Wild Adventures round the Pole

Sandy, like a wise surgeon, did not tell him the frost was quite gone. Joy kills, and Sandy knew it.

“Yes,” he said, carelessly, “we’ll get down south a few miles farther, I dare say. It is nice, though, isn’t it, to hear the old screw rattling round again?”

“Why, it is music, it is life?” said Rory. “Sandy, I’m going to be well again soon. I know and feel I am.”

Then Ralph burst into the cabin.

“I say, Sandy,” he said, “run and see dear old Allan; he says he is going to get up, and I know he is far, far too weak.”

Sandy had to pass through the saloon. Freezing Powders was sitting bolt upright in the corner, and Cockie was apparently mad with joy. The bird couldn’t speak fast enough, and he seemed bent on choking himself with hemp.

“Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter,” he was saying, “here’s a pretty, pretty, pretty to-do. Call the steward, call the steward. Come on, come on, come on.”

“Oh, Cockie,” Freezing Powders said, “I’se drefful, drefful cold, Cockie. ’Spects I’se gwine to die, Cockie. ’Spects I is – Oh! de-ah, what my ole mudder say den?”

“Come, come,” cried Sandy, “take this, you young sprout, and don’t let me catch you talking about dying. There now, pull yourself together.”

“I’ll try,” said the poor boy, “but I ’spects I’se as pale as deaf (death).”

Chapter Thirty Five.

The Rescue – Homeward Bound – All’s Well that Ends Well

I never have been able to learn with a sufficient degree of exactitude whether it was the Polar Star that first sighted the Arrandoon, or whether the Arrandoon was the first to catch a glimpse of the Polar Star. And with such conflicting evidence before me, I do not see very well how I could.

What evidence have I before me, do you ask? Why the logs of the two ships, written by their two captains respectively. I give below a portion of two extracts, both relating to the joyful event. Extract first from the log of the good yacht Polar Star: – “June 21st, 18 – . At seven bells in the forenoon watch – ice heavy and wind about a south-south-west – caught sight of the Arrandoon’s topmasts bearing about a north and by east. Praise God for all His goodness.” Extract second, from the log of the Arrandoon: – “June 21st, 18 – . Seven bells in the forenoon watch – a hail from the crow’s-nest, ‘A schooner among the ice to the south’ard and west of us, can just raise her topmasts, think she is bearing this way.’ Heaven be praised, we are saved.”

Yes, dear reader, the Arrandoon was saved. The news that a vessel was in sight spread through the ship like wildfire; those that were hale and well rushed on deck, the sick tottered up, and all was bustle and excitement, and the cheer that arose from stem to stern reminded McBain of the good old times, a year ago, when every man Jack of his crew was alive and well.

It had been a very narrow escape for them, for, although not far from the open water where the Polar Star lay with foreyard aback, they were unable to reach it, being once more frozen in, and had not good Silas appeared at the time he did, probably in a few weeks at most there would not have been a single human being living on board the lordly Arrandoon.

No sooner had Silas satisfied himself with his own eyes that it was the Arrandoon that lay ice-bound to the nor’ard of him, than he called away the boats and gave orders to load them with the best of everything, and to follow his whaler.

His whaler took the ice just as eight bells were struck on the Polar Star, and next moment, guided by the fan in the crow’s-nest of the yacht, he was hastening over the rough ice towards the Arrandoon.

McBain and his boys, and the doctor as well, were all on deck, when who should heave round the corner of an iceberg but Captain Silas Grig himself, looking as rosy and ten times more happy than they had last seen him.

He was still about fifty yards away, and for a moment or two he stood undecided; it seemed, indeed, that he wished not to walk but to jump or fly the remaining fifty intervening yards. Then he took off his cap, and – Scotch fashion – tossed it as high into the air as he possibly could.

“Arrandoon, ahoy!” he shouted. “Arrandoon, ahoy! Hurrah!”

There was not a soul on board that did not run aft to meet Silas as he sprang up the side. Even Freezing Powders, with Cockie on his shoulder, came wondering up, and Peter must needs get out his bagpipes and strike into The Campbells are coming.

And when Silas found himself once more among his boys, and shaking hands with them all round; when he noticed the pale faces of Allan and Rory, and the pinched visage of the once strong and powerful McBain, and read in their weak and tottering gait the tale of all their sufferings, then it must be confessed that the bluff old mariner had to turn hastily about and address himself to others in order to hide a tear.

“Indeed, gentlemen all,” said Silas, many, many months after this, “when I saw you all looking so peaky and pale, as I first jumped down on to your quarter-deck, I never felt so near making an old ass o’ myself in all my born days!”

