Kitabı oku: «In the Misty Seas: A Story of the Sealers of Behring Strait», sayfa 17

Mr. Holway nodded. "I believe he would. In fact, he wrote me to make the skipper any recompense that appeared advisable. The trouble, however, is that things are different here from what they are in the old country, and these men earn dollars enough themselves to resent any attempt to pay them for a kindness."

"Still, it could be managed somehow," said Niven.

"Yes," said Mr. Holway, "I believe it could. We can find out if the skipper wants, for example, a good sextant, and I've a notion that the men would be pleased if you gave them a farewell dinner. It would show that you still looked upon yourself as one of them."

"Yes," said Niven, "that would be the best thing."

When they next saw Jordan he was squaring accounts with the men, and apparently too busy to do more than nod to them. They accordingly waited among the rest, who were dressed much as they were in neat, new clothes, and had only the bronze in their, faces and the steadiness of their eyes, to show they were from the sea, until at last he drew his pen through two lines on the roll on the table in front of him.

"Christopher Niven and Thomas Appleby," he said, holding out two little piles of silver coins with a few bills beneath them on a document. "Look through that, and tell me if it's all quite straight before you sign it."

Niven flushed a trifle as he said, "I don't fancy we should take the dollars, sir."

Jordan looked at him somewhat grimly. "I've a good deal to put through, and no use for talking," he said. "You made the deal the night I found you, and they're yours, my lad."

The lads took the dollars, and found Mr. Holway waiting for them when they went out. He glanced at the handfuls of coin, and laughed a little as he asked, "Whose are all those dollars?"

"They're mine," said Niven, with a trace of pride in his smile. "I've earned them, and I fancy it would astonish the folks at home. My father used to tell me now and then that I'd never have a shilling that wasn't given me. Now take me to one of your biggest shops, because I'm going to buy my mother a brooch or a bracelet with the first money I ever earned in my life."

The merchant nodded gravely. "I fancy that would only be the square thing," he said. "Now, I was keeping myself and my sister when I was younger than you."

The bracelet was bought, and during the day Niven sent a note down to the schooner, while on the next evening they and the sealers sat down to a very elaborate dinner in a big room of the Canadian Pacific Hotel. They were all of them present, and nobody appeared in any way uncomfortable or ill at ease in his unusual clothes, for the life they led had made them men, which is very much the same and occasionally a greater thing than gentlemen. In fact, Niven felt curiously abashed when before they went into the dining room he spread out before them the things he had brought. There was a silver-mounted sextant for Jordan, a knife that most sealers coveted with an inlaid handle for Stickine, a watch for Donegal, and boxes of tobacco for every one of the rest.

"I'd like you to take these little things just to remember us by," he said diffidently. "I wouldn't have asked you if they had been of any value, but it would be good of you to keep them, because you have, though of course it isn't for that, done a good deal for Appleby and me."

Donegal's eyes twinkled. "Tis twice, anyway, I've run ye round the deck wid a rope's end, and I would have licked ye often if 'twould have been of any use," he said. "Sure, we'll take them and remember ye. 'Tis not every day the son av a ducal earl goes sealing with me."

Then they went in to dinner, and when Niven had insisted on Jordan taking the head of the table most of them made a somewhat astonishing meal, that is, to those who did not know how the sealers ate and worked. Afterwards there were a few speeches, but these were to the point and short.

"Mr. Niven and boys," said Jordan. "I've had a good company with me this run, and the next time I go to sea I don't want a better one. I'm counting the lads in, and we'll feel kind of lonely without them when they go back to the old country. That's 'bout all. I'm not much use at talking."

Then Donegal stood up and rubbed his coppery hair. "Sure," he said, "'tis rough on me. They're taking my bhoys away – just when me and Stickine was licking them into men. Still, I'll be bearing it better if 'tis credit they're doing us in the old country. Boys, ye will not go back on Donegal, and if sealing has taught ye anything 'tis this that's at the bottom of the scheme: 'Thrue hearts is worth more than silver spoons,' an if that's not quite what the pote said it's what he was meaning."

