoon.”In the very midst of joy and pleasure in this so-called weary world, we are oftentimes very nigh to grief and pain.See yonder Swiss village by the foot of the mountain, how peacefully it is sleeping in the moonlight; not a sound is to be heard save the occasional crowing of a wakeful cock, or the voice of watch-dog baying the moon. The inhabitants have gone to bed hours and hours ago, and their dreams, if they dream at all, are assuredly not dreams of danger. But hark to that terrible noise far overhead. Is it thunder? Yes, the thunder of a mighty avalanche. Nearer and nearer it rolls, till it reaches the devoted village, then all is desolation and woe.See yet another village, far away in sunny Africa; its little huts nestle around the banyan-tree, the tall cocoa-palm, and the wide-spreading mango. They are a quiet, inoffensive race who inhabit that village. They live south of the line, far away from treacherous Somali Indians or wild Magulla men; they never even dreamt of war or bloodshed. They certainly do not dream of it now.“The babe lies in its mother’s arms,The wife’s head pillowed on the husband’s breast.”Suddenly there is a shout, and when they awake—oh! horror! their huts are all in flames, the Arab slavers are on them, and—I would not harrow your young feelings by describing the scenes that follow.But a ship—and this is coming nearer home—may be sailing over a rippling sea, with the most pleasant of breezes filling her sails, no land in sight, and every one, fore and aft, as happy as the birds on an early morning in summer, when all at once she rasps, and strikes—strikes on a rock, the very existence of which was never even suspected before. In half an hour perhaps that vessel has gone down, and those that are saved are afloat in open boats, the breeze freshening every moment, the wavetops breaking into cold spray, night coming on, and dark, threatening clouds banking up on the windward horizon.When the first wail arose from the pack that announced the breaking up of the sea of ice, a silence of nearly a minute fell on the sailors assembled at the entertainment. Music stopped, dancing ceased, and every one listened. The sound was repeated, and multiplied, and the ship quivered and half reeled.McBain knew the advantage of remaining calm and retaining his presence of mind in danger. Because he was a true sailor. He was not like the sailor captains you read of in penny dreadfuls—half coal-heaver, half Herzegovinian bandit.“Odd, isn’t it?” he muttered, as he stroked his beard and smiled; then in a louder voice he gave his orders.“Men,” he said, “we’ll have some work to do before morning—get ready. The ice is breaking up. Pipe down, boatswain. Mr Stevenson, see to the clearing away of all this hamper.”Then, followed by Rory and the doctor, he got away out into the daylight.The ships were all safe enough as yet, and there was only perceptible the gentlest heaving motion in the pack. Sufficient was it, however, to break up the bay ice between the bergs, and this with a series of loud reports, which could be heard in every direction. McBain looked overboard somewhat anxiously; the broken pieces of bay ice were getting ploughed up against the ship’s side with a noise that is indescribable, not so much from its extreme loudness as from its peculiarity; it was a strange mixture of a hundred different noises, a wailing, complaining, shrieking, grinding noise, mingled with a series of sharp, irregular reports.“It is like nothing earthly,” said Rory, “that ever I heard before; and when I close my eyes for a brace of seconds, I could imagine that down on the pack there two hundred tom-cats had lain down to die, that twenty Highland bag-pipers—twenty Peters—were playing pibrochs of lament, and that just forenenst them a squad of militia-men was firing afeu-de-joie, and that neither the militia-men nor the pipers either were as self-contained as they should be on so solemn an occasion.”The doctor was musing; he was thinking how happy he had been half an hour ago, and now—heigho; it was just possible he would never get back to Iceland again, never see his blue-eyed Danish maiden more.“Pleasures,” he cried, “pleasures, Captain McBain—”“Yes,” said McBain, “pleasures—”“Pleasures,” continued the doctor,—“‘Are like poppies shed,You seize the flower, the bloom is fled.’“I’ll gang doon below. Bed is the best place.”“Perhaps,” said McBain, smiling, “but not the safest. Mind, the ship is in the nips, and a berg might go through her at any moment. There is the merest possibility of your being killed in your bed. That’s all; but that won’t keepyouon deck.”Mischievous Rory was doing ridiculous attitudes close behind the worthy surgeon.“What?” cried Sandy, in his broadest accent. “Thatnot keep me on deck! Man, the merest possibility of such a cawtawstrophy would keep me on deck for a month.”“A vera judeecious arrangement,” hissed Rory in his ear, for which he was chased round the deck, and had his own ears well pulled next minute. The doctor had him by the ear when Allan and Ralph appeared on the scene.“Hullo!” they laughed, “Rory got in for it again.”“Whustle,” cried Sandy.“I only said ‘a vera—’” began Rory.“Whustle, will ye?” cried the doctor.“I can’t ‘whustle,’” laughed Rory. But he had to “whustle,” and then he was free.“It’s going to be a tough squeeze,” said Silas to McBain.“Yes; and, worse luck, the swell has set in from the east,” answered the captain.“I’m off to theCanny Scotia; good morning.”“One minute, Captain Grig; we promised to hoist up Cobb’s cockle-shell. Lend us a hand with your fellows, will you?”“Ay, wi’ right good will,” said Silas.There were plenty of spars on board theArrandoonbig enough to rig shears, and these were sent overboard without delay, with ropes and everything else required.The men of theArrandoon, assisted by those of theCanny Scotia, worked with a readiness and will worthy even of our gallant Royal Engineers. A shears was soon rigged, and a winch got up. On a spar fastened along the cockle-shell’s deck the purchase was made, and, under the superintendence of brave little Ap, the work began.For a long time the “shell” refused to budge, so heavily did the ice press around her; the spar on her deck started though, several times. “Worse luck,” thought little Ap. He had the spar re-fastened. Tried again. The same result followed. Then little Ap considered, taking “mighty” big pinches of snuff the while.“We won’t do like that,” he said to himself, “because, look you see, the purchase is too much on the perpendicular. Yes, yes.”Then he had the spar elevated a couple of yards, and fastened between the masts, which he had strengthened by lashing extra spars to them. The result of this was soon apparent. The hawsers tightened, the little yacht moved, even the pressure of the ice under her helped to lift her as soon as she began to heel over, and, in half an hour afterwards, the cockle-shell lay in a very ignominious position indeed—beam-ends on the ice.“Bravo!” cried Silas, when the men had finished their cheering. “Bravo! whatwouldlong Cobb say now? what would he say? Ha! ha! ha!”Silas Grig laughed and chuckled till his face grew redder than ever, but he would not have been quite so gay, I think, had he known what was so soon to happen to his own ship.Stevenson touched McBain on the shoulder.“The ice presses heavy on the rudder, sir.”“Then unship it,” said McBain.“And I’ll unship mine,” said Silas.Unshipping rudders is a kind of drill that few save Greenland sailors ever learn, but it is very useful at times, nevertheless.In another hour the rudders of the two ships were hoisted and laid on the bergs. So that was one danger past.But others were soon to follow, for the swell under the ice increased, the bergs all around them rolled higher and higher. The noise from the pack was terrific, as the pieces met and clashed and ground their slippery sides together. In an hour or two the bay ice had been either ground to slush, or piled in packs on top of the bergs, so that the bergs had freedom to fight, as it were. Alas! for the two ships that happened to be between the combatants. Their position was, indeed, far from an enviable one. Hardly had an hour elapsed ere the ice-harbours McBain and Silas had prided themselves in, were wrecked and disintegrated. They were then, in some measure, at the mercy of the enemy, that pressed them closely on every quarter. TheCanny Scotiawas the worst off—she lay between two of the biggest bergs in the pack. McBain came to his assistance with torpedoes. He might as well have tried to blow them to pieces with a child’s pop-gun. Better, in fact, for he would have had the same sport with less trouble and expense, and the result would have been equally gratifying.For once poor Silas lost his equanimity. He actually wrung his hands in grief when he saw the terrible position of his vessel.“My poor shippie,” he said. “Heaven help us! I was building castles in the air. But she is doomed! My bonnie ship is doomed.”At the same time he wisely determined not to be idle, so provisions and valuables were got on shore, and all the men’s clothes and belongings.As nothing more could be done, Silas grew more contented. “It was just his luck,” he said, “just his luck.”Long hours of anxiety to every one went slowly past, and still the swell kept up, and the bergs lifted and fell and swung on the unseen billows, and ground viciously against the great sides of theArrandoon. Now theCanny Scotiawas somewhat Dutchified in her build—not as to bows but as to bottom. She was not a clipper by any manner of means, and her build saved her. The ice actually ground her up out of the water till she lay with her beam-ends on the ice, and her keel completely exposed.(As did theP—e, of Peterhead, once for weeks. The men lived on the ice alongside, expecting the vessel to sink as soon as the ice opened. The captain, however, would not desert his ship, but slept on board, his mattress lying on the ship’s side. The author’s ship was beset some miles off at the same time.)But theArrandoonhad no such build. The ice caught under her forefoot, and she was lifted twelve feet out of the water. No wonder McBain and our heroes were anxious. The former never went below during all the ten hours or more that the squeeze lasted. But the swells gradually lessened, and finally ceased. TheArrandoonregained her position, and lost her list, but there lay theCanny Scotia, a pitiable sight to see, like some giant overthrown, silent yet suffering.When the pumps of theArrandoonhad been tried, and it was found that there was no extra water in her, McBain felt glad indeed, and thanked God from his inmost heart for their safe deliverance from this great peril. He could now turn his attention to consoling his friend Silas. After dinner that day, said McBain,—“Your cabin is all ready, Captain Grig, for of course you will sleep with us now.”But Silas arose silently and calmly.“I needn’t say,” he replied, “how much I feel your manifold acts of kindness, but Silas Grig won’t desert his ship. His bed is on theCanny Scotia.”“But, my dear fellow,” insisted McBain, “the ice may open in an hour, and your good ship go down.”“Then,” said Silas, “I go with her, and it will be for you to tell my owners and my little wife—heaven keep her!—that Skipper Grig stuck to his ship to the last.”What could McBain say, what argument adduce, to prevent this rough old tar from risking his life in what he considered a matter of duty? Nothing! and so he was dumb.Then away went Silas home, as he called it, to his ship. He lowered himself down by a rope, clambered over the doorway of the cabin, took one glance at the chaos around, then walked tenderlyoverthe bulkhead, and so literallydownto his bed. He found the mattress and bed-clothes had fallen against the side, and so there this good man, this true sailor, laid him down and slept the sleep of the just.But theScotiadid not go to the bottom; she lay there for a whole week, defying all attempts to move her, Silas sleeping on board every night, the only soul in her, and his crew remaining on theArrandoon. At the end of that time the ice opened more; then the prostrate giant seemed to begin to show signs of returning life. She swayed slightly, and looked as if she longed once more to feel the embrace of her native element; seeing which, scientific assistance was given her. Suddenly she sprang up as does a fallen horse, and hardly had the men time to seek safety on the neighbouring bergs, when she took the water—relaunched herself—with a violence that sent the spray flying in every direction with the force of a cataract. It would have been well had the wetting the crew received been the only harm done.It was not, for the bergs moved asunder with tremendous force. One struck theArrandoonin her weakest part—amidships, under the water-line. She was stove, the timbers bent inwards and cracked, and the bunks alongside the seat of accident were dashed into matchwood. Poor old Duncan Gibb, who was lying in one of these bunks with an almost united fracture of one of his limbs, had the leg broken over again.“Never mind, Duncan,” said the surgeon, consolingly, “I didn’t make a vera pretty job of it last time. I’ll make it as straight as a dart this turn!”“Vera weel, sir; and so be it,” was poor contented Duncan’s reply, as he smiled in his agony.“Dear me, now!” said Silas, some time afterwards; “I could simply cry—make a big baby of myself and cry. It would be crying for joy and grief, you know—joy that my old shippie should show so much pluck as to right herself like a race-horse, and grief to think she should go and stave theArrandoon. The ungrateful old jade!”“Never mind,” said McBain, cheerfully, “Ap and the carpenters will soon put theArrandoonall right. We will shift the ballast, throw her over to starboard, and repair her, and the place will be, like Duncan’s leg, stronger than ever.”It did not take very long to right Captain Cobb’s cockle-shell, and all the vessels being now in position again, and the ice opening, it might have been as well to have got steam up at once, and felt the way to the open water. McBain decided to make good repairs first; it was just as easy to list the ship among the ice as out of it, and probably less dangerous. Besides, the water kept pouring in, and the beautiful arrangement of blankets and hammock-cloths which Ap had devised, hardly sufficed to keep it out.—This decision of the captain nearly cost the life of two of our best-loved heroes, and poor old Seth as well. But their adventure demands a chapter, or part of one at least, to itself.
