Harry awoke next morning cold and shivering; his companion, Harold, the
mastiff, had left him. He started up. It was broad daylight, and the
men were having breakfast, and chaffing and laughing, and all as happy
as sailors can be.
It was not long before he noticed his friend the second mate coming
below, so he started up and went to meet him.
"What cheer, my sonny!" said Wilson--for that was his name.
"Come along through to the half-deck," he continued, "and have some
coffee. That'll put you straight."
He led Harry on deck.
The sea seemed mountains high. Great green waves, with combing, curling
tops, that every moment threatened the good ship with destruction, so it
seemed to Harry.
"What an awful sea?"
"Awful sea, sonny?" laughed Mr Wilson. "Call that an awful sea? Ha!
ha! Wait a bit, my boy."
They went down another ladder into the second officer's quarters. Here
also lived the spectioneer or third mate, the carpenter, and the cooper,
and an extra gunner.
A rough kind of a cabin, with a table in the middle a stove with a
roaring fire in it, and bunks all round.
"Mates," said Mr Wilson, "this is the youngster I was speaking about;
I'm going to have him in my watch. He doesn't know much; in fact, I
don't think he knows he's born yet."
"What's your name, sonny?"
"Harold Milvaine."
"Well, Harold Milvaine, have some breakfast; you look as white as a
churchyard deserter."
"Because--because I've such a dreadful story to tell you."
"Well, eat first."
Harry did so, and felt better.
"Now sit down on the locker, put your toes to the fire. That's right.
Now, heave round with this dreadful yarn of yours. Listen, mates."
Without a moment's hesitation, though looking very serious, Harry told
them all his story from the commencement.
"Well," said the mate, "it isn't so very dreadful after all, but I think
you ought to see Captain Hardy at once. What say you, mates?"
"That's right," said the carpenter; "I'd go at once."
The captain was in his cabin, and kindly bade them both sit down.
Then, at the instigation of the second mate, Harry told all his story
over again.
"A plain, unvarnished tale," said Captain Hardy, when he had finished.
"There is truth in the lad's eyes, Mr Wilson. But tell me, youngster,
why did you not explain to the mate the purpose for which you came on
board?"
"He would not let me say one single word, sir."
"True enough," said the mate, coming out of his state-room laughing.
"The boy is right, sir; I took him for some hand you had engaged and
sent him flying for'ard."
"But look here, lad, when you heard us stamping round and heaving in the
anchor, why did you not come up and speak to me? I would have put you
on shore again at once."
"Oh, thank you, sir, but I didn't know. I heard music, and I thought
you were all dancing, and wouldn't sail till Monday, and then--I fell
asleep."
"Ha! ha! ha! there will be little dancing in our heads, boy, till we're
full to the hatches with skins and blubber; then we'll dance, won't we,
Wilson?"
"That we will, sir."
"Well, well, boy, it is curious. I'm half inclined to be angry, but I
daresay you couldn't help it. And I don't know what to do with you."
"Oh, I don't want wages; only just let me remain in the ship."
"Let you remain in the ship? Why, what else can I do? We'll never
touch land again, lad, till we go back to Lerwick. Do you think I'd
pitch you overboard as they did Jonah?"
"As for wages," he continued, "nobody stops in my ship that isn't paid.
But tell me now, I seem to know your face--have I seen you before?"
"I saw you at Miss Mitford's, sir."
"Whew-w-w," whistled the captain, "that accounts for the milk in the
cocoanut."
"She gave you some beautiful rib--"
"That'll do, boy, that'll do," cried Captain Hardy, interrupting him.
"Well I'll rate you as second steward, and as you say you want to learn
to be a sailor you can join the second mate's watch."
"I'll have him, sir," said Wilson, briskly.
Harry's heart was too full to speak, but from that moment he determined
to do his duty and prove his gratitude.
Duty! what a sacred thing it is, and how noble the man or boy who never
shirks it, be that duty what it may!
Duty--though thy lot be lowly,
God's broad arrow though art seen,
Making very triflers holy,
And exalting what were mean;
In this thought the poor may revel,
That, obeying Duty's word,
Lowliness is on a level
With my lady or my lord.
Captain Hardy soon found out Harry's worth. He could trust him
implicitly, for the boy was far too manly to tell a falsehood, even to
hide a fault.
The worthy captain, however, seemed really astonished when the boy told
him he was not twelve years of age.
He had guessed him at nearly sixteen.
"Never mind," he said, with a smile, "you've been growing too fast,
you've been growing to the length. The cold will alter that, and you'll
grow to the breadth."
Cold? It was indeed cold, and the farther north the good ship went the
colder it got, the more fiercely blew the wind, and the higher and
wilder were the seas. Harry slept in a bunk in the half-deck, and used
to amuse his mates by telling them stories, composed on the spot; he had
an excellent imagination, and on these occasions made good use of it.
The fire was kept in all the livelong night, but, notwithstanding, the
bunks and the counterpane used to be thickly snowed over long before
morning with the frozen breath of the sleepers.
The days were terribly short, and the nights dark and gloomy in the
extreme.
