The Cruise of the Snowbird: A Story of Arctic Adventure

So Rory had rather a long face when he came aft again, which was something most unusual for Rory. But his was the nature that is easily cast down, and just as easily elevated again. His spirits were about zero before dinner; they rose somewhat during that meal, and fell once more when the cloth was removed.

“Do you think,” asked Ralph of McBain, “that the frost will hold?”

“Oh,” cried Rory, “don’t talk of the frost! sure it is the provokingest thing that ever was, that the three of us should have forgotten our skates. I’m going to get my fiddle.”

“Wait a moment,” said McBain.

“Steward,” he continued, “serve out warm clothing to-morrow for these young gentlemen, and remind them to put on their pea-jackets; we are going to have such a frost as you never even dreamt of in Scotland. Don’t forget to put them on, boys; and Peter, ‘dubbing’ for the boots mind, no more paste blacking.”

“Ay, ay, sir!” said Peter.

“And don’t forget the paper blankets.”

“That I won’t, sir!” from Peter.

Now while McBain was speaking Rory’s face was a study; the clouds were fast disappearing from his brow, his eye was getting brighter every moment. At last, up he jumped, all glee and excitement.

“Hurrah!” he cried, seizing the captain by the hand. “It is true, isn’t it? Oh! you know what I’d be saying. The skates, you know! Never expect me to believe that the man who thought beforehand about warm clothes for his boys, and dubbing and paper blankets, was unmindful of their pleasures as well.”

“Peter, bring the box,” said McBain, quietly laughing.

Peter brought the box, and a large one it was too.

Three dozen pairs of the best skates that ever glided over the glassy surface of pond or lake.

Rory looked at them for a moment, then admiringly at McBain.

“I was going to get my fiddle,” says Rory, “and it would be a pity to spoil a good intention; but troth, boys, it isn’t a lament I’ll be playing now, at all, at all.”

Nor was it. Rory’s fiddle spoke – it laughed, it screamed; it told of all the joyousness of the boy’s heart, and it put everybody in the same humour that he himself and his fiddle were in.

Next morning broke bright and clear; Rory and Allan were both up even before the stars had faded, and by the time they had enjoyed the luxury of the morning tub – for that they meant to keep up all the year round, being quite convinced of the good of it – and dressed themselves, laughing and joking all the time, Peter had the breakfast laid and ready.

The ice was hard and solid as steel, and glittered like crystal in the rays of the morning sun, and you may be sure our heroes made the best of it, and not they alone, but one half at least of the yacht’s officers and crew. The whole day was given up to the enchanting amusement of skating, and to frolic and fun. Wonderful to say, old Ap proved himself quite an adept in the art, and the figures this little figure-head of a man cut, and the antics he performed, astonished every one.

But Seth, alas! was but a poor show; he never had had skates on his feet before, so his attempts to keep upright were ridiculous in the extreme. But Seth did not mind that a bit, and his pluck was of a very exalted order, for, much as his anatomy must have been damaged by the innumerable falls he got, he was no sooner down than he was up again. Allan and Ralph took pity on him at last, and taking each a hand of the old man, glided away down the ice with him crowing with delight.

“But, sure, then,” cried Rory, “and it’s myself will have a partner too.”

And so he linked up with old Ap, old Ap in paper cap and immensity of apron, Rory in pilot coat and Tam o’ Shanter. What a comical couple they looked! Yes, I grant you they looked comical, but what of that? Their skating far eclipsed anything in the field, and there really was no such thing as tiring either Ap or Rory.

And hadn’t they appetites for dinner that day! Allan’s haunch of venison smoked on the board; and Stevenson, Mitchell, and the mate of the Trefoil had been invited to partake, as there was plenty for everybody, and some to send forward afterwards.

“Now,” said McBain, after the cloth had been removed, and cups of fragrant coffee had been duly discussed, “what say you, gentlemen, if we leave the Snowbird to herself for an hour or two, pipe all hands over the side, and go on shore and open the new hall?”

“A grand idea!” cried Ralph and Allan in a breath. “Capital!” said Rory.

And in less than an hour, reader, everything was prepared: a great fire of logs and coals was cracking and blazing on the ample hearth of the hall, a fire that warmed the place from end to end, a fire at which an ox might have been roasted. The piano had been transported on shore; at this instrument Ralph presided, and near him stood Rory, fiddle in hand. McBain was duly elected chairman, and the impromptu concert had commenced. The officers occupied the front seats, the men sat respectfully on forms in the rear. Had you been there you would have observed, too, that the crew had paid some little attention to their toilet before coming on shore; they had doffed their work-a-day clothing, and donned their best. Even Ap had laid aside his immensity of apron, and came out in navy blue, and Seth was once again encased in that brass-buttoned coat of his, and looked, as Rory said, “all smiles, from top to toe.”

McBain felt himself in duty bound to make a kind of formal speech before the music began. He could be pithy and to the point if he couldn’t be eloquent.

