Born to Wander: A Boy's Book of Nomadic Adventures

“Time flew on, sirs. The auld laird was fond o’ fishing. There were poachers in plenty in those days, and the laird was kind to them. Let them only leave his ’45 pike alane, and they might take a’ the trouts in the stream. But in later times, when the auld laird got aulder still, cockneys came, and they were no sae particular, and one day an English body hooked and brought the pike on shore. He had the gaff raised to hit him on the head, when all of a sudden the gaff was knocked out of his hand, and he found himsel’ just where the pike had come frae, wallowin’ in the middle o’ the pot. (A large pool in a river is so called in Scotland.)

“That same nicht, lang past, the shortest hour o’t, when everybody was fast asleep but mysel’, two o’ the Faas came to the auld hoose. They had the half-dead fish, with the bonnie gowden band around his tail, in a pot. And together we went to the loch and ploupit him in. The owlets were cryin’ and the branches o’ the pine trees creakin’ in the wind, and if I live to be as auld as Methuselah, I’m no likely to forget that eerie-some nicht. But, heigho! Joe is dead and awa’, and the hoose o’ Glen Lyle is tottering near its fall. Wae’s me that I should hae lived to see the like!”

Captain Fitzroy. “Drink that China tea, Peter, and things will look far more cheerful.”

Long before the major’s departure things do look more cheerful.

Ethel, hope in her heart now, has brought out her harp, and is bending over it while she sings a plaintive old Scotch ballad, while the rest sit listening round. The setting sun is throwing tall rock shadows over the blue sea. The waves seem to form a drowsy accompaniment to the harp’s wild notes, and the sea-birds are shrieking their good-night song. Let us leave them, and hie us away to the far north and west.

Scene Two: Summer in the Arctic seas. A little Indian village to the north of Cumberland Gulf. Yet not all Indian, for then; are houses here now as well as Eskimo huts, and white men are moving about busy at work, in company with the little brown-skinned, skin-clad natives.

Had the shipwrecked crew of the Fairy Queen landed on the south side of the Cumberland Gulf or Sound, it is probable they would have made an attempt to find their way through Labrador to some English or other foreign settlement. But this gulf is a sea in itself, and they had no boats, while the kayaks of the natives were far too frail, even if they had been numerous enough, to be of much use.

They had to be content, therefore, to remain prisoners where they were until the long night of winter set in.

They were not idle. Indeed, the life they now led was far from unpleasant while summer lasted. It was a very wild one. There were deer and game on the hills, and every stream teemed with fish, to say nothing of the strange creations that inhabited the sea-shore.

Among other things saved from the wreck of the Fairy Queen, and safely landed by Captain Blunt’s party, were guns and a goodly store of ammunition, which they had managed to keep dry.

What with fishing and hunting, manufacturing sledges and training the dogs, the time fled very quickly indeed.

The days flew quickly by, and autumn came; then they got shorter and shorter, till at length the sun showed his face for the last time, and after this all was night.

In a month more everything was ready for the journey south.

So memorable a march, too, has seldom been made. Some of my readers may ask why they chose the winter season for their departure. For this reason: they could go straight along the coast, winding only round the mountains. In summer the gulfs and streams would have formed an insurmountable barrier, but now these were hard as adamant.

All being ready, and the friendly Indians accompanying them to the number of twenty or more, to act as guides and see to the care of the dogs, they left the Esquimo village about the end of October, and were soon far away on the silent, lonely midst of the Cumberland Gulf.

Luckily Captain Blunt had saved his compass, else even the almost unerring instinct of the natives would have failed to steer them across the ice. Had it been clear weather all the time the stars would have been sufficient to keep them right, but storms came on long before they had got over the gulf. And such storms! Nothing in this country could ever equal them in fury and confusion. Not the wildest winter’s day that ever raged among the lone Grampian Hills could be compared to them. The winds seem to meet and unite in and from all directions. The snow filled the air. It did not only fall; it rose, and the darkness was intense. To proceed in the face of such terrible weather was of course impossible. Dogs and men huddled together in the lee of an iceberg; it was found at times almost impossible to breathe.

They encountered more than one of these fearful storms; but at last the sky cleared, the stars and the radiant aurora-bow danced and flickered in the air above them, and after a week of toil they had crossed the gulf, and stood on terra firma on the shores of Labrador.

But their trials were only beginning. They found they could not make so straight a way as they had at first imagined, owing to the mountains and rough state of the country.

These men, however, were British – their hearts were hearts of oak – so they struggled on and on, happy, when each day was over, to think they were a step nearer their native land. The dogs were staunch and true, and the natives simple, honest, and kind.

To recount all the hardships of this journey, which occupied in all four long months, would take a volume in itself. Let me give a brief sketch of just One Day’s March.

They are well down in the middle of Labrador. Hardened as Leonard and Douglas now are, and almost as much inured to the cold as the Indian guides themselves, the bitterness of the night just gone has almost killed them.

All the camp, however, is astir hours before the stars have given place to the glaring light of a short, crisp winter’s day. Dogs are barking and howling for their breakfast, and the men are busy preparing their own and that of their officers. It is indeed a meagre one – sun-dried fish and meat, with snow to eat instead of tea or coffee, that is all. But they have appetites; it is enough, and they are thankful.