It was getting late, and there was a pause in the laughter, when Niven rose up. "I wish I could talk as I want to – but now when I've so much to tell you I can't," he said, standing with flushed face and eyes shining at the foot of the table. "Still, before we go I want you to join in a last good wish with me. Boys, here's long life to Ned Jordan."

There was a roar, and the voices rang through it one by one. "The man who beat the Russians and the Americans too. The skipper who never went back on his crew. Ned Jordan of the Champlain who brought me home again!"

Niven long remembered them standing about the long table with the sea-bronze in their faces and the pride in their eyes that were turned on Jordan. At last he once more stood up awkwardly.

"Boys," he said simply, "I couldn't have done nothing without the rest of you, and with the same men behind me it wouldn't be very much to do it all again."

Then they went out, shaking hands with Niven and Appleby, who stood in the great hall of the hotel, to bid farewell to them. Last of all came Jordan, and he stopped a moment.

"I've been wrong a good many times in my life, Mr. Niven, and that makes it the easier to tell you I was more club-headed than usual 'bout you," he said. "Still, I figure there's nothing but good feeling between us now, and you'll not forget Ned Jordan if you come back again."

Then he went down the pathway, and the two lads stood still, until from out of the darkness down by the water-front a voice they knew raised a song and the last of it came faintly up to them —

 
"Shining gold in heaps, I'm told,
On the bunks of Sacramento."
 

Niven glanced at Appleby, and his voice was not quite steady as he said, "Starting home to-morrow – and we'll not see any of them again. Well, I'm sorry."

"Yes," said Appleby quietly. "I feel that way too."

CHAPTER XXII
THE RESULT OF THE CHOICE

The Montreal express was waiting to commence its six days' eastward journey when Appleby and Niven stood in the C.P.R. station next afternoon. The lads, however, scarcely noticed the great locomotive and long cars, or the roofs of the city that rose row and row up the face of the hill with the ragged spires of the sombre pines towering high above them. They were looking out on the blue inlet which, streaked in places by the smoke of the mills, lay shining in the sun, with dusky forests and a lofty line of snow beyond. Broad in the foreground rode the Champlain, looking very small and dainty with her bare masts standing high above the sweep of bulwarks, and they could recognize the men stripping the canvas off her. Behind her with the beaver ensign streaming at her peak another schooner was beating in, and Niven smiled curiously as he followed her with his eyes.

"It's the Argo," he said. "We'll be off in a minute or two – and of course I'm glad we're going home. Still, it hurts a little to leave it all behind."

Appleby nodded, for he fancied he knew what Niven was feeling, and it was with a faint sigh he turned towards the cars.

"It will be a long time before I forget the Champlain," he said. "Still, you see we couldn't be sealers."

Then a big bell commenced ringing, and Mr. Holway came up. "Here are your ticket coupons right through to Liverpool, and the Allan boat will sail an hour or two after you get to Montreal," he said. "Better take your places."

They shook hands with him while the big engine panted, and swung themselves on to the platform of the nearest car. It lurched forward, Mr. Holway waving his hand to them, slid away behind, wharf and mill went by, but they still stood out on the platform looking back at the Champlain, until with a sudden roar of wheels the train swept into the shadow of the pines that shut out blue inlet and schooner from their sight. Then Niven sighed a little and Appleby looked at him with a curious little smile.

"That's the last of her, Chriss," he said. "We've got to look forward now."

They were, however, soon too occupied for any vague regrets, and that journey from ocean to ocean over British soil excited their wonder and now and then brought them a little thrill of pride. Hour by hour the cars went lurching through the shadow of great pine-forests, and up an awful chasm with a river foaming far away below, swung over dizzy trestles, and past flashing glaciers through a tremendous desolation of rock and ice and snow that no man's foot had ever trodden. Still, the valleys were sprinkled with little wooden towns from which there rose the scream of saws and the smoke of mines, while when two great engines hauled them slowly in snake-like curves up to the Selkirk passes the lads stood gazing in silent awe at the white peaks above them.

"The men who built this road would stick at nothing," said Niven with a little gasp of wonder as he glanced back at the shining metals which lay apparently straight beneath him.