About a week after the good ship sailed she fell in with streams, first
of wet snow, then of small pieces of ice that cannonaded against the
ship's side with a terrific noise.
Now the crow's nest or look-out barrel was hoisted at the main-truck.
Harry astonished the second mate, and every one who saw him, by getting
up to this giddy altitude the very second day.
The captain had been up there for hours and sang down for a cup of
coffee.
The steward was too much of a landsman to venture, so Harry volunteered.
"_My_ sonny," said Wilson, "you'll break your neck."
"I've climbed trees as tall as that in Benbuie forest," was Harry's
reply.
The warm coffee was put in a tin bottle, and up Harry spun with it.
Hand over hand he went with all the agility of a monkey.
He sat in the nest till the captain had finished. Sat delightedly too,
for the sea-scape, visible all around, was splendid, and he had a
feeling that he was flying in the air with no ship beneath him whatever,
as happy and free as the wild sea-birds that were whirling and screaming
around him in the sky. The lovely sea-gulls, the malleys, the dusky
skuas, and the snow-white sea-swallows--they charmed Harry beyond
measure.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
But a fierce gale of wind blew from the north-east, and lying to, the
_Inuita_ was drifted away off from the ice and far, far out of her
course.
This gale continued for ten days off and on. Boats were smashed, a
top-mast carried away, the bulwarks were splintered, and two poor
fellows were washed overboard.
Their cries for assistance--the assistance that none could render them--
were heart-rending. They were both strong swimmers, which only made the
bitterness of death ten times more bitter.
But the sky cleared at last, the wind blew fair, and in ten days more
they had sighted the main pack of ice lying to the north and east of the
lonely island of Jan Mayen. Named after its discoverer--rugged, rocky,
and snowy--it rises boldly from the frozen sea, and after forming a
number of smaller hills, or rather mountains, shoots abruptly into the
clear icy sky to a height of 6,000 feet, shaped like a cone or an
immense loaf of sugar. Although volcanic fires once have gleamed from
the lofty summit of this mountain, old King Winter now sits here alone,
Vulcan has deserted him, without leaving him a spark to heat his toes.
This is indeed the throne of King Winter, and looking down, his cold eye
scans his icy region, stretching for many and many a mile over the
Greenland sea. On this isle of desolation few have ever trod, and the
few who have visited it have no desire to return. Around its crags
flutters the snow-bird, and the ice-bear crouches in his den among its
rocks; the great black seal, the sea-horse, and the lonely walrus float
around it, or find shelter near it from the storm or tempest; but
nothing else of life is ever found on its deserted and inhospitable
shores.
Seals were seen on the ice the very next day, and the work of
destruction commenced. It was a sickening scene. So thought young
Harry.
Many years ago the present writer described it in the following
language:
Great is the cruelty practised during young sealing. Seldom do the men
take time to kill the creatures they catch, but set about flaying them
alive, and a young seal is so much more pretty and innocent-looking than
even a lamb. This they say they do to save time, but could they not
kill so many seals first, say a thousand, and then commence to flay
those first struck, which would then be quite dead? As an experiment, I
have seen the flayed body, red and quivering, thrown into the sea, and
seen it swim with its own mother beside it. This is no exaggeration,
and any sealer will tell you the same. It is strange why the sight of
blood should stimulate men to acts of cruelty; but it is none the less a
fact, for I have seen men on these occasions behaving with all the
brutality of wild beasts.
One could not easily fancy a scene more impressive and wild than that
which is presented by the crews of a few ships at work on the ice. The
incessant moaning of the innocent victims, mingled with the laugh and
joke of their murderers; the timid and affrighted, although loving look
of the mothers, so different from the earnest, blood-thirsty stare of
the authors of their grief. Some are flaying; some are stabbing; some
are dragging the fruits of their labour towards the ships; and some are
drinking at the ship's side; but over all there is blood--blood on the
decks, blood on the bulwarks; the men's hands are steeped in it, and the
blood is dripping from their clothes. The snow--the beautiful snow,
which but yesterday sparkled and glittered in the sunshine, as only the
snows of Greenland can, to-day is deluged in blood. Nothing but blood,
blood wherever we look! The meat which the men are eating and the glass
from which they are drinking are bloody; and the very rudder-wheel has
been touched by bloody hands. But then there is joy in that bloody
scene--joy to master and joy to man; and the sight of the blood proves a
stimulant for still greater exertions and more cruelty.
Yes, it is years since I wrote in this strain, but the cruelties go on
now as then. Oh! boys of happy England, raise your voices whenever
opportunity occurs against cruelty and against oppression of every kind,
whether against the tyranny that crushes the poor that the rich may live
luxuriously, or cowardly crime that ties a helpless dog or cat to the
vivisection table.
Harry managed to endear himself to all hands. He was, indeed, the
favourite of the ship. But he did not neglect his education; Mr Wilson
was a good teacher of practical navigation and practical ship's work,
and in a month or two he had made a man of Harry, or a sailor at all
events.
Captain Hardy soon found out that the boy could shoot, so he gave him a
short, light double-barrelled rifle, and Harry used to go out regularly
to stalk seals, when the old sealing commenced. Dangerous work at
times, and our hero had more than one ducking by slipping into the sea
between the icebergs.