In the very midst of joy and pleasure in this so-called weary world, we are oftentimes very nigh to grief and pain.
See yonder Swiss village by the foot of the mountain, how peacefully it is sleeping in the moonlight; not a sound is to be heard save the occasional crowing of a wakeful cock, or the voice of watch-dog baying the moon. The inhabitants have gone to bed hours and hours ago, and their dreams, if they dream at all, are assuredly not dreams of danger. But hark to that terrible noise far overhead. Is it thunder? Yes, the thunder of a mighty avalanche. Nearer and nearer it rolls, till it reaches the devoted village, then all is desolation and woe.
See yet another village, far away in sunny Africa; its little huts nestle around the banyan-tree, the tall cocoa-palm, and the wide-spreading mango. They are a quiet, inoffensive race who inhabit that village. They live south of the line, far away from treacherous Somali Indians or wild Magulla men; they never even dreamt of war or bloodshed. They certainly do not dream of it now.
“The babe lies in its mother’s arms,The wife’s head pillowed on the husband’s breast.”
“The babe lies in its mother’s arms,The wife’s head pillowed on the husband’s breast.”
Suddenly there is a shout, and when they awake—oh! horror! their huts are all in flames, the Arab slavers are on them, and—I would not harrow your young feelings by describing the scenes that follow.
But a ship—and this is coming nearer home—may be sailing over a rippling sea, with the most pleasant of breezes filling her sails, no land in sight, and every one, fore and aft, as happy as the birds on an early morning in summer, when all at once she rasps, and strikes—strikes on a rock, the very existence of which was never even suspected before. In half an hour perhaps that vessel has gone down, and those that are saved are afloat in open boats, the breeze freshening every moment, the wavetops breaking into cold spray, night coming on, and dark, threatening clouds banking up on the windward horizon.
When the first wail arose from the pack that announced the breaking up of the sea of ice, a silence of nearly a minute fell on the sailors assembled at the entertainment. Music stopped, dancing ceased, and every one listened. The sound was repeated, and multiplied, and the ship quivered and half reeled.
McBain knew the advantage of remaining calm and retaining his presence of mind in danger. Because he was a true sailor. He was not like the sailor captains you read of in penny dreadfuls—half coal-heaver, half Herzegovinian bandit.
“Odd, isn’t it?” he muttered, as he stroked his beard and smiled; then in a louder voice he gave his orders.
“Men,” he said, “we’ll have some work to do before morning—get ready. The ice is breaking up. Pipe down, boatswain. Mr Stevenson, see to the clearing away of all this hamper.”
Then, followed by Rory and the doctor, he got away out into the daylight.
The ships were all safe enough as yet, and there was only perceptible the gentlest heaving motion in the pack. Sufficient was it, however, to break up the bay ice between the bergs, and this with a series of loud reports, which could be heard in every direction. McBain looked overboard somewhat anxiously; the broken pieces of bay ice were getting ploughed up against the ship’s side with a noise that is indescribable, not so much from its extreme loudness as from its peculiarity; it was a strange mixture of a hundred different noises, a wailing, complaining, shrieking, grinding noise, mingled with a series of sharp, irregular reports.
“It is like nothing earthly,” said Rory, “that ever I heard before; and when I close my eyes for a brace of seconds, I could imagine that down on the pack there two hundred tom-cats had lain down to die, that twenty Highland bag-pipers—twenty Peters—were playing pibrochs of lament, and that just forenenst them a squad of militia-men was firing afeu-de-joie, and that neither the militia-men nor the pipers either were as self-contained as they should be on so solemn an occasion.”
The doctor was musing; he was thinking how happy he had been half an hour ago, and now—heigho; it was just possible he would never get back to Iceland again, never see his blue-eyed Danish maiden more.
“Pleasures,” he cried, “pleasures, Captain McBain—”
“Yes,” said McBain, “pleasures—”
“Pleasures,” continued the doctor,—
“‘Are like poppies shed,You seize the flower, the bloom is fled.’
“‘Are like poppies shed,You seize the flower, the bloom is fled.’
“I’ll gang doon below. Bed is the best place.”
“Perhaps,” said McBain, smiling, “but not the safest. Mind, the ship is in the nips, and a berg might go through her at any moment. There is the merest possibility of your being killed in your bed. That’s all; but that won’t keepyouon deck.”
Mischievous Rory was doing ridiculous attitudes close behind the worthy surgeon.
“What?” cried Sandy, in his broadest accent. “Thatnot keep me on deck! Man, the merest possibility of such a cawtawstrophy would keep me on deck for a month.”
“A vera judeecious arrangement,” hissed Rory in his ear, for which he was chased round the deck, and had his own ears well pulled next minute. The doctor had him by the ear when Allan and Ralph appeared on the scene.
“Hullo!” they laughed, “Rory got in for it again.”
“Whustle,” cried Sandy.
“I only said ‘a vera—’” began Rory.
“Whustle, will ye?” cried the doctor.
“I can’t ‘whustle,’” laughed Rory. But he had to “whustle,” and then he was free.
“It’s going to be a tough squeeze,” said Silas to McBain.
“Yes; and, worse luck, the swell has set in from the east,” answered the captain.
“I’m off to theCanny Scotia; good morning.”
“One minute, Captain Grig; we promised to hoist up Cobb’s cockle-shell. Lend us a hand with your fellows, will you?”
“Ay, wi’ right good will,” said Silas.
There were plenty of spars on board theArrandoonbig enough to rig shears, and these were sent overboard without delay, with ropes and everything else required.
The men of theArrandoon, assisted by those of theCanny Scotia, worked with a readiness and will worthy even of our gallant Royal Engineers. A shears was soon rigged, and a winch got up. On a spar fastened along the cockle-shell’s deck the purchase was made, and, under the superintendence of brave little Ap, the work began.
For a long time the “shell” refused to budge, so heavily did the ice press around her; the spar on her deck started though, several times. “Worse luck,” thought little Ap. He had the spar re-fastened. Tried again. The same result followed. Then little Ap considered, taking “mighty” big pinches of snuff the while.
“We won’t do like that,” he said to himself, “because, look you see, the purchase is too much on the perpendicular. Yes, yes.”
Then he had the spar elevated a couple of yards, and fastened between the masts, which he had strengthened by lashing extra spars to them. The result of this was soon apparent. The hawsers tightened, the little yacht moved, even the pressure of the ice under her helped to lift her as soon as she began to heel over, and, in half an hour afterwards, the cockle-shell lay in a very ignominious position indeed—beam-ends on the ice.
“Bravo!” cried Silas, when the men had finished their cheering. “Bravo! whatwouldlong Cobb say now? what would he say? Ha! ha! ha!”
Silas Grig laughed and chuckled till his face grew redder than ever, but he would not have been quite so gay, I think, had he known what was so soon to happen to his own ship.
Stevenson touched McBain on the shoulder.
“The ice presses heavy on the rudder, sir.”
“Then unship it,” said McBain.
“And I’ll unship mine,” said Silas.