Later, with a roar of wheels flung back from the dark rocks that had for centuries barred off from the prairie the wild mountain land, they climbed the Kicking Horse defile beside a frothing river, and went roaring down into the rolling hills on the Rockies' eastern side. These, too, swept back and faded, and they were racing eastwards straight as the crow flies across the prairie.

Little wooden stations, herds of sheep and cattle, lonely mounted men seen miles away, were left behind, and still hour by hour the great white levels stretched away. From the dawn that flushed red before them until the sunset flamed behind, the gaunt telegraph poles and shining metals that led straight on came flying back to them, and there was no change in the white waste the moonlight shone upon. Then they ran through yellow stubble where the splendid wheat had been, past lonely homesteads, lines of toiling teams, and clouds of dust and blue smoke where the thrashers were working in the field, until they rolled across a great river into Winnipeg City.

There they stopped an hour or two, and afterwards ran past vast blue lakes into the forests again, swept across wooden bridges over frothing rivers, until the lads clinging to the platform looked down on an inland sea when the dusty cars went lurching along the Superior shore over a road riven out of the adamantine granite that had been paid for with brave men's lives. By and by they came out of the wilderness again, and swept through green Ontario past wooden farms and orchards into Montreal, where they had decided to join the steamer, though they could have done so nearer the sea. They were, however, stiff and aching, and glad to stretch their limbs, while Niven stared about him in wonder as they walked through Montreal and stopped a moment outside the great cathedral.

"It's a city of palaces and churches, and there's no dust and smoke at all," he said. "I never fancied they'd places of this kind in Canada. Well, we'll go on to the steamer as soon as we've worked out the kinks we got in the cars."

The steamer went down the river soon after they reached her, and it was an hour or two before the lads felt at home on board her. She seemed so big and high above the water after the Champlain, and they felt almost abashed and out of place amidst the luxury of the great saloons. That did not, however, last long, and there was much to occupy them, the huge rafts of timber with houses on them, barges piled with hay until they resembled a drifting farmyard, the countless islands they steamed among, and the tin-roofed villages along the wooded shores. Then they stopped where the river narrows under the battlements of Quebec, and saw the crowded roofs of the city climb the slopes of the plateau where Wolfe won that great Dominion for England.

After that the river grew broader, until at last they rolled out past the rocks of Labrador into the Atlantic, and it was scarcely a fortnight since they left Vancouver when one night the liner steamed into the Mersey. Rows of lights blinked at them through the smoke and drizzle, whistles screamed, steamers crowded with passengers went by, and at last the tender swung alongside. Then amidst the bustle and confusion a gentleman forcing his way through the groups of travellers grasped Appleby's hand, and he saw his comrade, who did not seem abashed as he once would have done, being hugged publicly by Mrs. Niven.

In another minute she had turned to Appleby, and Mr. Niven led both of them under a big electric light. He stared hard at them, and then smiled at his wife.

"Well," he said slowly, "these are not the lads we sent away. The sea has done a good deal for them, and if I hadn't been looking for him I would scarcely have known my son."

It was a very happy party the tender took ashore, and for several days Mrs. Niven, who regaled the lads with dainties and fussed over them, would scarcely let Chriss out of her sight. On the third night, however, Mr. Niven called them into his own room.

"And now it's about time we had a little talk," he said with a trace of dryness in his smile, as, lighting a cigar, he laid the box on the table. "You can take one if you like. No doubt you know the flavour by this time, and it would take a good deal to hurt you now."

Chriss grinned at Appleby. "As a matter of fact we found that out at Sandycombe, sir, though the results were very far from encouraging," he said.

"No?" said Mr. Niven.

Appleby laughed. "I lost a good chance of winning the quarter-mile, and Chriss spent two Saturdays writing lines."

"I understand," said Mr. Niven dryly, "that you didn't get many luxuries on board the Aldebaran."

"We didn't," said Chriss. "Still, after a month or so, there wasn't much we couldn't eat except the stuff in one barrel the pickle had run out of. Appleby tried it once when we hadn't had anything worth mentioning for a week. Tom, how long did you revel in that pork?"

