In spite of the abundance of their supply of rabbits, however, Mr
Meldrum would not allow them to be prodigally wasted.
Wisely "providing for a rainy day," he caused a considerable quantity to
be split open and cleaned; and, after the skin was removed, had them
rubbed over with dry salt, of which fortunately they had plenty. The
carcasses were subsequently hung up on lines across the general room,
adjacent to the fireplace, the warmth of which in a short time cured
them like hams, so that they would keep for weeks, and even months if
not required for culinary purposes earlier--as, it eventually turned
out, they were.
It was a lucky thing that the shooting party went on their excursion
when they did. Had they delayed it, as might have been the case, until
they had turned their attention to the seals--which it had been Mr
Meldrum's intention first to have hunted, in order to obtain as many
furs as possible before the severe cold weather, that he expected soon
to set in--they might have starved; for, the very day that succeeded the
one on which they brought home the rabbits, a heavy fall of snow
commenced that completely blocked up all the approaches to the creek,
and compelled them to remain indoors during the ensuing week. The wind
blew so terribly keen and strong from the north-east, right over the
cliffs on the opposite side of the bay, during the whole time the snow
continued to fall, that it was painful in the extreme to be exposed to
it; while, if the door of the house happened to be left open but for a
few minutes, the driving snow-flakes made their way within and banked
themselves up like a heap of frozen drift in their midst.
"Ah!" said Mr Meldrum, "I told you that the fine weather we had was
very exceptional, and could not last. It was providential that we were
prepared for this, or we should have been in a miserable plight."
"You're right, boss," observed Mr Lathrope. "This air snow-storm is
jest like one of them blizzards I told you about when we were aboard the
old ship that I had noticed in Minnesota. I didn't kinder think then
that I should come across another o' them this side of the globe! I'd
ha' bet agin it any day."
"Aye," responded the other, "it is a fortunate thing for all of us that
we cannot foresee the future, and that our strength is apportioned by
degrees to the burdens sent us to bear. The great majority of us would
succumb at once if we only knew the struggle that lay before us, the
griefs, the trials, the mental weariness, the physical pain!"
"Oh, papa," said Kate, "don't speak so sadly! Let us rather think of
the joy and unlooked-for happiness which so frequently comes to our lot
when we have the least cause to expect them; and--and--" but here the
girl's voice faltered.
Kate well knew the reason of her father taking so sombre a view of life,
and she shared the sorrow that filled his heart, for her mother had but
died a short period before they left England.
"Think, papa," she added, after a pause, "of the glorious hope of
eternity, and the city within the golden gates, where we shall all of us
meet the loved ones who have gone before!"
"Thank you, my child," replied Mr Meldrum, drawing her fondly to his
side, and speaking as if they were alone together. "You have taught me
a lesson, and I will repine no longer about the immutable. It is best
to look forward, as you say. We ought to recollect that all our days
must not necessarily be gloomy because for the moment they may happen to
be overcast!"
"No, sirree," interposed Mr Lathrope, "and I guess this air blizzard
ain't going to last for ever:-- it looks now railly as if it wer' goin'
to leave off snowing."
"I think you are right," said Frank Harness, who had been sitting on the
other side of Kate, listening quietly to the conversation between her
and her father. "I don't see any flakes now coming through the chinks
of the door, as they were doing a short time ago. It is either leaving
off, or the wind has chopped round to the southward and westward again."
So saying, Frank got up and went to peer without the portal, the others
that were in the general room not stirring, for the greater number of
the seamen were asleep in their dormitory. It was getting towards
evening and most of the limited duties which it was possible to give the
men to do, now that they were continuously confined indoors, had been
already got through for the day.
Only Ben Boltrope and Karl Ericksen, amongst the hands, were up and
awake; and they were engaged in playing a game of chequers with a set of
counters which the Norwegian had skilfully carved out of black basalt
and white pumice-stone, both of which had been found lying close
together at the bottom of the creek. The board that they played on was
made by the carpenter, but it had been divided into proper squares
through the aid of Mr Meldrum's compasses and parallel ruler, wielded
by Mr Lathrope; so that all of them, so to speak, had a hand in the
construction of the complete article.
Both Mr Lathrope and Frank were right as to the weather, for, although
the snow-flakes came down more slowly and were much smaller than they
had been, the shifting of the wind had created the change. This was now
blowing into the bay straight from the sea; and while the gale was still
as high and fierce as at the beginning of the snow-storm, it was not
quite so cold.