Unshipping rudders is a kind of drill that few save Greenland sailors ever learn, but it is very useful at times, nevertheless.
In another hour the rudders of the two ships were hoisted and laid on the bergs. So that was one danger past.
But others were soon to follow, for the swell under the ice increased, the bergs all around them rolled higher and higher. The noise from the pack was terrific, as the pieces met and clashed and ground their slippery sides together. In an hour or two the bay ice had been either ground to slush, or piled in packs on top of the bergs, so that the bergs had freedom to fight, as it were. Alas! for the two ships that happened to be between the combatants. Their position was, indeed, far from an enviable one. Hardly had an hour elapsed ere the ice-harbours McBain and Silas had prided themselves in, were wrecked and disintegrated. They were then, in some measure, at the mercy of the enemy, that pressed them closely on every quarter. TheCanny Scotiawas the worst off—she lay between two of the biggest bergs in the pack. McBain came to his assistance with torpedoes. He might as well have tried to blow them to pieces with a child’s pop-gun. Better, in fact, for he would have had the same sport with less trouble and expense, and the result would have been equally gratifying.
For once poor Silas lost his equanimity. He actually wrung his hands in grief when he saw the terrible position of his vessel.
“My poor shippie,” he said. “Heaven help us! I was building castles in the air. But she is doomed! My bonnie ship is doomed.”
At the same time he wisely determined not to be idle, so provisions and valuables were got on shore, and all the men’s clothes and belongings.
As nothing more could be done, Silas grew more contented. “It was just his luck,” he said, “just his luck.”
Long hours of anxiety to every one went slowly past, and still the swell kept up, and the bergs lifted and fell and swung on the unseen billows, and ground viciously against the great sides of theArrandoon. Now theCanny Scotiawas somewhat Dutchified in her build—not as to bows but as to bottom. She was not a clipper by any manner of means, and her build saved her. The ice actually ground her up out of the water till she lay with her beam-ends on the ice, and her keel completely exposed.
(As did theP—e, of Peterhead, once for weeks. The men lived on the ice alongside, expecting the vessel to sink as soon as the ice opened. The captain, however, would not desert his ship, but slept on board, his mattress lying on the ship’s side. The author’s ship was beset some miles off at the same time.)
But theArrandoonhad no such build. The ice caught under her forefoot, and she was lifted twelve feet out of the water. No wonder McBain and our heroes were anxious. The former never went below during all the ten hours or more that the squeeze lasted. But the swells gradually lessened, and finally ceased. TheArrandoonregained her position, and lost her list, but there lay theCanny Scotia, a pitiable sight to see, like some giant overthrown, silent yet suffering.
When the pumps of theArrandoonhad been tried, and it was found that there was no extra water in her, McBain felt glad indeed, and thanked God from his inmost heart for their safe deliverance from this great peril. He could now turn his attention to consoling his friend Silas. After dinner that day, said McBain,—
“Your cabin is all ready, Captain Grig, for of course you will sleep with us now.”
But Silas arose silently and calmly.
“I needn’t say,” he replied, “how much I feel your manifold acts of kindness, but Silas Grig won’t desert his ship. His bed is on theCanny Scotia.”
“But, my dear fellow,” insisted McBain, “the ice may open in an hour, and your good ship go down.”
“Then,” said Silas, “I go with her, and it will be for you to tell my owners and my little wife—heaven keep her!—that Skipper Grig stuck to his ship to the last.”
What could McBain say, what argument adduce, to prevent this rough old tar from risking his life in what he considered a matter of duty? Nothing! and so he was dumb.
Then away went Silas home, as he called it, to his ship. He lowered himself down by a rope, clambered over the doorway of the cabin, took one glance at the chaos around, then walked tenderlyoverthe bulkhead, and so literallydownto his bed. He found the mattress and bed-clothes had fallen against the side, and so there this good man, this true sailor, laid him down and slept the sleep of the just.
But theScotiadid not go to the bottom; she lay there for a whole week, defying all attempts to move her, Silas sleeping on board every night, the only soul in her, and his crew remaining on theArrandoon. At the end of that time the ice opened more; then the prostrate giant seemed to begin to show signs of returning life. She swayed slightly, and looked as if she longed once more to feel the embrace of her native element; seeing which, scientific assistance was given her. Suddenly she sprang up as does a fallen horse, and hardly had the men time to seek safety on the neighbouring bergs, when she took the water—relaunched herself—with a violence that sent the spray flying in every direction with the force of a cataract. It would have been well had the wetting the crew received been the only harm done.
It was not, for the bergs moved asunder with tremendous force. One struck theArrandoonin her weakest part—amidships, under the water-line. She was stove, the timbers bent inwards and cracked, and the bunks alongside the seat of accident were dashed into matchwood. Poor old Duncan Gibb, who was lying in one of these bunks with an almost united fracture of one of his limbs, had the leg broken over again.
“Never mind, Duncan,” said the surgeon, consolingly, “I didn’t make a vera pretty job of it last time. I’ll make it as straight as a dart this turn!”
“Vera weel, sir; and so be it,” was poor contented Duncan’s reply, as he smiled in his agony.
“Dear me, now!” said Silas, some time afterwards; “I could simply cry—make a big baby of myself and cry. It would be crying for joy and grief, you know—joy that my old shippie should show so much pluck as to right herself like a race-horse, and grief to think she should go and stave theArrandoon. The ungrateful old jade!”
“Never mind,” said McBain, cheerfully, “Ap and the carpenters will soon put theArrandoonall right. We will shift the ballast, throw her over to starboard, and repair her, and the place will be, like Duncan’s leg, stronger than ever.”
It did not take very long to right Captain Cobb’s cockle-shell, and all the vessels being now in position again, and the ice opening, it might have been as well to have got steam up at once, and felt the way to the open water. McBain decided to make good repairs first; it was just as easy to list the ship among the ice as out of it, and probably less dangerous. Besides, the water kept pouring in, and the beautiful arrangement of blankets and hammock-cloths which Ap had devised, hardly sufficed to keep it out.—This decision of the captain nearly cost the life of two of our best-loved heroes, and poor old Seth as well. But their adventure demands a chapter, or part of one at least, to itself.
Chapter Twenty Six.An Adventure on the Pack—Separated from the Ship—Despair—The Dream of Home—Under Way Once More.Nothing in the shape of adventure came amiss to Rory. He was always ready for any kind of “fun,” as he called every kind of excitement. Such a thing as fear I do not believe Rory ever felt, and, as for failing in anything he undertook, he never even dreamt of such a thing. He had often proposed escapades and wild adventures to his companions at which they hung fire. Rory’s line of argument was very simple and unsophisticated. It may be summed up in three sentences—first, “Sure we’ve only to try and we’re bound to do it.” If that did not convince Allan or Ralph, he brought up his first-class reserve, “Let us try,anyhow;” and if that failed, his second reserve, “It’sboundto come right in the end.” Had Rory been seized by a lion or tiger, and borne away to the bush, those very words would have risen to his lips to bring him solace, “It’s bound to come right in the end.”The few days’ delay that succeeded the accident to theArrandoon, while she had to be listed over, and things were made as uncomfortable as they always are when a ship is lying on an uneven keel, threw Rory back upon his books for enjoyment. That and writing verses, and, fiddle in hand composing music to his own words, enabled him to pass the day with some degree of comfort; but when Mr Stevenson one morning, on giving his usual report at breakfast-time, happened to say,—“Ice rather more open to-day, sir; a slight breeze from the west, and about a foot of rise and fall among the bergs; two or three bears about a mile to leeward, and a few seals,” then Rory jumped up.“Will you go, Allan,” he cried, “and bag a bear? Ralph hasn’t done breakfast.”“Bide a wee, young gentleman,” said McBain, smiling. “I really imagined I was master of the ship.”“I beg your pardon, Captain McBain,” said Rory, at once; and with all becoming gravity he saluted, and continued, “Please, sir, may I go on shore?”“Certainly not,” was the reply; and the captain added, “No, boy, no. We value even Rory, for all the trouble he gives us, more than many bears.”Rory got hold of his fiddle, and his feelings found vent in music. But no sooner had McBain retired to his cabin than Rory threw down his much beloved instrument and jumped up.“Bide a wee; I’ll manage,” he cried.“Doctor,” he added, disarranging all the medico’s hair with his hand—Sandy’s legs were under the mahogany, so he could not speedily retaliate—“Sandy, mon, I’ll manage. It’ll be a vera judeecious arrangement.”Then he was off, and presently back, all smiles and rejoicing:“Come on, Allan, dear boy,” he cried. “We’re going, both of us, and Seth and one man, and we’re going to carry a plank to help us across the ice. Finish your breakfast, baby Ralph. I wouldn’t disturb myself for the world if I were you.”“I don’t mean to,” said Ralph, helping himself to more toast and marmalade.“What are you grinning at now?” asked Rory of the surgeon.“To think,” said Sandy, laughing outright, “that our poor little boy Rory couldn’t be trusted on the ice without Seth and a plank. Ha, ha, ha! my conscience!”“Doctor,” said Rory.“Well?” said the doctor.“Whustle,” cried Rory, making a face.“I’ll whustle ye,” said Sandy, springing up. But Rory was off.On the wiry shoulders of Seth the plank was borne as easily as if it had been only an oar; the man carried the rope and sealing clubs. The plank did them good service, for whenever the space between two bergs was too wide for a safe leap it was laid down, and over they went. They thus made good progress.There was a little motion among the ice, but nothing to signify. The pieces approached each other gradually until within a certain distance. Then was the time to leap, and at once, too, without fear and hesitation. If you did hesitate, and made up your mind to leap a moment after, you might fail to reach the next berg, and this meant a ducking at the very least. But a ducking of this kind is no joke, as the writer of these lines knows from experience. You strip off your clothes to wring out the superabundance of water, and by the time you put them on again, your upper garments, at all events, are frozen harder than parchment. You have to construe the verbsalto(Salto—I leap, or jump) from beginning to end before you feel on good terms with yourself again. But falling into the sea between two bergs may not end with a mere ducking. A man may be sucked by the current under the ice, or he may instantly fall a prey to that great greedy monster, the Greenland shark. Well the brute loves to devour a half-dead seal, but a man is caviare to his maw. Again, if you are not speedily rescued, the bergs may come slowly together and grind you to pulp. But our heroes escaped scot-free. So did the bears which they had come to shoot.