Kitabı oku: «In the Land of the Great Snow Bear: A Tale of Love and Heroism», sayfa 7
Chapter Fifteen
Paddy’s Adventure with the Bear – Fun on the Ice – The Little Purple Cloud
Tobogganing? A strange word, is it not? We are indebted to the Americans for it, as we are for many other handy, but hardly elegant, additions to our vocabulary. Those who are fond of hunting for the origins of words, and who cannot live happily unless they find out how this is that, tell us that the sport – and fine fun it is – was first suggested to mankind by the beavers. They say that these busy-brained active animals, by way of keeping their blood-heat up in winter-time, go in a crowd to some snow-clad hill, scurry up to the top of it with their broad flat tails behind them, and go sliding down all in a row, rushing up again as soon as they find themselves at the bottom, and joining the other end of the procession, and that they keep “the pot arboiling” for hours with the highest glee imaginable. Well, perhaps the beavers do, but in one form or other the sport is as old, probably, as the days of Noah.
Canada is perhaps the home of tobogganing, for there the frost is severe and lasts long. Now, the scenery all round the “Sea of Dunallan,” for thus had the waters in which our heroes lay been named by them, was very wild indeed. The hills close beside the beach were high and rounded; beyond these they were higher still, many of them rising into peaks that seemed to have their homes among the stars.
It occurred to Paddy O’Connell, who seemed to be the inventive genius of the crew, and foremost wherever fun was to be had, that a species of tobogganing might be got up from which some “rale diversion” could be had.
So one fine moonlight night, with the stars all shining as well as they could, for the tails and ribbons of brilliant aurora that were hanging in the sky, Paddy went prospecting.
“Shall I come with you, Paddy?” said Byarnie, who was the best of friends with the “Oirlander.”
“Not to-night, me bhoy,” replied Paddy. “It’s after a bit av diversion I’m going, and I think best when I’m all alone by me swate little self.”
“Well, you might take a gun with you,” suggested Byarnie, “for there may be bears about, you know.”
“Bad cess to them. No. There’s never a fear of Paddy.”
Byarnie watched him disappear round the brow of a high knoll, about a quarter of a mile from the Icebear; then went quietly below.
The weather had been fine for weeks, and no snow had fallen. It was just the season when the sun might soon be expected. Already, indeed, there was twilight at noon, so all hearts were gay and hopeful.
Paddy was in search of a hill, and he was very particular as to both its shape, its height, and its condition. At last his prospecting cruise was crowned with success.
“C’dn’t have been better,” said Paddy, talking to himself, half aloud, as he had a habit of doing; “c’dn’t have been better if me own mother had made it.”
The one drawback was that it was fully a mile and a half from the ship; but, after all, that was a small matter. So Paddy started to go back.
It had been tedious work, and hours of it, and, feeling tired, he began to think of his pipe. To think was to act with this son of Green Erin. He stuck his alpenstock in the snow, and forthwith scratched a match and lit up.
“That’s comforting, anyhow,” he said, after a few whiffs. “Now, if I could only find a stone to sit upon. Troth, I might as well look for a stone in the midst av the say, or the big bay of Tralore, as – Hullo! what’s yonder, anyhow?”
Paddy was on the bare brow of a steep hill; but on rounding a hummock and looking back, he found one side of it was dark and free from snow. He returned, and gave the darkness a poke with his stick, and the stick struck – nothing. It was the entrance to a cave.
“I’ll just light a match and have a look,” says Paddy.
The feeble glimmer revealed only a portion of what seemed a great vault.
“I’ll creep in for a moment, out av the cowld,” says Paddy, “and stand in a corner; sure there can’t be any crayture worse than meself in the cave.”
It was an eerisome situation enough, but our gallant Irishman did not mind it a bit.
For fully five minutes he smoked, when he thought, or fancied he thought, he heard a sigh.
“It’s draining I am entoirely; who could be there; at all?”
Presently the sigh – a heavy, long-drawn one – was repeated. There could be no mistake about it this time.
“Ghost of Saint Patrick!” thinks Paddy; “is it in the cave av an evil spirit I am? But never moind, it’s sleeping he is, anyhow. I’ll have a look, and chance it.”