The waves, however, were rolling against the cliffs just as they had
done when the _Nancy Bell_ struck on the reef, and the reverberation of
their roar was fearfully grand out in the open. The piled-up snow
against the sides of the house had so deadened the sound within, that
the party ensconced there could hear little beyond the whistling of the
wind round the eaves of the house.
Frank returned to those within, after carefully closing the door again
behind him, just like the dove messenger came back to Noah and his
imprisoned family in the ark!
Like the bearer of the olive branch, he too was a herald of glad
tidings.
"There is a change," said he, addressing himself to Mr Meldrum, "and I
think, sir, we'll soon be able to get out again."
"I'm glad to hear that," replied the other, getting up to look; but he
came back even sooner than Frank, and did not seem quite so jubilant.
"I'm afraid the shift of the wind will not do us much good, as far as
getting about is concerned," he said. "It will only tend to drift the
snow where it has not penetrated before; and may very probably shut us
in more firmly than ever. I notice one good thing, however, that the
snowstorm has done. It has covered over the house, and we will be all
the warmer should it start freezing again!"
"But won't it break down the roof?" said Mrs Major Negus, alarmed at
this.
"Oh, no!" replied Mr Meldrum, "the roof is too strongly built for that;
besides which, we're under the lee of the cliff that protects us from
this very wind. Still, I hope we'll have a chance of getting some more
Kerguelen cabbage before the snow commences to fall heavily again, as
I've no doubt it will. I ought to have laid in a stock when we went
rabbit shooting that time. In this sort of treacherous climate one
should take advantage of every fine day and provide for the next."
"You forget," said Mrs Major Negus, "sufficient for the day is the evil
thereof!"
"But it don't say the good, only the evil, ma'rm; mind that," put in Mr
Lathrope. "Some folks seem to take a pleasure in twisting Scripture
contrariwise, jest to suit theer own squintin'-one-eye-skimmin'-the-pot-
and-t'other-lookin'-up-the-chimbley sort of conscience!"
"Some people," retorted the lady, "never apply the parable of the mote
and the beam, because they can't see their own faults."
"We should live and let live," said Mr Meldrum, trying to put a stop to
a sort of argument which was endlessly going on between the pair of
combatants, much to his annoyance generally, when Florry created a
diversion.
"Look!" she exclaimed. "Puss has caught another mouse!"
"Thar, boss," said Mr Lathrope laughing, "is a case in pint, to
illustrate yer saying about lettin' folks be. I'm afeard me and Missis
Meejur is unkimmon like the mouse and the cat!"
"Speak for yourself, please," interposed the lady, thinking that he
meant to designate her as the feline animal. "If you've a mind to liken
yourself to one of those dreadful creatures that are always nibbling, I
don't choose to be called a cat."
"I aren't a bit pertickler what you call me, ma'rm," replied the
American very good-humouredly, "although I confess I am a bit partial to
nibblin' when thar's anything good to eat!"
"That's you all over," said Mrs Major with much satisfaction; when, as
she appeared pleased, Mr Lathrope allowed the conversation to rest
there, which satisfied Mr Meldrum also, as he did not like these
continual bickerings going on before the younger members of the party,
besides their being, as has been said, especially distasteful to
himself.
The next day it stopped snowing altogether; consequently a vegetable-
hunting expedition was organised, a small party which started up the
valley managing to bring back with some difficulty a few heads of
cabbage, which with the dried rabbits alone now constituted their daily
fare--both the beef and pork getting so low that Mr Meldrum had to stop
their issue, although the men were not so hard pressed yet as to take to
the salted sea-elephant.
Had the cabbage not been out of the line of drift, in a more secluded
portion of the creek, the vegetable-seekers would have been unable to
find it; for, the entire landscape was covered with a deep snow that was
evenly distributed over hollow and hill alike--the lower lying land and
the higher eminences so running into one another that they could not be
distinguished. The tops of the loftiest peaks, indeed, seemed to be
dwarfed down to the monotonous level of the plain; and, where elevated
at all, they resembled more a cluster of little round mounds like sugar-
loaves than anything else!
During the cessation of the snow-storm, the castaways contrived to
secure another sea-elephant which visited the bay, Karl Ericksen
harpooning him in the water. This time the men did not despise the
flesh, but appeared to relish it very much when Snowball fried it
fresh--a considerable portion of it being eaten in this way; while all
the fat and blubber was melted down, and the remainder of the meat
salted and packed in the cask with the other seal beef which was as yet
untouched.