“It is provoking!” said Rory. “Let us follow them a mile or so, at all events.”They did, and came in sight of one—an immensely great brute of a Bruin—who, after stopping about a minute to study them, set off again shambling over the bergs. Then he paused, and then started off once more; and this he did many times, but he never permitted them to get within shot.All this time the signal of recall was floating at the masthead of theArrandoon, but they never saw it. They began to notice at last, though, that the bergs were wider apart, so they wisely determined to give up the chase and return.Return? Yes, it is only a little word—hardly a simpler one to be found in the whole English vocabulary, whether to speak or to spell; and yet it is a word that has baffled thousands. It is a word that we should never forget when entering upon any undertaking in which there is danger to either ourselves or others. It is a word great generals keep well in view; probably it was just that word “return” which prevented the great Napoleon from landing half a million of men on our shores with the view of conquering the country. The man of ambition was afraid he might find a difficulty in getting his Frenchmen back, and that Englishmen would not be over kind to them.Rory and his party could see the flag of recall now, and they could see also the broad black fan being waved from the crow’s-nest to expedite their movements. So they made all the haste in their power. There was no leaping now, the plank had to be laid across the chasms constantly. But at last they succeeded in getting just half-way to the ship, when, to their horror, they discovered that all further advance was a sheer impossibility! A lane of open water effectually barred their progress. It was already a hundred yards wide at least, and it was broadening every minute. South and by west, as far as eye could reach, stretched this canal, and north-west as well. They were drifting away on a loose portion of the pack, leaving their ship behind them.Their feelings were certainly not to be envied. They knew the whole extent of their danger, and dared not depreciate it. It was coming on to blow; already the face of that black lane of water was covered with angry little ripples. If the wind increased to a gale, the chances of regaining their vessel were small indeed; more likely they would be blown out to sea, as men have often been under similar circumstances, and so perish miserably on the berg on which they stood. To be sure, they were to leeward, and theArrandoonwas a steamer; there was some consolation in that, but it was damped, on the other hand, by the recollection that, though a steamer, she was a partially disabled one. It would take hours before she could readjust her ballast and temporarily make good her leak, and hours longer ere she could force and forge her way to the lane of water, through the mile of heavy bergs that intervened. Meanwhile, what might not happen?Both Rory and Allan were by this time good ice-men, and had there been but a piece of ice big enough to bear their weight, and nothing more, they could have embarked thereon and ferried themselves across, using as paddles the butt-ends of their rifles. But there was nothing of the sort; the bay ice had all been ground up; there was nothing save the great green-sided, snow-topped bergs. And so they could only wait and hope for the best.“It’ll all come right in the end,” said Rory.He said this many times; but as the weary hours went by, and the lane widened and widened, till, from being a lane, it looked a Jake, the little sentence that had always brought him comfort before seemed trite to even Rory himself.The increasing motion of the berg on which they stood did not serve to reassure them, and the cold they had, from their forced inactivity, to endure, would have damped the boldest spirits. For a time they managed to keep warm by walking or running about the berg, but afterwards movement itself became painful, so that they had but little heart to take exercise.The whole hull of theArrandoonwas hidden from their view behind the hummocky ice, and thus they could not tell what was going on on deck, but they could see no smoke arising from the funnel, and this but served further to dishearten them.Even gazing at those lanes of water that so often open up in the very midst of a field of ice, is apt to stir up strange thoughts in one’s mind, especially if one be, like Rory, of a somewhat poetical and romantic disposition. The very blackness of the water impresses you; its depth causes a feeling akin to awe; you know, as if by instinct, that it is deep—terribly, eeriesomely deep. It lies smiling in the sunshine as to surface, but all is the blackness of darkness below. Up here it is all day; down there, all night. The surface of the water seems to divide two worlds—a seen and an unseen, a known and an unknown and mysterious—life and death!Tired at last of roaming like caged bears up and down the berg, one by one they seated themselves on the sunny side of a small hummock. They huddled together for warmth, but they did not care to talk much. Their very souls seemed heavy, their bodies seemed numbed and frozen, but their heads were hot, and they felt very drowsy, yet bit their lips and tongues lest they might fall into that strange slumber from which it is said men wake no more.They talked not at all. The last words were spoken by Seth. Rory remembered them.“I’m old,” he was muttering; “my time’s a kind o’ up; but it do seem hard on these younkers. Guess I’d give the best puma’s skin ever I killed, just to see Rory safe. Guess I’d—”Rory’s eyes were closed, he heard no more. He was dreaming. Dreaming of what? you ask me. I answer, in the words of Lover,—“Ask of the sailor youth, when farHis light barque bounds o’er ocean’s foamWhat charms him most when evening starSmiles o’er the wave? To dream of home.”Yes, Rory was dreaming of home. All the home he knew, poor lad! He was in the Castle ofArrandoon. Seeing, but all unseen, he stood in the cosy tartan parlour where he had spent so many happy hours. A bright fire was burning in the grate, the curtains were drawn, in her easy-chair sat Allan’s mother with her work on her lap, the great deerhound lay on the hearthrug asleep, and Helen Edith was bending over her harp. How boy Rory longed to rush forward and take her by the hand! But even in his partial sleep he knew this was but a dream, and he feared to move lest he might break the sweet spell. But languor, pain, and cold, all were forgotten while the vision lasted.But list! a horn seems to sound beyond the castle moat. Rory, in his dream, wonders that Helen hears it not; then the boy starts to his feet on the snow. The vision has fled, and the sound of the horn resolves itself into the shout,—“Ahoy—oy—hoy! Ahoy! hoy!”Every one is on his feet at the same time, though both Allan and Rory stagger and fall again. But, behold! a boat comes dancing down the lane of water towards them, and a minute after they are all safe on board.The labour of getting that boat over the ice had been tremendous. It had been a labour of love, however, and the men had worked cheerily and boldly, and never flinched a moment, until it was safely launched in the open water and our heroes were in it.TheArrandoon, the men told them, had got up steam, and in a couple of hours at most she would reach the water. Meanwhile they, by the captain’s orders, were to land on the other side, and make themselves as comfortable as possible until her arrival.Rory and Allan were quite themselves again now, and so, too, was honest Seth,—“Though, blame me,” said he, “if I didn’t think this old trapper’s time had come. Not that that’d matter a sight, but I did feel for you youngsters, blame me if I didn’t;” and he dashed his coat-sleeve rapidly across his face as he spoke.And now a fire was built and coffee made, and Stevenson then opened the Norwegian chest—a wonderful contrivance, in which a dinner may be kept hot for four-and-twenty hours, and even partially cooked. Up arose the savoury steam of a glorious Irish stew.“How mindful of the captain?” said Allan.“It was Ralph that sent the dinner,” said Stevenson, “and he sent with it his compliments to Rory.”“Bless his old heart,” cried Rory. “I don’t think I’ll ever chaff him again about the gourmandising propensities of the Saxon race.”“And the doctor,” continued the mate, “sent you some blankets, Mr Rory. There they are, sir; and he told me to give you this note, if I found you alive.”The note was in the Scottish dialect, and ran as follows:—“My conscience, Rory! some folks pay dear for their whustle. But keep up your heart, ma wee laddie. It’s a vera judeecious arrangement.”In a few days more theArrandoonhad made good her repairs, and as the western wind had freshened, and was blowing what would have been a ten-knot breeze in the open sea, the steamer got up steam and the sailing-ship canvas, and together they took the loose ice, and made their way slowly to the eastward. The bergs, though some distance asunder, were still sufficiently near to considerably impede their way, and, for fear of accident, theArrandoontook the cockle-shell, as she was always called now, in tow.For many days the ships went steadily eastward, which proved to them how extensive the pack had been. Sometimes they came upon large tracts of open water, many miles in extent, and across this they sailed merrily and speedily enough, considering that neither of the vessels had as yet shipped her rudder. This they had determined not to do until they were well clear of the very heavy ice, or until the swell went down. So they were steered entirely by boats pulling ahead of them.Open water at last, and the cockle-shell bids the big ships adieu, spreads her white sails to the breeze, and, swanlike, goes sailing away for the distant isle of Jan Mayen. Ay, and the big ships themselves must now very soon part company, theScotiato bear up for the green shores of our native land, theArrandoonfor regions as yet unknown.
Nothing in the shape of adventure came amiss to Rory. He was always ready for any kind of “fun,” as he called every kind of excitement. Such a thing as fear I do not believe Rory ever felt, and, as for failing in anything he undertook, he never even dreamt of such a thing. He had often proposed escapades and wild adventures to his companions at which they hung fire. Rory’s line of argument was very simple and unsophisticated. It may be summed up in three sentences—first, “Sure we’ve only to try and we’re bound to do it.” If that did not convince Allan or Ralph, he brought up his first-class reserve, “Let us try,anyhow;” and if that failed, his second reserve, “It’sboundto come right in the end.” Had Rory been seized by a lion or tiger, and borne away to the bush, those very words would have risen to his lips to bring him solace, “It’s bound to come right in the end.”
The few days’ delay that succeeded the accident to theArrandoon, while she had to be listed over, and things were made as uncomfortable as they always are when a ship is lying on an uneven keel, threw Rory back upon his books for enjoyment. That and writing verses, and, fiddle in hand composing music to his own words, enabled him to pass the day with some degree of comfort; but when Mr Stevenson one morning, on giving his usual report at breakfast-time, happened to say,—
“Ice rather more open to-day, sir; a slight breeze from the west, and about a foot of rise and fall among the bergs; two or three bears about a mile to leeward, and a few seals,” then Rory jumped up.