Taking half a dozen hearty puffs to give him courage, Paddy quietly advanced. He had not gone three paces when – behold, curled up at his feet, a gigantic yellow bear!
“Is it there you are, me darlint?” Paddy whispers to himself. “But troth, I just remember it’s toime I was going, so good night, me dear, and bad drames to ye.”
Now Bruin has excellent scent, and Paddy’s tobacco was good and strong, so no wonder he awoke. He rose to his forepaws, opening a great red mouth that would have sheltered a coal-scuttle, and giving vent as he did so to a yawning roar that appeared to shake the very cave.
Paddy threw the almost extinct match into the gulf and fled, with Bruin at his heels.
Byarnie was very fond of Paddy O’Connell, and when his friend stayed so long away, naturally grew anxious, and finally started off to look for him. He would not take a rifle, “because,” he argued, “if Paddy wasn’t afraid, sure I’m not.” But he armed himself with that most deadly weapon, a seal club, and away he strode. On and on went the giant over the snowy hills; but Paddy’s track, that he tried for a time to follow, was as devious as a rabbit’s. When he was just about to give up in despair, who should he see but his friend himself coming round the brow of the hill – it could be nobody else.
But when Paddy disappeared suddenly from view as effectually as if he had sunk into the bowels of the earth, then no wonder big Byarnie rubbed his eyes and stared in astonishment.
Byarnie was superstitious.
“’Twas his ghost,” he thought; “poor Paddy is dead, and that was his spirit!”
And down there on his knees, under the flickering aurora, knelt big Byarnie to pray. While thus devotionally engaged, he was startled by a roar that made him feel as if the earth was going to open and swallow him, and yonder behold poor Paddy running towards him more quickly than he had ever run before, and followed by something large and yellow.
Byarnie spat on his hands, and threw away his cap.
Well, I do not wonder, mind you, at Bruin’s wrath. How would any one like to be wakened from sweet dreamland, and have the fiery end of a lucifer match pitched down his throat?
“Come on, Paddy,” roared Byarnie.
“Sure ain’t I coming as fast as I can?” cried poor innocent Paddy.
As the bear went floundering past, Byarnie struck at him with terrible force.
The steel point of the club entered his neck, but held there, and both Byarnie and Bruin rolled together on the ground, the former undermost, and the blood flew spattering over the snow.
Paddy was back in a moment. He had all his wits about him, and his first act was to free the seal club.
His next act was one which only a brave, merry-hearted Irishman would have thought of. He thrust the alpenstock into Bruin’s mouth as if it had been a horse’s bit, and, mounting the brute’s back, pinned him by seizing the staff close to the side of each jaw.
“I’ve got him,” he cried.
Crack went the alpenstock, and down went Paddy; but Byarnie was up, and in a second he had felled his terrible antagonist.
There lay the dead bear on his side, his tongue lolling out, his dead eyes turned to the sky, and there stood Byarnie and Paddy, both puffing.
“Did you ever see the loikes?” says Paddy.
“No,” Byarnie replied; “but, thank Heaven, you are safe. Let us go home.”
But Paddy carried out his tobogganing scheme all the same.
It was a very simple one, but afforded no end of capital exercise and genuine fun. Carpenter Jones, alias “Chips,” manufactured the tobogganing sledges. Chips said he was glad of the job – anything to keep his hands in. With the help of his assistants he made a score of them in a single day. Very simple they were, in shape somewhat similar to those used by the Canadians, only these seated four abreast, so there was, so Paddy said, four times the fun.
The tobogganing hill was high and round, but not very steep; the top of it was a tableland; at the foot was an enormous bank of drifted snow, and here the fun came in again, as you will presently see.
But let us go with the tobogganing party for just once in a way.
It is eleven o’clock in the forenoon. There is a shimmer of yellowish white light in the east. There is a moon also. Fancy moonlight at mid-day! What with these two lights, the aurora, which has been dancing so merrily for many hours, looks slightly pale, though the colours displayed are more glorious than any pantomimic transformation scene your mind could imagine. Alongside the Icebear are two huge sledges; one is laden with the tobogganing boards and a few merry sailors, the other with men and officers, and such a row there is and such a din! What with the wild shouts of Jack and Joe, the Eskimos; the cracking of whips; the snarling, barking, and yelping of the dogs, the noise is deafening and indescribable.