The dog Harold always went with the boy Harry, and although mastiffs are
not called water-dogs, still on one occasion, when his young master fell
into the sea, dog Harold sprang after him, and supported him until
assistance came.
Harry's opportunity of proving his gratitude came soon after this.
While out walking one day with the dog, they were suddenly startled by
the awful roar of a huge bear. The brute appeared immediately after
from behind a hummock of ice, and prepared for instant action.
The great mastiff's hair stood on end with rage, from skull to tail. He
gave Bruin no time to think, but sprang at once for his throat.
It was indeed an unequal contest, and would speedily have been all over
had not young Harry shown both pluck and presence of mind. He rushed
forward, and, biding his chance, fired both barrels of his rifle at once
into the bear's neck behind the ear.
He actually clapped the muzzle there before he drew the triggers.
What mattered it that the recoil threw him on his back, Bruin was slain,
and Harold the dog was saved, though sadly wounded and torn.
Before the month of May the _Inuita_ had a good voyage on board. She
continued, however, to follow the old seals north as far round as
Spitzbergen. The character of the ice now entirely changed: instead of
fields of flat floe, with hummocks here and there, which put Harry in
mind, as he traversed them, of a Highland moorland in mid-winter, there
were pieces large enough to have crushed a ship as big as Saint Paul's
Cathedral.
The mountains, too, on the islands among which the _Inuita_ sailed were
rugged and grand in the extreme, and the colours displayed from the
terraced cliffs of ice and rock, when the sun shone on them, were more
resplendent than any pen or pencil could describe.
Around these islands were walruses in abundance, and many fell to the
guns.
Going shoreward one day over the thick bay ice, to enjoy with Mr Wilson
and some others some sport among the bears, Harry, who was foremost, was
startled beyond measure to notice the ice ahead first heave, then crack
and splinter, while a moment afterwards a head, more awful than a
nightmare, was protruded.
Harry's fear--if fear it could be called--was however but momentarily:
next moment his rifle was at the shoulder, and the monster paid his life
as the penalty for his curiosity.
In a month the _Inuita_ was--what her captain wished her to be--full to
the hatches with blubber and skins.
Then all sail was set for merry England.
There was nothing but joy now on board, nothing but jollity and fun.
The men had a ball almost every night, with singing and story-telling to
follow.
"I do believe, my dear boy," said Captain Hardy to Harry one evening,
"that _you_ have brought all the luck on board. Well, now, I'm going to
tell you a secret."
"I don't want you to, you know."
"Oh, but I want to tell somebody," said the captain, "and it may as well
be you. It is this: As soon as I get my ship cleared and paid off at
Hull, I am going straight back to Lerwick to ask Miss Mitford if she
will be my wife."
"Oh, I'm sure she will be glad to!" Harry said.
"Tell me, boy, what makes you think so?"
"Well, because she told me you were the best man in the service, and the
tears were in her eyes when she said so."
"God bless you for these words, dear lad. And you'll come and see us
sometimes, won't you? I'm going to leave the sea and settle down in a
pretty little farm near Hull."
"That I will, gladly," said Harry.
In course of time the ship arrived safely in harbour. Her owners were
delighted at Captain Hardy's success, and made him a very handsome
present.
Some weeks after this, when the _Inuita_ was dismantled and lying in
dock, Hardy, with Harry and Harold the mastiff, suddenly appeared at
Beaufort Hall.
I leave the reader to imagine the joy that their presence elicited. But
it was quite affecting to see how his mother pressed her boy to her
breast, while the tears chased each other over her cheeks.
Eily went wild with joy, and when honest Andrew met his friend Harry
again, and shook him by the hand, he could not speak, so much was he
affected, and he had to take five or six enormous pinches of snuff by
way of accounting for the moisture in his eyes.
Captain Hardy was a welcome guest at Beaufort Hall for many days.
"Your dear boy," he said, "has had a terribly rough first experience of
a life on the ocean wave, but he has braved it well, and that is more
than many boys of his age would have done. But I tell you what it is,"
he added, "Harry Milvaine _will_ be a sailor."
"I fear so," said his mother, sadly.
"Ah, my dear lady, there is many a worse profession than that of an
honest sailor."
"But the dangers of the deep are so great, Captain Hardy."
"Dangers of the deep?" repeated this kindly-hearted sailor. "Ay, and
there are dangers on the dry land as well. Think of your terrible
railway smashes, to say nothing, madam, of the tiles and chimney-pots
that go flying about on a stormy day."
Mrs Milvaine could not keep from smiling.
But our wilful, wayward Harry had it all his own way, and three months
after this he was treading the decks of a Royal Navy training ship, a
bold and brisk-looking naval cadet.
From the training ship, in good time, after having passed a very
creditable examination indeed, he was duly entered into the grand old
service.
His first ship--if ship it could be called--was H.M. gunboat, the
_Bunting_.
Harry was going to a part of the world where he was bound soon to get
the gilt rubbed off his dirk.
Book 2--CHAPTER THREE.