“Will you go, Allan,” he cried, “and bag a bear? Ralph hasn’t done breakfast.”
“Bide a wee, young gentleman,” said McBain, smiling. “I really imagined I was master of the ship.”
“I beg your pardon, Captain McBain,” said Rory, at once; and with all becoming gravity he saluted, and continued, “Please, sir, may I go on shore?”
“Certainly not,” was the reply; and the captain added, “No, boy, no. We value even Rory, for all the trouble he gives us, more than many bears.”
Rory got hold of his fiddle, and his feelings found vent in music. But no sooner had McBain retired to his cabin than Rory threw down his much beloved instrument and jumped up.
“Bide a wee; I’ll manage,” he cried.
“Doctor,” he added, disarranging all the medico’s hair with his hand—Sandy’s legs were under the mahogany, so he could not speedily retaliate—“Sandy, mon, I’ll manage. It’ll be a vera judeecious arrangement.”
Then he was off, and presently back, all smiles and rejoicing:
“Come on, Allan, dear boy,” he cried. “We’re going, both of us, and Seth and one man, and we’re going to carry a plank to help us across the ice. Finish your breakfast, baby Ralph. I wouldn’t disturb myself for the world if I were you.”
“I don’t mean to,” said Ralph, helping himself to more toast and marmalade.
“What are you grinning at now?” asked Rory of the surgeon.
“To think,” said Sandy, laughing outright, “that our poor little boy Rory couldn’t be trusted on the ice without Seth and a plank. Ha, ha, ha! my conscience!”
“Doctor,” said Rory.
“Well?” said the doctor.
“Whustle,” cried Rory, making a face.
“I’ll whustle ye,” said Sandy, springing up. But Rory was off.
On the wiry shoulders of Seth the plank was borne as easily as if it had been only an oar; the man carried the rope and sealing clubs. The plank did them good service, for whenever the space between two bergs was too wide for a safe leap it was laid down, and over they went. They thus made good progress.
There was a little motion among the ice, but nothing to signify. The pieces approached each other gradually until within a certain distance. Then was the time to leap, and at once, too, without fear and hesitation. If you did hesitate, and made up your mind to leap a moment after, you might fail to reach the next berg, and this meant a ducking at the very least. But a ducking of this kind is no joke, as the writer of these lines knows from experience. You strip off your clothes to wring out the superabundance of water, and by the time you put them on again, your upper garments, at all events, are frozen harder than parchment. You have to construe the verbsalto(Salto—I leap, or jump) from beginning to end before you feel on good terms with yourself again. But falling into the sea between two bergs may not end with a mere ducking. A man may be sucked by the current under the ice, or he may instantly fall a prey to that great greedy monster, the Greenland shark. Well the brute loves to devour a half-dead seal, but a man is caviare to his maw. Again, if you are not speedily rescued, the bergs may come slowly together and grind you to pulp. But our heroes escaped scot-free. So did the bears which they had come to shoot.
“It is provoking!” said Rory. “Let us follow them a mile or so, at all events.”
They did, and came in sight of one—an immensely great brute of a Bruin—who, after stopping about a minute to study them, set off again shambling over the bergs. Then he paused, and then started off once more; and this he did many times, but he never permitted them to get within shot.
All this time the signal of recall was floating at the masthead of theArrandoon, but they never saw it. They began to notice at last, though, that the bergs were wider apart, so they wisely determined to give up the chase and return.
Return? Yes, it is only a little word—hardly a simpler one to be found in the whole English vocabulary, whether to speak or to spell; and yet it is a word that has baffled thousands. It is a word that we should never forget when entering upon any undertaking in which there is danger to either ourselves or others. It is a word great generals keep well in view; probably it was just that word “return” which prevented the great Napoleon from landing half a million of men on our shores with the view of conquering the country. The man of ambition was afraid he might find a difficulty in getting his Frenchmen back, and that Englishmen would not be over kind to them.
Rory and his party could see the flag of recall now, and they could see also the broad black fan being waved from the crow’s-nest to expedite their movements. So they made all the haste in their power. There was no leaping now, the plank had to be laid across the chasms constantly. But at last they succeeded in getting just half-way to the ship, when, to their horror, they discovered that all further advance was a sheer impossibility! A lane of open water effectually barred their progress. It was already a hundred yards wide at least, and it was broadening every minute. South and by west, as far as eye could reach, stretched this canal, and north-west as well. They were drifting away on a loose portion of the pack, leaving their ship behind them.
Their feelings were certainly not to be envied. They knew the whole extent of their danger, and dared not depreciate it. It was coming on to blow; already the face of that black lane of water was covered with angry little ripples. If the wind increased to a gale, the chances of regaining their vessel were small indeed; more likely they would be blown out to sea, as men have often been under similar circumstances, and so perish miserably on the berg on which they stood. To be sure, they were to leeward, and theArrandoonwas a steamer; there was some consolation in that, but it was damped, on the other hand, by the recollection that, though a steamer, she was a partially disabled one. It would take hours before she could readjust her ballast and temporarily make good her leak, and hours longer ere she could force and forge her way to the lane of water, through the mile of heavy bergs that intervened. Meanwhile, what might not happen?
Both Rory and Allan were by this time good ice-men, and had there been but a piece of ice big enough to bear their weight, and nothing more, they could have embarked thereon and ferried themselves across, using as paddles the butt-ends of their rifles. But there was nothing of the sort; the bay ice had all been ground up; there was nothing save the great green-sided, snow-topped bergs. And so they could only wait and hope for the best.
“It’ll all come right in the end,” said Rory.
He said this many times; but as the weary hours went by, and the lane widened and widened, till, from being a lane, it looked a Jake, the little sentence that had always brought him comfort before seemed trite to even Rory himself.
The increasing motion of the berg on which they stood did not serve to reassure them, and the cold they had, from their forced inactivity, to endure, would have damped the boldest spirits. For a time they managed to keep warm by walking or running about the berg, but afterwards movement itself became painful, so that they had but little heart to take exercise.
The whole hull of theArrandoonwas hidden from their view behind the hummocky ice, and thus they could not tell what was going on on deck, but they could see no smoke arising from the funnel, and this but served further to dishearten them.
Even gazing at those lanes of water that so often open up in the very midst of a field of ice, is apt to stir up strange thoughts in one’s mind, especially if one be, like Rory, of a somewhat poetical and romantic disposition. The very blackness of the water impresses you; its depth causes a feeling akin to awe; you know, as if by instinct, that it is deep—terribly, eeriesomely deep. It lies smiling in the sunshine as to surface, but all is the blackness of darkness below. Up here it is all day; down there, all night. The surface of the water seems to divide two worlds—a seen and an unseen, a known and an unknown and mysterious—life and death!
Tired at last of roaming like caged bears up and down the berg, one by one they seated themselves on the sunny side of a small hummock. They huddled together for warmth, but they did not care to talk much. Their very souls seemed heavy, their bodies seemed numbed and frozen, but their heads were hot, and they felt very drowsy, yet bit their lips and tongues lest they might fall into that strange slumber from which it is said men wake no more.
They talked not at all. The last words were spoken by Seth. Rory remembered them.
“I’m old,” he was muttering; “my time’s a kind o’ up; but it do seem hard on these younkers. Guess I’d give the best puma’s skin ever I killed, just to see Rory safe. Guess I’d—”
Rory’s eyes were closed, he heard no more. He was dreaming. Dreaming of what? you ask me. I answer, in the words of Lover,—
“Ask of the sailor youth, when farHis light barque bounds o’er ocean’s foamWhat charms him most when evening starSmiles o’er the wave? To dream of home.”
“Ask of the sailor youth, when farHis light barque bounds o’er ocean’s foamWhat charms him most when evening starSmiles o’er the wave? To dream of home.”
Yes, Rory was dreaming of home. All the home he knew, poor lad! He was in the Castle ofArrandoon. Seeing, but all unseen, he stood in the cosy tartan parlour where he had spent so many happy hours. A bright fire was burning in the grate, the curtains were drawn, in her easy-chair sat Allan’s mother with her work on her lap, the great deerhound lay on the hearthrug asleep, and Helen Edith was bending over her harp. How boy Rory longed to rush forward and take her by the hand! But even in his partial sleep he knew this was but a dream, and he feared to move lest he might break the sweet spell. But languor, pain, and cold, all were forgotten while the vision lasted.
But list! a horn seems to sound beyond the castle moat. Rory, in his dream, wonders that Helen hears it not; then the boy starts to his feet on the snow. The vision has fled, and the sound of the horn resolves itself into the shout,—
“Ahoy—oy—hoy! Ahoy! hoy!”
Every one is on his feet at the same time, though both Allan and Rory stagger and fall again. But, behold! a boat comes dancing down the lane of water towards them, and a minute after they are all safe on board.
The labour of getting that boat over the ice had been tremendous. It had been a labour of love, however, and the men had worked cheerily and boldly, and never flinched a moment, until it was safely launched in the open water and our heroes were in it.
TheArrandoon, the men told them, had got up steam, and in a couple of hours at most she would reach the water. Meanwhile they, by the captain’s orders, were to land on the other side, and make themselves as comfortable as possible until her arrival.
Rory and Allan were quite themselves again now, and so, too, was honest Seth,—
“Though, blame me,” said he, “if I didn’t think this old trapper’s time had come. Not that that’d matter a sight, but I did feel for you youngsters, blame me if I didn’t;” and he dashed his coat-sleeve rapidly across his face as he spoke.
And now a fire was built and coffee made, and Stevenson then opened the Norwegian chest—a wonderful contrivance, in which a dinner may be kept hot for four-and-twenty hours, and even partially cooked. Up arose the savoury steam of a glorious Irish stew.