But they are off at last.
The men have breakfasted well, and, although it is very cold – ten degrees below zero – they are happy, nay, even boisterously merry. Paddy starts a song and all join in the chorus. Claude is there; he knows that Paddy is a favourite, and lets him do pretty much as he pleases. The doctor is there also in case of an accident, and he sings and laughs like the rest, for he is quite a boy, although an old and very learned one.
Mercy on us! how those dogs do fly over the ground to be sure. They are as fleet as the reindeer. Now and then one falls and is dragged a little way, but always manages to scramble up again.
“Hoorup, Hooreeup, Hooree – e?” screams Joe. Crack, crack, crack goes the whip.
Higher and wilder rises Paddy’s song and chorus. Never before were the echoes of the mountains awakened by such boisterous mirth. Even bears asleep in their dens and caves hear and arouse themselves to listen.
“Hoorup, Hooreeup, Hooree – ee – e?”
The sledge goes over a rough bank, and Tom Tatters tumbles out. Boy Bounce waves his cap and laughs at him, but on goes the sledge, over the hills and round the hills and across some frozen streams, and at last straight up the side of the tobogganing hill, and two more men fall out here, and all the rest are thrown on their backs with their heels in the air – what sailors call catching crabs.
“We – e, wee – e, woh – ip!”
The sledge comes to a standstill on the flat top of the mountain, and the dogs stand still also, their tongues lolling out, and panting.
The other sledge is coming up fast and furious, and soon is on the ground.
Then the fun begins.
Four men seat themselves on a tobogganing sledge, and others start them, – with a will too. Down they shoot, the others watching.
The sensation is like that of descending from a balloon with a sense of pleasure substituted for that of danger. The moon and stars are hardly seen by those bold tobogganers. Faster and faster, they can hardly believe they have fairly started till they are at the bottom, and – buried in the wreath of snow.
They are completely buried. Those above for some moments cannot see them at all.
Paddy O’Connell was in the first lot, and he declared that “the dacint burial at the foot av the hill was the best av it entoirely.”
The fun has fairly commenced, and sledge follows sledge down the mountain-side, sometimes three abreast. Even Claude himself and the doctor embark at last, both in the same boat, and find the sensation so delightful that they keep it up.
The dogs have exercise at this game too, for they have to gallop along the plateau to haul the sledges up again.
It is a mad scene and a merry one.
But lo! while the fun is at its fastest, “Look! look!” cried Dr Barrett, pointing skywards; and every eye is turned upwards.
A little purple cloud!
It was twelve o’clock and almost daylight.
What a shout rent the air then!
The sun would rise to-morrow.
Claude and Dr Barrett shook hands, but neither spoke; their hearts were too full. Perhaps both were at that moment breathing a prayer of thankfulness to the kind Father who had hitherto protected them from every danger and from sickness itself.
There were great doings that night in the Icebear and in the Icebear’s snow-house. A supper on board, a concert on shore!
Paddy’s Irish jig was pronounced to be “a caution out and out,” so the men phrased it.
Boy Bounce’s “break-down” almost outstripped it.
Even Byarnie must take the floor to dance all by himself a wild Norse “hoolichan.”
If you can imagine a rhinoceros tripping it on the light fantastic toe, then you see honest Byarnie. If you cannot, then I have only to confess that figures of speech fail me.
The doctor played a selection of airs on his violin, that the engineer, who, like most good engineers, was a Scotchman, declared made him “laugh and greet (cry) by turns.”
Why were those mariners – far away in the desolate regions of the Pole – so happy, so gay?
Because they were hopeful. The purple cloud had done it all. The sun was returning. The long Arctic night had received notice to quit, and in two or three months at most summer would be with them; they would accomplish the object of their adventurous voyage, and bear up for home.
Home! What a charm it has for a sailor’s heart!