“Officers and men,” he said, “of the British yacht, Snowbird, – We are met here to-night to try, – despite the fact, which nobody minds, that we are far from our native land, – if we can’t spend a pleasant evening. We have been together now for many months, together in sunshine and storm, together in our dangers, together in our pleasures, and I don’t think there has ever been an unpleasant word spoken fore or aft, nor has a grumbler ever lifted up his voice. But we have a long dreary winter before us, and perils perhaps to pass through which we little wot of. But as we’ve stood together hitherto, so will we to the end, let it be sweet or let it be bitter. And it is our duty to help keep up each other’s hearts. I purpose having many such meetings here as the present, and let us just make up our minds to amuse and be amused. Everybody can do something if he tries; he who cannot sing can tell a story, and if there be any one single mother’s son amongst us who is too diffident to do anything, why just let him keep a merry face on his figure-head, and, there, we’ll forgive him! That’s all.”

McBain sat down amidst a chorus of cheers, and the music began. Ralph played a battle piece. That suited his touch to a “t,” Rory told him, and led an encore as soon as it was finished. Then Rory himself had to come to the front with his fiddle, and he played a selection of Irish airs, arranged by himself. Then there was a duet between Allan and Ralph; then McBain himself strode on the stage with a stirring old Highland song, that brought his hearers back to stirring old Highland times in the feudal days of old, when men flew fiercely to sword and claymore, as the fiery cross was borne swiftly through the glen, and wrong had to be righted in the brave old fashion. Stevenson followed suit with a sea song; he had a deep bass voice, and his rendering of “Tom Bowling” was most effective.

It was Rory’s turn once more. He brought out a real Irish shillalah from somewhere, stuck his hat, with an old clay pipe in it, on one side of his head, and gave the company a song so comical, with a brogue so rich, that he quite brought down the house. It was not one encore, but two he got; in fact, he became the hero of the evening. Both Mitchell and the mate of the Trefoil found something to sing, and Ap and Magnus something to say if they couldn’t sing. Magnus’s story was as weird and wild as he looked himself while telling it; Ap’s was a simple relation of a daring deed done at sea during the herring-fishery season. After this Seth spun one of his trapper yarns, and the music began again. A sailor’s hornpipe this time – a rattling nerve-jogging tune that set the men all on a fidget. They beat time with their fingers, they tapped a tattoo with their toes; and when they couldn’t stand it a moment longer, why they simply started up in a bold and manly British fashion, cleared the floor, and gave vent to their feelings through their legs and their feet.

The dancing became fast and furious after that, and when Ralph and Rory were tired of playing they came to the floor, and Peter took their place with his bagpipes. But the longest time has an end, and at last Ap’s shrill pipe summoned all hands on board.

There was little need of sleeping-draughts for any one on board the Snowbird that night.

The frost held, our heroes could tell that before they left their beds, so intensely cold was it. Glad were they now of the addition of the paper blankets served out by Peter; eider-down quilts could hardly have made them feel more comfortable.

The frost held, they could tell that when they went to their tubs. Peter had placed the water in each bath only an hour before, but the ice was already so hard that instead of getting in at once Rory squatted down to look at it, and he did not like the looks of it either. The sponge was as hard as a sledge-hammer, so he took that to break the ice with. Then he tried one foot in, and quickly drew it out again and shook it. The water felt like molten lead.

“I wonder now,” he said to himself, “if brother Ralph will venture on a cold plunge on such a morning as this.”

And, wondering thus, he rolled his shoulders up in his door-curtain, and, poking his head into the passage, hailed Ralph.

“Hullo, there!” he cried; “Ralph! Porpy!”

“Hullo!” cried Ralph; “I’ll Porpy you if I come into your den!”

“Well, but tell me this, old man,” said Rory; “I want to know if you’re going to do a flounder this morning?”

“To be sure!” said Ralph. “Listen!”

Rory listened, and could hear him plashing.

McBain passed along at the moment, and, hearing the conversation, he took part in it to this extent, —

“Boys that don’t have their baths don’t have their breakfasts.”

“In that case,” said Rory, “I’m in too!” And next moment he was plashing away like a live dolphin. But hardly was he dressed than there came all over him such a glorious warm glow, that he would have gone through the same ordeal again had there been any occasion. At the same time he felt so exhilarated in spirits that nothing would serve him but he must burst into song.

The frost held, they could tell that when they met in the saloon and glanced at the windows; the tracery thereon was so beautiful, that even at the risk of letting his breakfast get cold, Rory must needs run for his sketch-book and make two pictures at least. Meanwhile, Ralph had settled down to serious eating. You see, there was very little poetry about honest Ralph, he was more solid than imaginative.

After breakfast our trio took to the ice again. They soon had evidence that some one had been there before them, for about a mile along the shore, and a little way out to sea, they saw that several poles had been planted, and on each pole fluttered a red flag. They looked inquiringly at McBain.

“You wonder what the meaning of that is?” said McBain; “and I myself cannot altogether explain it.”

“But you had the flags placed there?”

“True,” said McBain; “and they are placed around a pool of open water.”

“Open water!” exclaimed Rory, “and the sea frozen everywhere all around!”

“Ah, yes!” replied McBain; “that is the mystery. But we are in the land of mysteries. This pool of open water may be situated over a warm spring, or it may be there is some kind of a whirlpool there which prevents the formation of the ice, only there it is, sure enough, and howsoever hard the frost should become, or howsoever long it may last, I think that that pool will never, never close and freeze.