"About two minutes," said Appleby. "Eating it wasn't quite as nice as skinning holluschackie."

Mr. Niven nodded, but there was a twinkle in his eyes, and once more he noticed the steadiness with which they returned his gaze, and that though they smiled there was a new gravity in their sea-tanned faces.

"I fancy you have found out how much one can do without, and that is a good deal gained," he said. "Still, all that is beside the question, for I want to know right off how you like the sea, and I've no use for anything but the straightest kind of talking."

Chriss seemed a trifle astonished. "That was just how Ned Jordan spoke," he said.

Mr. Niven laughed. "You may remember that I have been over a good deal of Canada on business and in Vancouver. In fact, you may do so too. It depends on your answer to my question."

Chriss sat silent for almost a minute in place of speaking at once, which is more than he would have done before he went to sea. Then he answered very slowly.

"Well, I like the sea, and would be willing to go back again, but not – if it could be helped – in the Aldebaran. Still, after what I have seen of it, I fancy I could be quite content to live ashore if there were other things for me to do."

"Even if people laughed at you for swallowing the anchor, which I believe is how they put it?" asked Mr. Niven.

Chriss laughed without any sign of confusion or embarrassment, and his father noticed it. "One doesn't mind a little banter after being kicked with seaboots, and growled at all day for weeks. You don't fancy it would matter greatly if they did?"

"Not in the least," said Mr. Niven with dry approval, "In fact, the man who does not mind being made fun of has often the best cause for laughing. So you would go back to sea if I told you to?"

"Yes, sir," said Chriss. "Still, if you fancied it would be better I would stay ashore."

"Then," said Mr. Niven, "we'll decide on the latter. You might after years of hard work, and if you were very fortunate, make five hundred pounds a year at sea, but while there are thousands of lads in the country who would be very content with the prospect of getting it, there are considerably fewer who have your opportunities, and by and by I shall want somebody to take up my business after me. If you are to do it you must begin at once at the bottom, do what you are told, and make your way upwards slowly as you would at sea. Now, then, would it suit you to go down to my office at nine o'clock the day after to-morrow?"

"Yes, sir," said Chriss. "It would."

"Then," said Mr. Niven, "that will do in the meanwhile, though we will have a good deal to talk about later. Now, Appleby, you have heard what I proposed to Chriss, and we can find room for you. I will see you get a fair start in life – and what it may lead to afterwards will depend largely upon yourself."

Appleby's answer was quiet but resolute. "I have to thank you, sir, but I am afraid I should never be quite contented away from the sea."

"Don't be hasty," said Mr. Niven. "It's a hard life, but you know that better than I do. I also fancy that if you serve me well you will be a richer man by and by than you ever would be at sea."

Appleby looked at him steadily. "I've been considering ever since I left the Aldebaran, sir. It's hard enough – but I can't help fancying it is the life that is best for me."

Mr. Niven nodded gravely. "Then you are right in going back, but we'll try to find you a more comfortable ship. Well, we have decided quite enough for one night, and I fancy Mrs. Niven is waiting for you."

The lads went out, and though both of them afterwards found there was now and then need of all their courage and endurance in the lives they led neither regretted the decision they had made. Niven went into his father's office, and Appleby back to sea, while a good many things happened to both of them before the former, who was now a partner, returned on business to Vancouver. The day after he got there he stood on the wharf with Mr. Holway. It was crowded with travellers making for a steamer on the point of sailing, for the Montreal express had just come in, but Niven was watching the trail of swiftly-moving smoke that smeared the blue sky behind the great pines on Beaver Point.

"That will be her by the pace she's making," he said.

Mr. Holway nodded. "Yes. They're wonderful boats," he said. "It's a long way to Japan, but they keep their time like a clock, and they'll not check the engines until she's close up to the wharf."

"Twin screws," said Niven. "Still, with the barque yonder there's very little room to swing a big vessel in, though, of course, he could scrape past the schooner and back one propeller."

Mr. Holway laughed. "You might have been to sea yourself!"

"Well," said Niven dryly, "I have, and they taught me a good deal in the Champlain."