Chapter Sixteen
The Sun’s Return – Hopes and Fears
Both Claude and the doctor were on a high hill-top next day to watch for the coming of the sun. Nor were they disappointed. About noon the sun duly put in an appearance, looking fiery-fierce and angry through a kind of blue-grey haze that lay along the horizon.
The doctor was ready prepared to take sights, and did so coolly enough, despite the sun’s angry glare – coolly in more ways than one, for as he could only work with bare hands, whenever his fingers came in contact with the brass parts of his instruments they seemed to freeze thereto, and the sensation was that of touching red-hot metal.
I do not know how it was, but after the sun had once more sunk, and twilight had commenced to deepen into night, the scenery of the bleak world around them – the rugged mountains, the rocks and cliffs that looked like bergs of ice, the wide expanse of snow-clad sea, with their vessel lying so cold and comfortless-looking – had a very saddening effect both on Claude and the doctor.
“It is like going back into the grave,” said Claude.
“Well,” the doctor replied, “we must not forget that the sun will – rise again to-morrow and stay a little longer with us, and so on, longer and longer, until he rises not to set again.”
“While we are here?”
“Yes, while we are here. I pray it may be so, for we ought to be out into blue open water by the beginning of August, and homeward bound.”
“Happy thought!” said Claude, after a pause; “I’ll send off another bird.”
“I would certainly do so; and say in your message the sun has come, that all is well and happy; give latitude and longitude exactly.”
“Do you really think these birds ever reach home?”
“Now,” said Dr Barrett, “that is a question that many would ask. Many doubt the capabilities of flight or home instincts of sea-birds. I am as firmly convinced that a seagull, which has been reared in captivity from an egg procured from the parent nest and hatched under a duck or fowl, can be made the best of carriers of messages over sea and land, as I am that the sun we have just seen will rise again to-morrow.”
“It is not that I altogether doubt it,” said Claude; “but you know the story I have confided to you about my love for Meta and my quarrel with my mother – alas! that I should have to give it so harsh a name. Well, although I do not doubt, I sometimes fear.”
“I can fully appreciate your feelings, my dear sir,” was the reply. “Rough old sea-dog though I be, I, too, have had my little romance in life. Yes, let the poor bird fly; it will reach in safety.”
But it may be as well to say at once here that the good doctor was rather sanguine, for of all the six sea-birds that had been, or would be, let fly, only two reached Iceland safely. One of these had been thrown up near Desolation Point; it was that bird which reached home.
“Ought I to communicate the safety of her son to the proud Lady Alwyn?” had been Meta’s thought on receiving the welcome intelligence. She dreaded doing so; she feared to put harder feelings in the lady’s heart against poor Claude than she already possessed. “Besides,” argued Meta, “the Kittywake will soon return and bring her the news that I do not doubt she is pining to hear, if she only loves him half as much as I do.”
The other bird that made its haven in Iceland, though I ought not to anticipate, was one of the last sent up. Of it I shall have more to say anon.
As soon as the day was an hour long, with about an hour of twilight on each side to back it up, Dr Barrett recommenced his explorations in earnest.
The ground all round the inland sea was of adamant; nor pick nor spade could dare on that. But to continue the mine begun the previous summer was far more feasible, for the snow that had filled it had kept out the frost.
Here, then, work was begun. It would keep the men at earnest exercise, at all events, the doctor said, and prevent sickness.
The mine was soon so far advanced as to be a perfect shelter for the workers, even daring the worst of weather.
When little morsels of nuggets of gold and silver came to be found the excitement grew intense. Even the hands who did not strictly belong to the surgeon’s party prayed the captain to permit them to “have a dig,” as they called it, in their spare moments.
And Claude did not refuse.
Rab McDonald, the third officer, was the first to make a lucky find. It was a nugget of pure gold as big as his thumb, and that was by no means a small one.
“Man! look!” he cried exultingly, showing it round to his fellows. “I’ll soon be as rich as Rothschild.”
His face fell somewhat when the doctor quietly told him that all the precious ore found belonged by rights to the company who had sent them out.