“How mindful of the captain?” said Allan.
“It was Ralph that sent the dinner,” said Stevenson, “and he sent with it his compliments to Rory.”
“Bless his old heart,” cried Rory. “I don’t think I’ll ever chaff him again about the gourmandising propensities of the Saxon race.”
“And the doctor,” continued the mate, “sent you some blankets, Mr Rory. There they are, sir; and he told me to give you this note, if I found you alive.”
The note was in the Scottish dialect, and ran as follows:—
“My conscience, Rory! some folks pay dear for their whustle. But keep up your heart, ma wee laddie. It’s a vera judeecious arrangement.”
In a few days more theArrandoonhad made good her repairs, and as the western wind had freshened, and was blowing what would have been a ten-knot breeze in the open sea, the steamer got up steam and the sailing-ship canvas, and together they took the loose ice, and made their way slowly to the eastward. The bergs, though some distance asunder, were still sufficiently near to considerably impede their way, and, for fear of accident, theArrandoontook the cockle-shell, as she was always called now, in tow.
For many days the ships went steadily eastward, which proved to them how extensive the pack had been. Sometimes they came upon large tracts of open water, many miles in extent, and across this they sailed merrily and speedily enough, considering that neither of the vessels had as yet shipped her rudder. This they had determined not to do until they were well clear of the very heavy ice, or until the swell went down. So they were steered entirely by boats pulling ahead of them.
Open water at last, and the cockle-shell bids the big ships adieu, spreads her white sails to the breeze, and, swanlike, goes sailing away for the distant isle of Jan Mayen. Ay, and the big ships themselves must now very soon part company, theScotiato bear up for the green shores of our native land, theArrandoonfor regions as yet unknown.
Chapter Twenty Seven.Working along the Pack Edge—Among the Seals again—A Bumper Ship—Adventures on the Ice—Ted Wilson’s Promotion.TheArrandoonwas steaming slowly along the pack edge, wind still westerly, theCanny Scotia, with all canvas exposed, a mile or more to leeward of her. Both were heading in the same direction, north and by east, for McBain and our heroes had determined not to desert Silas until he really had what he called a voyage—in other words, a full ship.“We can spare the time, you know,” the captain had said to Ralph; “a fortnight, will do it, and I dare say Rory here doesn’t object to a little more sport before going away to the far north.”“That I don’t,” Rory had replied.“If we fall among the old seals, a fortnight will do it.”“Ay,” Allan had said, “and won’t old Silas be happy!”“Yes,” from McBain; “and, after all, to be able to give happiness to others is certainly one of the greatest pleasures in this world.”Dear reader, just a word parenthetically. I am so sure that what McBain said is true, that I earnestly advise you to try the experiment suggested by his words, for great is the reward, even in this world, of those who can conquer self and endeavour to bring joy to others.TheArrandoonsteamed along the pack edge, but it must not be supposed that this was a straight line, or anything like it. Indeed it was very much like any ordinary coastline, for here was a bay and yonder a cape, and yonder again, where the ice is heavier, a bold promontory. But Greenlandmen call a bay a “bight,” and a cape they call a “point-end.” Let us adopt their nomenclature.TheCanny Scotia, then, avoided these point-ends; she kept well out to sea, well away from the pack, for there was not over-much wind, and Silas Grig had no wish to be beset again. But theArrandoon, on the other hand, steamed, as I have said, in a straight line. She scorned to double a point, but went steadily on her course, ploughing her way through the bergs. There was one advantage in this: she could the more easily discover the seals, for in the month of May these animals, having done their duty by their young, commence their return journey to the north, the polar regions being their homepar excellence. They are in no hurry getting back, however. They like to enjoy themselves, and usually for every one day’s progress they make, they lie two or three on the ice. The capes, or point-ends, are favourite positions with them, and on the bergs they may be seen lying in scores, nor if the sun be shining with any degree of strength are they at all easily disturbed. It is their summer, and they try to make the best of it. Hark now to that shout from the crow’s-nest of theArrandoon.“A large patch of seals in sight, sir.”Our heroes pause in their walk, and gaze upwards; from the deck nothing is visible to windward save the great ice-pack.“Where away?” cries Stevenson.“On the weather bow, sir, and a good mile in through the pack.”“What do you think, sir?” says Stevenson, addressing his commander. “Shall we risk taking the ice again?”“Risk, Stevenson?” is the reply. “Why, man, yes; we’ll risk anything to do old Silas a good turn. We’ll risk more yet, mate, before the ship’s head is turned homewards.”Then the ship is stopped, and signals are made to Silas, who instantly changes his course, and, after a vast deal of tacking and half-tacking, bears down upon them, and being nearly alongside, gets his main-yard aback, and presently lowers a boat and comes on board theArrandoon.Our heroes crowd around him.“Why,” they say, “you are a perfect stranger; it is a whole week since we’ve seen you.”“Ay,” says Silas, “and a whole week without seeing a seal—isn’t it astonishing?”“Ah! but they’re in sight now,” says McBain. “I’m going to take the ice, and I’ll tow you in, and if you’re not a bumper ship before a week, then this isn’t theArrandoon, that’s all.”Silas is all smiles; he rubs his hands, and finally laughs outright, then he claps his hand on his leg, and,—“I was sure of it,” says Silas, “soon as ever I saw your signal. ‘Matie,’ says I, ‘yonder is a signal from theArrandoon. I’m wanted on board; seals is in sight, ye maybe sure. Matie,’ says I, ‘luck’s turned again;’ and with that I gives him such a dig in the ribs that he nearly jumped out of the nest.”“Make the signal to theScotia, Stevenson,” says McBain, “to clew up, and to get all ready for being taken in tow. Come below, Captain Grig, lunch is on the table.”Fairly seated at the table, honest Silas rubbed his hands again and looked with a delighted smile at each of his friends in turn. There was a bluff heartiness about this old sailor which was very taking.“I declare,” he said, “I feel just like a schoolboy home for a holiday?”Rory and Silas were specially friendly.“Rory, lad,” he remarked, after a pause, “we won’t be long together now.”“No,” replied Rory; “and it isn’t sorry I am, but really downrightsadat the thoughts of your going away and leaving us. I say, though—happy thought!—send Stevenson home with your ship and you stay with us in place of him.”Silas laughed. “Whatwouldmy owners say, boy? and what about my little wife, eh?”“Ah! true,” said Rory; “I had forgotten.” Then, after a pause, he added, more heartily, “But we’ll meet again, won’t we?”“Please God!” said Silas, reverently. “I think,” Rory added, “I would know your house among a thousand, you have told me so much about it—the blue-grey walls, the bay windows, the garden, with its roses and—and—”“The green paling,” Silas put in. “Ah, yes! the green paling, to be sure; how could I have forgotten that? Well, I’ll come and see you; and won’t you bring out the green ginger that day, Silas!”“Andthe bun,” added Silas. “Andthe bun,” repeated Rory after him. “And won’t my little wife make you welcome, too! you may bet your fiddle on that!”Then these two sworn friends grasped hands over the table, and the conversation dropped for a time.But there perhaps never was a much happier Greenland skipper than Silas Grig, when he found his ship lying secure among the ice, with thousands on thousands of old seals all around him. The weather continued extremely fine for a whole week. The little wind there had been, died all away, and the sun shone more warmly and brightly than it had done since theArrandooncame to the country. The seals were so cosy that they really did not seem to mind being shot, and those that were scared off one piece of ice almost immediately scrambled on to another. “Fire away!” they seemed to say; “we are so numerous that we really won’t miss a few of us. Only don’t disturb us more than you can help.”So the seals hugged the ice, basking in the bright sunshine, either sleeping soundly or gazing dreamily around them with their splendid eyes, or scratching their woolly ribs with their flippers for want of something to do.And bang, bang, bang! went the rifles; they never seemed to cease from the noon of night until mid-day, nor from mid-day until the noon of night again.The draggers of skins went in pairs for safety, and thus many a poor fellow who tumbled into the sea between the bergs, escaped with a ducking when otherwise he would have lost his life.Ralph—long-legged, brawny-chested Saxon Ralph—was among “the ducked,” as Rory called the unfortunates. He came to a space of water which was too wide even for him. He would not be beaten, though, so he pitched his rifle over first by way of beginning the battle. Then he thought, by swinging his heavy cartridge-bag by its shoulder-strap the weight would help to carry him over. He called this jumping from a tangent. It was a miserable failure. But the best of the fun—so Rory said, though it could not have been fun to Ralph—was this: when he found himself floundering in the water he let go the bag of cartridges, which at once began to sink, but in sinking caught his heel, and pulled him for the moment under water. Poor Ralph! his feelings may be better imagined than described.“I made sure a shark had me!” he said, quietly, when by the help of his friend Rory, he had been brought safely to bank.It was not very often that Ralph had a mishap of any kind, but, having come to grief in this way, it was not likely that Rory would throw away so good a chance of chaffing him.He suddenly burst out laughing at luncheon that day, at a time when nobody was speaking, and when apparently there was nothing at all to laugh about.“What now, Rory? what now, boy?” said McBain, with a smile of anticipation.“Oh!” cried Rory, “if you had only seen my big English brother’s face when he thought the shark had him!”“Was it funny?” said Allan, egging him on.“Funny!” said Rory. “Och I now, funny is no name for it. You should have seen the eyes of him!—and his jaw fall!—and that big chin of his. You know, Englishmen have a lot of chin, and—”“And Irishmen have a lot of cheek,” cried Ralph. “Just wait till I get you on deck, Row boy.”“I’d make him whustle,” suggested the doctor.“Troth,” Rory went on, “it was very nearly the death o’ me. And to see him kick and flounder! Sure I’d pity the shark that got one between the eyes from your foot, baby Ralph.”“Well,” said Ralph, “it was nearly the death of me, anyhow, having to take off all my clothes and wring them on top of the snow.”