For three weeks longer the Arrandoon lay among the ice before she got fairly clear, and, consorted by the Polar Star, bore up for home. Three weeks – but they were not badly spent – three weeks, and all that time was needed to restore our invalids to robust health. And that only shows how near to death’s door they must have been, because to make them well they had the best medicine this world can supply, and Silas Grig was the physician.

“Silas Grig! Silas Grig!” cried Rory, one morning at breakfast, about a fortnight after the reunion, “sure you’re the best doctor that ever stepped in shoe-leather! No wonder we are all getting fat and rosy again! First you gave us a dose of hope – we got that before you jumped on board; then you gave us joy – a shake of your own honest hand, the sound of your own honest voice, and letters from home. What care I that my tenantry – ‘the foinest pisintry in the world’ – haven’t paid up? I’ve had letters from Arrandoon. What, Ray boy! more salmon and another egg? Just look at the effects of your physic, Dr Silas Grig!”

Silas laughed. “But,” he said, “there is one thing you haven’t mentioned.”

“Tell us,” said Rory: “troth, it’s a treat to hear ye talking?”

“The drop o’ green ginger,” said Silas.

Nor were these three weeks spent in idleness, for during that time the whole ship, from stem to stern, was redecorated; and when at last she was once more clear of the ice, once more out in the blue, she looked as bran new and as span new as on the day when she steamed down the wide, romantic Clyde.

I do not know any greater pleasure in life than that of being homeward bound after a long, long cruise at sea, —

“Good news from home, good news for me,
Has come across the deep blue sea.”

So runs the song. Good news from home is certainly one of the rover’s joys, but how much more joyous it is to be “rolling home, rolling home” to get that good news, eye to eye and lip to lip!

Once fairly under way, the weather seemed to get warmer every day. They reached Jan Mayen in a week; they found the rude village deserted, and Captain Cobb they would never be likely to meet again. So they left the island, and on the wings of a favouring breeze bore away for Iceland. Here Sandy McFlail, Doctor of Medicine of the University of Aberdeen, and surgeon of the good ship Arrandoon, begged to be left. Ah! poor Sandy was sadly in love with that blue-eyed, fair-haired Danish maiden. He fairly confessed to Rory, who had previously promised not to laugh at him, “that he had never seen a Scotch lassie to equal her, and that if she weren’t a ‘doctor’s leddy’ before six months were over it would not be his, Sandy McFlail’s, fault.”

“You are quite right, Sandy,” said Rory in reply – “quite right; and do you know what it will be, Sandy?”

“What?” asked Sandy.

“A vera judeecious arrangement,” cried Rory, running off before Sandy had a chance of catching him by the ear and making him “whustle.”

But right fervent were the wishes for the doctor’s welfare when he bade his friends adieu. And, —

“You’ll be sure to send us a piece o’ the bride-cake,” said Ralph.

“I’m no vera sure,” said Sandy, “if it will ever come the length o’ bride-cake. But,” he added, bravely, “a body can only just try.”

“Bravo!” cried Allan; “whatever a true man honestly dares he can do.”

“And it’s sure to come right in the end,” said Rory.

So away went Sandy’s boat, and away went the Arrandoon, firing the farewell guns, and as gaily bedecked in flags as if it had been Sandy’s wedding morning.

The Arrandoon sailed nearly all the way home, for a favouring breeze was blowing, and with stunsails set, low and aloft, she looked like some gigantic sea-bird; and bravely, too, the little Polar Star kept her in sight. As for Silas, he did not live on board his own ship at all, but on board the Arrandoon. There was so much to be said and to say that they could not spare him.

The inhabitants of Glentruim turned out en masse to welcome the wanderers home. It was a day long to be remembered in that part of the Highlands of Scotland. The young chief, Allan McGregor, was not allowed to walk across one inch of his own grounds towards his castle of Arrandoon – no, nor to ride nor to drive; he must even be carried shoulder high, while slogans rent the air, and blue bonnets darkened it, and claymores were drawn and waved aloft, and the dogs all went daft, and danced about, barking at everybody, plainly showing that they had taken leave of their senses for one day, and weren’t a bit ashamed of having done so.

Behind the procession marched Freezing Powders, with Cockie on his shoulder. The poor bird did not know what to make of all this Highland din, all this wild rejoicing. But he evidently enjoyed it.

“Keep it up, keep it up, keep it up?” he cried; “here’s a pretty, pretty, pretty to-do! Go on, go on! Come on, come on – ha! ha! ha! ha! Lal de dal de dal lei al!”

And off went Cockie into the maddest dance that ever legs of bird performed. And Freezing Powders got frightened at last, and tried to lecture the bird into a quieter state of mind.

“I ’ssure you, Cockie,” said Freezing Powders, “you is overdoin’ it. Try to ’llay your feelin’s, Cockie – try to ’llay your feelin’s. As sure as nuffin’ at all, Cockie, you’ll have a drefful headache in de mornin’.”