A good many more faces fell also, but when Claude explained that he would make such representations as would ensure a goodly percentage of the gold or silver dug out being given to the finders, the enthusiasm was restored, and all hands went to work with a will. For months the gold fever raged among the Icebear’s crew, from February till nearly the end of May, and even sports would have been forgotten in the excitement; but about twice a week Claude ordered all hands to play, if the weather was at all propitious. Then football was resumed, and Paddy’s wild game of tobogganing also, to say nothing of fishing. Fishing? you may repeat, in some surprise. Yes, dear reader. It was done so: a hole was made in the ice, and baited hooks were lowered through. But Jack and Joe despised such cultivated plans of proceeding to business, and, if the truth must be told, they were quite as successful, if not more so, than the British sailors. The tackle these Indians used and their method of using it were of the most primitive description. Each had his own ice-hole, each had a short gut line with a strong strangely shaped bone hook. This was lowered into the water, and if fish even snapped at it – and many did, for the fish are hungry in Greenland during winter – out they came, and they never got back.
The days got longer and longer now, and the weather got sensibly less cold, till lo, and behold! about the middle of April the sun rose one morning and announced his intention of not going to bed again for three months and more to come. At all events, he did not set that night. He only made pretence he would. He went so low on the northern horizon that our heroes fancied he meant disappearing altogether, then he began slowly climbing round again.
Do not imagine, however, that it was all sunshine even now. Far from it. There were terrible gales of wind now, and whirling, drifting snow that seemed to rise as high as the highest mountain peaks.
Some of these hills were evidently extinct volcanoes, but how long ago it might have been since fire and smoke belched from their lofty summits, even Dr Barrett himself would hardly have dared to guess. But working down in their mine one day, about the end of April, the men were startled at hearing a hollow, rumbling sound apparently far down beneath them; it was like the noise of waggon wheels rattling over a rough road, only muffled.
The surgeon and Claude were both in the mine at the time.
“Don’t be alarmed, men,” said the former; “you may safely go on with your work. It is the noise of steam you hear, or rather of water and steam combined. That sound was sent to tell us summer is coming. It is a way the earth has in Greenland.”
“You have heard something similar before?” asked Claude.
“I have, only not in Greenland proper, but in caves among the hills in Spitzbergen.”
Now, giant cataracts began to tumble down from the cliffs of the mountains, and roaring rivers and torrents appeared where rivers had not been suspected before. Water overflowed the inland sea all around the Icebear, making the snow slush, and rendering the passage to and from the shore not only difficult but even dangerous.
And this state of things increased, the sky being meanwhile thickly covered over with dark rolling cumulus, drifting onwards on the wings of a southern breeze. But in a day or two the wind fell flat, the clouds were lifted like a veil from east to west; in half an hour’s time there was not a cloud in the sky, and the sun shone down cold and clear. Strange adjectives to use when speaking of the sun, but none other could express my meaning, for this silver shield of a sun seemed shorn of its rays; you could look at it without pain or inconvenience, just as, raising my eyes, I now gaze upon the flame of the oil lamp by which I am writing.
At eight bells next morning, everybody both fore and aft having breakfasted once, and the boy Bounce twice at least, all hands were on deck waiting orders for the day. Presently the captain and surgeon came up, and took a turn or two up and down the quarter-deck, laughing and talking.
Then came the order, “Hands, lay aft.”
Claude himself addressed them, laughingly. He did not often say much face to face thus to his men.
“Men,” he said, “we’re going to have a forenoon on the ice.”
“Hurrah!” was the shout.
Round the ship, dear reader, and for no one knows how far out seaward, the water had been frozen into one smooth sheet of ice. Who could resist it?
All the skates in the ship were had up, and, although there were hardly enough, those who went without could slide. While the men waited the next order, there was a scream of terror sounded forward. The mate ran towards the fo’c’sle: there lay poor boy Bounce, bleeding; and standing over him, Datchet, the only black sheep in the ship.
“What do you want with skates, hey?” he was saying.
He had robbed boy Bounce.
When Mr Lloyd ordered Datchet below for the day, the look – nay, scowl – the man gave the mate was not easily forgotten.
But boy Bounce had the skates, his brow was bandaged, and when the order was given, “All hands over the side!” boy Bounce was first to jump, and was the merriest of all the mad and merry crew on that never-to-be-forgotten morning.