“Oh! but,” continued Rory, assuming seriousness, and addressing McBain, “you ought to have seen Ralph just then, sir. That was the time to see my baby brother to advantage. Neptune is nobody to him. Troth, Ray, if you’d lived in the good old times, it’s a gladiator they’d have made of you entirely.”Here came a low derisive laugh from Cockie’s cage, and Ralph pitched a crust of bread at the bird, and shook his fingers at Rory.But Rory kept out of Ralph’s way for a whole hour after this, and by that time the storm had blown clean away, so Rory was safe.Allan had his turn next day. The danger in walking on the ice was chiefly owing to the fact that the edges of many of the bergs had been undermined by the waves and the recent swell, so that they were apt to break off and precipitate the unwary pedestrian into the water.Here is Allan’s little adventure, and it makes one shudder to think how nearly it led him to being an actor in a terrible tragedy. He was trudging on after the seals with rifle at full cock, for he expected a shot almost immediately, when, as he was about to leap, the snowy edge of the berg gave way, and down he went. Instinctively he held his rifle out to his friend, who grasped it with both hands, the muzzle against his breast, and thus pulled him out. It seemed marvellous that the rifle did not go off.(Both these adventures are sketched from the life.)When safe to bank, and when he noticed the manner in which he had been helped out, poor Allan felt sick, there is no other name for it.“Oh, Ralph, Ralph!” he said, clutching his friend by the shoulder to keep himself from falling, “what if I had killed you?”When told of the incident that evening after dinner, McBain, after a momentary silence, said quietly,—“I’m not sorry such a thing should have happened, boys; it ought to teach you caution; and it teaches us all that there is Some One in whose hands we are; Some One to look after us even in moments of extremest peril.”But I think Allan loved Ralph even better after this.Two weeks’ constant sealing; two weeks during which the crews of theArrandoonandCanny Scotianever sat down to a regular meal, and never lay down for two consecutive hours of repose, only eating when hungry and sleeping when they could no longer keep moving; two weeks during which nobody knew what o’clock it was at any particular time, or which was east or west, or whether it were day or night. Two weeks, then the seals on the ice disappeared as if by magic, for the frost was coming.“Let them go,” said Silas, shaking McBain warmly by the hand. “Thanks to you, sir, I’m a bumper ship. Why, man, I’m full to the hatches. Low freeboard and all that sort of thing. Plimsoll wouldn’t pass us out of any British harbour. But, with fair weather and God’s help, sir, we’ll get safely home.”“And now,” McBain replied, “there isn’t a moment to lose. We must get out of here, Captain Grig, or the frost will serve us a trick as it did before.”With some difficulty the ships were got about and headed once more for the open sea.None too soon, though, for there came again that strange, ethereal blue into the sky, which, from their experiences of the last black frost, they had learned to dread. The thermometer sank, and sank, and sank, till far down below zero.TheArrandoontook her “chummy ship” in tow.“Go ahead at full speed,” was the order.No, none too soon, for in two hours’ time the great steam-hammer had to be set to work to break the newly-formed bay ice at the bows of theArrandoon, and fifty men were sent over the side to help her on. With iron-shod pikes they smashed the ice, with long poles they pushed the bergs, singing merrily as they worked, working merrily as they sang, laughing, joking, stamping, shouting, and cheering as ever and anon the great ship made another spurt, and tore along for fifty or a hundred yards. Handicapped though she was by having theScotiain tow, theArrandoonfought the ice as if she had been some mighty giant, and every minute the distance between her and the open water became less, till at last it could be seen even from the quarter-deck. But the frost seemed to grow momentarily more intense, and the bay- ce stronger and harder between the bergs. Never mind, that only stimulated the men to greater exertions. It was a battle for freedom, and they meant to win. With well-meaning though ridiculous doggerel, Ted Wilson led the music,—“Work and keep warm, boys; heave and keep hot,Jack Frost thinks he’s clever; we’ll show him he’s not.Beyond is the sea, boys;Let us fight and get free, boys;One thing will keep boiling, and that is the pot.With a heave O!Push and she’ll go.To work and to fight is the bold sailor’s lot.Heave O—O—O!“Go fetch me the lubber who won’t bear a hand,We’ll feed him on blubber, we’ll stuff him with sand.But yonder our ships, boys,Ere they get in the nips, boys,We’ll wrestle and work, as long’s we can stand,Then cheerily has it, men,Heave O—O—O!Merrily has it, men,Off we go, O—O—O!”Yes, reader, and away they went, and in one more hour they were clear of the ice,the Arrandoonhad cast theScotiaoff, and banked her fires, for, together with her consort, she was to sail, not steam, down to the island of Jan Mayen, where they were to take on board the sleigh-dogs, and bid farewell to Captain Cobb, the bold Yankee astronomer.—There was but little wind, but they made the most of what there was. Silas dined on board that day, as usual. They were determined to have as much of the worthy old sailor as they could. But before dinner one good action was performed by McBain in Captain Grig’s presence. First he called all hands, and ordered them aft; then he asked Ted Wilson to step forward, and addressed him briefly as follows:“Mr Wilson, I find I can do with another mate, and I appoint you to the post.”Ted was a little taken aback; a brighter light came into his eyes; he muttered something—thanks, I suppose—but the men’s cheering drowned his voice. Then our heroes shook hands with him all around, and McBain gave the order,—“Pipe down.”But as soon as Ted Wilson returned to his shipmates they shouldered him, and carried him high and dry right away forward, and so down below.
TheArrandoonwas steaming slowly along the pack edge, wind still westerly, theCanny Scotia, with all canvas exposed, a mile or more to leeward of her. Both were heading in the same direction, north and by east, for McBain and our heroes had determined not to desert Silas until he really had what he called a voyage—in other words, a full ship.
“We can spare the time, you know,” the captain had said to Ralph; “a fortnight, will do it, and I dare say Rory here doesn’t object to a little more sport before going away to the far north.”
“That I don’t,” Rory had replied.
“If we fall among the old seals, a fortnight will do it.”
“Ay,” Allan had said, “and won’t old Silas be happy!”
“Yes,” from McBain; “and, after all, to be able to give happiness to others is certainly one of the greatest pleasures in this world.”
Dear reader, just a word parenthetically. I am so sure that what McBain said is true, that I earnestly advise you to try the experiment suggested by his words, for great is the reward, even in this world, of those who can conquer self and endeavour to bring joy to others.
TheArrandoonsteamed along the pack edge, but it must not be supposed that this was a straight line, or anything like it. Indeed it was very much like any ordinary coastline, for here was a bay and yonder a cape, and yonder again, where the ice is heavier, a bold promontory. But Greenlandmen call a bay a “bight,” and a cape they call a “point-end.” Let us adopt their nomenclature.
TheCanny Scotia, then, avoided these point-ends; she kept well out to sea, well away from the pack, for there was not over-much wind, and Silas Grig had no wish to be beset again. But theArrandoon, on the other hand, steamed, as I have said, in a straight line. She scorned to double a point, but went steadily on her course, ploughing her way through the bergs. There was one advantage in this: she could the more easily discover the seals, for in the month of May these animals, having done their duty by their young, commence their return journey to the north, the polar regions being their homepar excellence. They are in no hurry getting back, however. They like to enjoy themselves, and usually for every one day’s progress they make, they lie two or three on the ice. The capes, or point-ends, are favourite positions with them, and on the bergs they may be seen lying in scores, nor if the sun be shining with any degree of strength are they at all easily disturbed. It is their summer, and they try to make the best of it. Hark now to that shout from the crow’s-nest of theArrandoon.
“A large patch of seals in sight, sir.”
Our heroes pause in their walk, and gaze upwards; from the deck nothing is visible to windward save the great ice-pack.
“Where away?” cries Stevenson.
“On the weather bow, sir, and a good mile in through the pack.”
“What do you think, sir?” says Stevenson, addressing his commander. “Shall we risk taking the ice again?”
“Risk, Stevenson?” is the reply. “Why, man, yes; we’ll risk anything to do old Silas a good turn. We’ll risk more yet, mate, before the ship’s head is turned homewards.”
Then the ship is stopped, and signals are made to Silas, who instantly changes his course, and, after a vast deal of tacking and half-tacking, bears down upon them, and being nearly alongside, gets his main-yard aback, and presently lowers a boat and comes on board theArrandoon.
Our heroes crowd around him.
“Why,” they say, “you are a perfect stranger; it is a whole week since we’ve seen you.”
“Ay,” says Silas, “and a whole week without seeing a seal—isn’t it astonishing?”
“Ah! but they’re in sight now,” says McBain. “I’m going to take the ice, and I’ll tow you in, and if you’re not a bumper ship before a week, then this isn’t theArrandoon, that’s all.”
Silas is all smiles; he rubs his hands, and finally laughs outright, then he claps his hand on his leg, and,—
“I was sure of it,” says Silas, “soon as ever I saw your signal. ‘Matie,’ says I, ‘yonder is a signal from theArrandoon. I’m wanted on board; seals is in sight, ye maybe sure. Matie,’ says I, ‘luck’s turned again;’ and with that I gives him such a dig in the ribs that he nearly jumped out of the nest.”
“Make the signal to theScotia, Stevenson,” says McBain, “to clew up, and to get all ready for being taken in tow. Come below, Captain Grig, lunch is on the table.”
Fairly seated at the table, honest Silas rubbed his hands again and looked with a delighted smile at each of his friends in turn. There was a bluff heartiness about this old sailor which was very taking.
“I declare,” he said, “I feel just like a schoolboy home for a holiday?”
Rory and Silas were specially friendly.
“Rory, lad,” he remarked, after a pause, “we won’t be long together now.”
“No,” replied Rory; “and it isn’t sorry I am, but really downrightsadat the thoughts of your going away and leaving us. I say, though—happy thought!—send Stevenson home with your ship and you stay with us in place of him.”