On one of these days, too, Ben Boltrope went fishing from the lower
cliffs, just above the bay at the head of the creek--on account of the
sea there being calmer, and no breakers ruffling the water near.
This pursuit would have been tried before, only that amongst the various
articles that had been brought away from the ship there was not a single
fish-hook The old man-o'-war's man, however, had at length managed to
overcome the difficulty, manufacturing in his leisure moments a very
good substitute by beating out some small nails that he had previously
made malleable by putting them in the fire. After spending some hours
angling, Ben returned home with some half a dozen fish about the size of
a small haddock. These had their heads armed with stout strong spines;
but in spite of this peculiarity, they proved under Snowball's
manipulation to be very palatable, and Mr Lathrope, "for one," as he
himself said, regretted that the carpenter had not caught more; he
"guessed" he would have "gone for 'em!"
The interregnum of fine weather did not last long; for, soon the snow
set in falling again as if it would never stop. The days, consequently,
grew unutterably dreary, from the misfortune of all being perforce
confined, as before, to the house by the bitter cold wind; and, to make
matters worse, the snow-flakes now seemed to penetrate through the
tiniest crevices within the hut, so that the air in the interior of the
dwelling was of the temperature of freezing, no matter how great a fire
was kept up!
While this lasted, Mr Meldrum devised all sorts of amusements for the
men.
Amongst other things tried was music, one of the crew having made a
banjo, the strings of which were twisted from the smaller intestines of
the last sea-elephant they had killed; and by the aid of this instrument
harmonic meetings were organised in the evenings, Mr Lathrope
developing an almost forgotten talent he possessed, and coming out as a
comic singer. He absolutely bewitched even the "Major," with his
version of "Buffalo Gals," and the "Cackle, cackle, flap your wings and
crow," chorus of the Christy Minstrels, who certainly, in his person,
did perform on this occasion out of London!
It was at this period, when the days seemed as if they would never end
and the nights longer, that a memorable event occurred for two, at
least, of the party.
Ever since that night of the storm on board the _Nancy Bell_, when she
had, as he firmly believed, saved his life by catching hold of him as he
was on the point of being washed away by the sea, Frank had become
deeply attached to Kate; and the more he saw of the true-hearted girl--
her fond affection for her father, her anxious solicitude towards her
little sister, her kind sympathy for everybody--the more his affection
ripened, until at length he thought he could conceal his dawning love no
longer.
Then came the wreck; and, in the trying scenes which subsequently arose,
in which the two were each in their own way actors, the more Frank saw
to admire in his fairy ideal, the prompt courageous woman of action.
Subsequently they were thrown more closely together in the enforced
companionship of the castaway community on the desolate shores of
Kerguelen Land, when every moment increased their intimacy, while it
enabled him to study more closely those salient points of her character
which appeared to develop themselves as circumstances called them
forth--her filial love, her devotion to her sister, her unconquerable
faith, her unbounded hope and cheerfulness in the most despondent
situations--but, above all, her innate sense of religion, a feeling that
seemed to underlie her nature and yet which in no wise detracted from
her superabundant animal spirits, which harmonised themselves to the
moods and weaknesses of all. Seeing all this, and noting what he saw
and reverenced, Frank could not but love Kate Meldrum with all the
warmth and passion of his heart. So loving her, and dying for the want
of some response to the wealth of affection he had so long treasured up
in his breast, he could not refrain from seeking from her a word of
hope.
It was one evening when, save to him and her, it appeared to be the
dreariest of all the dreary ones they had already passed in their
extemporised dwelling--"home" they called it, as people will style any
shelter to which they can retreat from all the trials and exposures of
the outside world, "no matter how homely!"
The seamen had all retired to their dormitory, as had likewise Mr
McCarthy and Adams; while Mr Lathrope was nodding in one corner of the
general room by the fireplace, and Mr Meldrum immersed in thought in
the other.
Florry and Maurice Negus had both gone to sleep long since. Mrs
"Major," and the stewardess had also retreated to their sleeping
chamber; and thus, Frank and Kate were, so to speak, alone. The
opportunity was propitious.
They had been talking for some time in a low tone of voice, so as not to
interrupt the others. In a desultory way, they had thus chatted about
all sorts of things and had at last lapsed into silence--a silence that
remained for some time unbroken.
At length Frank spoke.