"I had forgotten," said Mr. Holway. "You'll have been glad you left it."

Niven smiled. "There have been times of business anxiety when I've been almost sorry, too. After all, one had nothing to worry over on board the Champlainwhen his work was done. But she's coming in."

With the blue water frothing at her bows a great white-painted steamer swung out of the shadow of the pines, and while her whistle sent a sonorous scream ringing across the inlet swept towards the wharf. She gleamed like ivory from the purple shimmering in her shadow that was streaked by froth about her water-line to the yacht-like lift of her bows and long sweep of rail, and above it her tiers of houses and rows of boats shone dazzlingly in the sunlight. In every line and flowing curve there was a suggestion of speed and beauty, and Niven was silent as he watched her come on, remembering how the command of such a vessel had once been his most cherished dream. Then as the other steamer splashed away and the liner swung in towards the wharf he saw that one of the officers high up on the bridge was staring at him. Niven knew the brown face under the white cap, and waved his hat, but the officer only raised his hand for a second and then looked straight ahead again. Niven laughed softly as he turned to his companion.

"There's very little difference in Tom Appleby," he said. "It's four years since I've seen him, but if it had been forty I wouldn't have expected him to spare more than a moment from his duties to nod to me."

"That," said Mr. Holway, "is probably the reason he has got on so rapidly, and I know the Company's people here have a high opinion of him. Now sit down. He's not going to thank you for worrying him while he's busy."

It was half-an-hour later when they went on board the great steamer and asked for the second officer. The two young men looked at each other as they shook hands, and each saw a difference in his comrade, for bronzed mate and keen-eyed merchant had both grown used to the yoke of responsibility. They were quieter than they had been, and their faces were graver, while though it was long since they had met, they were not effusive when they spoke.

"Glad to see you, Tom," said Niven.

Appleby nodded. "Of course I needn't tell you the same thing. How did you get here?"

"Allan boat and Canadian Pacific sleeper," said Niven. "I told you I'd been made a partner, and fancied I'd run over to look up some of our customers in Vancouver when I was in Canada. At least, that's one reason. You can guess the other. Now, what's wrong with this Company that you're not commander?"

Appleby laughed. "I've got on so fast already that I can't help fancying friends of mine who put business in the Company's way have as much to do with it as my merits. Now, I'm not quite sure that's good for me."

"Tom," said Niven with apparent severity, though his eyes twinkled, "are you so foolish as to fancy that the men who run a line like this would take a hint from anybody? You climbed up yourself, but if ever I do have any influence I'll know how to use it. Still, we're not going to argue already. Come out. I've got a buggy waiting, and we're going to drive and talk in the woods all afternoon, and then have another dinner at the Hotel. To make it all complete Jordan's coming."

"I'm half afraid I couldn't stay that long," said Appleby, and Niven turned to Holway, who had joined them.

"You're coming right along. Holway has seen the skipper, and he knows better than refuse – him – anything."

They drove through the dusky shadows of the pines all the afternoon, and when evening came they and Jordan sat down to a very choice dinner in the room where they last met. Jordan, however, seemed leaner and grimmer than he had done that night, and his hair was grey, but there was no mistaking the pleasure in his face when he greeted them. Niven made him sit down at the head of a little table by an open window.

"That's your place, sir," he said. "I don't quite know what they're bringing us to eat, but it's not going to be as good as the canned beef you gave us the night you came across us in the Champlain."

He smiled curiously as, glancing round at the glittering glass and silver and the sumptuous decorations of the great dining-room, he remembered the little, stuffy cabin of the schooner that swung with the seas. All this was very pleasant, but he felt he had lost something that could never be regained since then. Appleby seemed to understand, for he nodded.

"There's a difference, Chriss," he said. "We shall never be quite the same again."

"A man can't have quite everything – and you've got the dollars now," said Jordan with a little twinkle in his eyes. "Well, I've made my blunders, like most other folks, but the one I made that night was my biggest one. Still, it was a kind of curious story you told me."

Niven laughed. "I've no doubt I did it badly – but there are times when I wish I was only a lad sailing north again sealing, and I fancy I shouldn't be a partner in a good business now if it hadn't been for a few things that voyage taught me."