Silas laughed. “Whatwouldmy owners say, boy? and what about my little wife, eh?”
“Ah! true,” said Rory; “I had forgotten.” Then, after a pause, he added, more heartily, “But we’ll meet again, won’t we?”
“Please God!” said Silas, reverently. “I think,” Rory added, “I would know your house among a thousand, you have told me so much about it—the blue-grey walls, the bay windows, the garden, with its roses and—and—”
“The green paling,” Silas put in. “Ah, yes! the green paling, to be sure; how could I have forgotten that? Well, I’ll come and see you; and won’t you bring out the green ginger that day, Silas!”
“Andthe bun,” added Silas. “Andthe bun,” repeated Rory after him. “And won’t my little wife make you welcome, too! you may bet your fiddle on that!”
Then these two sworn friends grasped hands over the table, and the conversation dropped for a time.
But there perhaps never was a much happier Greenland skipper than Silas Grig, when he found his ship lying secure among the ice, with thousands on thousands of old seals all around him. The weather continued extremely fine for a whole week. The little wind there had been, died all away, and the sun shone more warmly and brightly than it had done since theArrandooncame to the country. The seals were so cosy that they really did not seem to mind being shot, and those that were scared off one piece of ice almost immediately scrambled on to another. “Fire away!” they seemed to say; “we are so numerous that we really won’t miss a few of us. Only don’t disturb us more than you can help.”
So the seals hugged the ice, basking in the bright sunshine, either sleeping soundly or gazing dreamily around them with their splendid eyes, or scratching their woolly ribs with their flippers for want of something to do.
And bang, bang, bang! went the rifles; they never seemed to cease from the noon of night until mid-day, nor from mid-day until the noon of night again.
The draggers of skins went in pairs for safety, and thus many a poor fellow who tumbled into the sea between the bergs, escaped with a ducking when otherwise he would have lost his life.
Ralph—long-legged, brawny-chested Saxon Ralph—was among “the ducked,” as Rory called the unfortunates. He came to a space of water which was too wide even for him. He would not be beaten, though, so he pitched his rifle over first by way of beginning the battle. Then he thought, by swinging his heavy cartridge-bag by its shoulder-strap the weight would help to carry him over. He called this jumping from a tangent. It was a miserable failure. But the best of the fun—so Rory said, though it could not have been fun to Ralph—was this: when he found himself floundering in the water he let go the bag of cartridges, which at once began to sink, but in sinking caught his heel, and pulled him for the moment under water. Poor Ralph! his feelings may be better imagined than described.
“I made sure a shark had me!” he said, quietly, when by the help of his friend Rory, he had been brought safely to bank.
It was not very often that Ralph had a mishap of any kind, but, having come to grief in this way, it was not likely that Rory would throw away so good a chance of chaffing him.
He suddenly burst out laughing at luncheon that day, at a time when nobody was speaking, and when apparently there was nothing at all to laugh about.
“What now, Rory? what now, boy?” said McBain, with a smile of anticipation.
“Oh!” cried Rory, “if you had only seen my big English brother’s face when he thought the shark had him!”
“Was it funny?” said Allan, egging him on.
“Funny!” said Rory. “Och I now, funny is no name for it. You should have seen the eyes of him!—and his jaw fall!—and that big chin of his. You know, Englishmen have a lot of chin, and—”
“And Irishmen have a lot of cheek,” cried Ralph. “Just wait till I get you on deck, Row boy.”
“I’d make him whustle,” suggested the doctor.
“Troth,” Rory went on, “it was very nearly the death o’ me. And to see him kick and flounder! Sure I’d pity the shark that got one between the eyes from your foot, baby Ralph.”
“Well,” said Ralph, “it was nearly the death of me, anyhow, having to take off all my clothes and wring them on top of the snow.”
“Oh! but,” continued Rory, assuming seriousness, and addressing McBain, “you ought to have seen Ralph just then, sir. That was the time to see my baby brother to advantage. Neptune is nobody to him. Troth, Ray, if you’d lived in the good old times, it’s a gladiator they’d have made of you entirely.”
Here came a low derisive laugh from Cockie’s cage, and Ralph pitched a crust of bread at the bird, and shook his fingers at Rory.
But Rory kept out of Ralph’s way for a whole hour after this, and by that time the storm had blown clean away, so Rory was safe.
Allan had his turn next day. The danger in walking on the ice was chiefly owing to the fact that the edges of many of the bergs had been undermined by the waves and the recent swell, so that they were apt to break off and precipitate the unwary pedestrian into the water.
Here is Allan’s little adventure, and it makes one shudder to think how nearly it led him to being an actor in a terrible tragedy. He was trudging on after the seals with rifle at full cock, for he expected a shot almost immediately, when, as he was about to leap, the snowy edge of the berg gave way, and down he went. Instinctively he held his rifle out to his friend, who grasped it with both hands, the muzzle against his breast, and thus pulled him out. It seemed marvellous that the rifle did not go off.
(Both these adventures are sketched from the life.)
When safe to bank, and when he noticed the manner in which he had been helped out, poor Allan felt sick, there is no other name for it.
“Oh, Ralph, Ralph!” he said, clutching his friend by the shoulder to keep himself from falling, “what if I had killed you?”
When told of the incident that evening after dinner, McBain, after a momentary silence, said quietly,—
“I’m not sorry such a thing should have happened, boys; it ought to teach you caution; and it teaches us all that there is Some One in whose hands we are; Some One to look after us even in moments of extremest peril.”
But I think Allan loved Ralph even better after this.
Two weeks’ constant sealing; two weeks during which the crews of theArrandoonandCanny Scotianever sat down to a regular meal, and never lay down for two consecutive hours of repose, only eating when hungry and sleeping when they could no longer keep moving; two weeks during which nobody knew what o’clock it was at any particular time, or which was east or west, or whether it were day or night. Two weeks, then the seals on the ice disappeared as if by magic, for the frost was coming.
“Let them go,” said Silas, shaking McBain warmly by the hand. “Thanks to you, sir, I’m a bumper ship. Why, man, I’m full to the hatches. Low freeboard and all that sort of thing. Plimsoll wouldn’t pass us out of any British harbour. But, with fair weather and God’s help, sir, we’ll get safely home.”
“And now,” McBain replied, “there isn’t a moment to lose. We must get out of here, Captain Grig, or the frost will serve us a trick as it did before.”
With some difficulty the ships were got about and headed once more for the open sea.
None too soon, though, for there came again that strange, ethereal blue into the sky, which, from their experiences of the last black frost, they had learned to dread. The thermometer sank, and sank, and sank, till far down below zero.
TheArrandoontook her “chummy ship” in tow.
“Go ahead at full speed,” was the order.
No, none too soon, for in two hours’ time the great steam-hammer had to be set to work to break the newly-formed bay ice at the bows of theArrandoon, and fifty men were sent over the side to help her on. With iron-shod pikes they smashed the ice, with long poles they pushed the bergs, singing merrily as they worked, working merrily as they sang, laughing, joking, stamping, shouting, and cheering as ever and anon the great ship made another spurt, and tore along for fifty or a hundred yards. Handicapped though she was by having theScotiain tow, theArrandoonfought the ice as if she had been some mighty giant, and every minute the distance between her and the open water became less, till at last it could be seen even from the quarter-deck. But the frost seemed to grow momentarily more intense, and the bay- ce stronger and harder between the bergs. Never mind, that only stimulated the men to greater exertions. It was a battle for freedom, and they meant to win. With well-meaning though ridiculous doggerel, Ted Wilson led the music,—
“Work and keep warm, boys; heave and keep hot,Jack Frost thinks he’s clever; we’ll show him he’s not.Beyond is the sea, boys;Let us fight and get free, boys;One thing will keep boiling, and that is the pot.With a heave O!Push and she’ll go.To work and to fight is the bold sailor’s lot.Heave O—O—O!“Go fetch me the lubber who won’t bear a hand,We’ll feed him on blubber, we’ll stuff him with sand.But yonder our ships, boys,Ere they get in the nips, boys,We’ll wrestle and work, as long’s we can stand,Then cheerily has it, men,Heave O—O—O!Merrily has it, men,Off we go, O—O—O!”
“Work and keep warm, boys; heave and keep hot,Jack Frost thinks he’s clever; we’ll show him he’s not.Beyond is the sea, boys;Let us fight and get free, boys;One thing will keep boiling, and that is the pot.With a heave O!Push and she’ll go.To work and to fight is the bold sailor’s lot.Heave O—O—O!“Go fetch me the lubber who won’t bear a hand,We’ll feed him on blubber, we’ll stuff him with sand.But yonder our ships, boys,Ere they get in the nips, boys,We’ll wrestle and work, as long’s we can stand,Then cheerily has it, men,Heave O—O—O!Merrily has it, men,Off we go, O—O—O!”
Yes, reader, and away they went, and in one more hour they were clear of the ice,the Arrandoonhad cast theScotiaoff, and banked her fires, for, together with her consort, she was to sail, not steam, down to the island of Jan Mayen, where they were to take on board the sleigh-dogs, and bid farewell to Captain Cobb, the bold Yankee astronomer.—There was but little wind, but they made the most of what there was. Silas dined on board that day, as usual. They were determined to have as much of the worthy old sailor as they could. But before dinner one good action was performed by McBain in Captain Grig’s presence. First he called all hands, and ordered them aft; then he asked Ted Wilson to step forward, and addressed him briefly as follows:
“Mr Wilson, I find I can do with another mate, and I appoint you to the post.”
Ted was a little taken aback; a brighter light came into his eyes; he muttered something—thanks, I suppose—but the men’s cheering drowned his voice. Then our heroes shook hands with him all around, and McBain gave the order,—
“Pipe down.”
But as soon as Ted Wilson returned to his shipmates they shouldered him, and carried him high and dry right away forward, and so down below.