Then sledges are got ready, and the dogs having been fed and harnessed, Captain Blunt and his young friends put on their snowshoes, and all in camp follow his example.

Then the start is made. The pace is slow, though the dogs would go more quickly if allowed. Their path winds through a rough and broken glen at first, and at sunrise scouts are sent on ahead to spy out the land from a mountain top. They can see but little, however; only hill piled o’er hill and crag o’er crag.

They cross a wild frozen stream, and at sunrise rejoice to find themselves on the borders of a broad lake. It will be all plain sailing now for some hours to come.

But, alas! the wind gets up, and there is no shelter of any kind here. On a calm day one can walk and keep warm with the thermometer far below zero. But with a cutting wind the cold and the suffering are a terrible punishment.

The wind blows higher and higher. It tears across the frozen lake – a bitter, biting, cutting blast; there is hardly any facing it. Even dogs and Indians bend their heads downwards, and present their shoulders to the wind.

The skin garments of the Esquimos, the coats of the dogs, and beards and hair of the sailors are massed and lumped with frozen snow, and cheeks and ears are coated with ice as if they had been glazed.

Struggling on thus for hours, they cross the lake at last, and gain the shelter of a pine wood. Here wood is gathered, and after much ado a fire is lighted. They dare only look at it at first, for well they know the danger that would accrue from going too near it. But this in itself is something, so they begin to talk, and even to laugh, though the laugh hangs fire on their frozen lips, and sounds half idiotic.

On again, keeping more into shelter; and so on and on all the day, till, despite all dangers and difficulties, they have put fifteen miles betwixt them and the camp-fire of the previous evening.

They find themselves in the shelter of some ice-clad rocks at last, with ice-clad pine trees nodding over them, and here determine to bivouac for the night.

The wind has gone down. The sun is setting – a glorious sunset it is – amidst clouds of crimson, gold, and copper.

How delightful is this supper of dried fish and broiled deer now! They almost feel as if they had dined off roast beef and plum pudding. So beds are prepared with boughs and blankets and skins, a prayer is said, a hymn is sung, and soon our heroes forget the weary day’s journey, their aching, blistered feet, and stiff and painful joints.

Ah! but the cold – the cold! No, they cannot forget that. They are conscious of it all the night, and awake in the morning stiffer almost than when they lay down.

During all their long and toilsome march our heroes never saw a single bear nor met a hostile Indian. But the country now, I am told, is peopled by nomadic tribes.

Civilisation at long, long last. Only a little fisher village, but men dwell there who speak the English tongue, and a right hearty welcome do they accord to the wanderers.

Book Two – Chapter Seven

A Saturday Night at Sea

“Meanwhile some rude Arion’s restless hand
Wakes the brisk harmony that sailors love;
A circle there of merry listeners stand,
Or to some well-known measure featly move,
Thoughtless as if on shore they still were free to rove.”

Scene: The upper deck of a barque in mid-Atlantic, homeward bound. Sailors dancing amidships to the music of flute and fiddle. Aft, under an awning, a table is spread, at which sit Leonard, Douglas, Captain Blunt, with the skipper of the vessel, and one of his officers.

Skipper James, of the timber barque Black-eyed Susan, was a sailor of the good old school. He was homeward bound, and happening to call at a village on the west shore of Newfoundland, he heard that a shipwrecked crew of his countrymen were residing at a small fishing station on the Labrador coast. He did not hesitate a moment. He put about, and sailed back right away to the nor’ard and west and took every soul on board. Men like Skipper James, I fear, are, nowadays, like angels’ visits, few and far between. Ah! and they are angels, too, when you find them; rough enough to all outward appearance, perhaps, but good in the main, and men, too, who carry their hearts upon their sleeves.

Skipper James and our heroes got friendly at once. And before they were three days on board they felt as if they had known this kindly skipper all their lives.

“My ship’s only a rough one,” he had told them frankly; “and your fare may not be first-class; but by my song, gentlemen, you are right welcome to the best I have.”

It was a Saturday night. They had been three weeks at sea, with fine weather nearly all the time, so no wonder all hands were happy, fore and aft.

Now I have said that this skipper was an old-fashioned sailor, and so he was; and this being Saturday night, he determined, as he always did, that his men should enjoy themselves forward as much as the officers aft. There was singing, therefore, and dancing, and sea-pie. A glorious sea-pie steamed on the table of the quarter-deck, and a dozen of the same sort aft.

Rory O’Reilly was the mate’s name; the life and soul of the mess he was. He could sing a song or tell a story with any one.

“Dear Captain James,” he said to-night, “do tell us a story. Do you believe in the sarpint, sorr?”

Captain James quietly finished his second plate of sea-pie, and put the plate in a corner so stayed up that the ship’s motion could not displace it. For this skipper was a most methodical man. Then he took his old brown clay with its tin lid, and proceeded to fill it. He shook out the “dottle,” as the unburned portion of tobacco in the bottom was called, and put it carefully on Rory O’Reilly’s open palm, held out in a friendly and obliging way for James’s benefit. Then he loaded up to near the top with fresh cut, broke up the dottle and put that above, then pinched up the dust and put that over all, then slowly and solemnly lit up. When he had blown a few blasts of such density of volume that further proofs of the pipe’s being well lit up were needless, the skipper cleared his throat and commenced —