While he spoke the dinner was brought in, and for a while they postponed their questions. Then as they sat by the open window looking out across the blue inlet towards the climbing pines and the distant snow Jordan glanced at his cigar.

"I've only had a dinner of this kind once before in my life, and you know who it was gave it me then," he said. "Now, I've a notion Donegal believed you all along."

"I wonder where he is now," said Niven. "I should like to have seen him."

Jordan's face grew grave, and he stretched out one hand pointing towards the north. "He's sleeping sound up there," he said.

Appleby bent his head. "I have not often met his equal – and we both owe him a good deal. How did it happen?"

"Stowing jibs," said Jordan quietly. "Wind turned loose on us sudden one night we were carrying everything, and she lay down with her lee rail in. Outer jib wouldn't run down, downhaul jammed, and Charley was clawing out on the bowsprit when the sail whipped over him. None of us saw what came next but Donegal, and when I had a glimpse of him he was hanging out from the foot-rope grabbing at Charley. Then she put her nose into a sea, and when she swung out of it there was nobody under the bowsprit. We'd gone straight over them."

Jordan stopped a moment, and his voice was a trifle hoarse when he went on again. "It was quite ten minutes before we could get the mainsail off her to wear her round, and a boat over, and an hour anyway before we hove her in again. They'd found nothing, and Charley couldn't swim, but Donegal wouldn't never have let go of his partner. He was that kind of a man."

Appleby nodded gravely, but nobody said anything further for several minutes, and then Niven asked, "Where's Stickine?"

"Coast trading. He was kind of saving. Put the dollars he'd scraped up into a little schooner, and it would astonish me if he wasn't making more of them. Montreal and his brother doing quite well too. Gone back to the carpentering and taking contracts for putting up mining flumes."

"Then there's only yourself, and the Champlain," said Niven.

Jordan sighed a little. "We had to part with her. Sealing's not what it used to be – too many gun-boats and too much government fussing – and the holluschackie are getting scarcer too. They'll have to try round the South Pole for them presently. Still, a man has got to live, and I'm figuring on a halibut-catching scheme. There's going to be dollars in it if we can raise enough of them to start us off with the proper outfit."

"Tell me all about it. I'm a business man," said Niven.

Jordan did so, but his face was a trifle anxious as he concluded. "I'm not quite sure if I can put it through. We've got to have a schooner, and it's where to get the last two or three thousand dollars that's worrying me. The banks don't seem to care about backing me."

Niven sat silent a moment or two. Then he said quietly, "Now, I've about that many dollars I'm getting very little for in the old country, and I would be glad to put them in your venture as a partner."

"And I've five or six hundred," said Appleby.

Jordan's face brightened, but he did not answer for a minute. "Well, I've no use for pretending I wouldn't be glad to have the dollars – but one has to do the square thing," he said. "The risks are going to be heavy, because until we get it all quite straight we may lose the catch quite often before we can put it on the market, and there's always chances of losing the schooner, while you'd have to take too much on trust. You don't know the ins and outs of this contract, and I couldn't figure them all out to you."

Niven laughed a little, and laid his hand on Jordan's shoulder. "I know the man who's going to put it through, and I could trust him with a good deal more than the dollars. We'll go round to Holway's, and fix it all up to-morrow."

It was late before Jordan left them, and Niven and Appleby, who walked with him a little way, stopped a moment as they went back to the hotel. On the one hand, sprinkled with big electric lights, the city climbed the rise, and they could see its maze of roofs and towering telegraph poles. On the other the inlet shone like silver under the moon, with the ivory shape of the liner in the foreground and three great ships riding to their anchors farther out. Niven smiled a little as he turned to his companion.

"One is your home, the other mine," he said. "Tom, you haven't told me whether you are still quite contented with the life you have chosen."

Appleby's face was grave, but his eyes shone a little. "It is a grim life – especially in the sailing ships – Chriss, though they are not all like the Aldebaran, but I still fancy it is the one that is best for me. After all, are there any things your money can buy you better than those which are given for nothing to every man at sea?"

THE END