IN THE FAR NORTH
It was June, the 'leafy month': Nature was dressed out in her newest
and freshest of robes, and the homes of her feathered children were
peopled with tiny birdlings, all agape with hunger and curiosity.
Through the shady Brattlesby Woods, and along the hedgerows, stealing
softly, stepping cautiously, crept Jerry Blunt, with his empty sleeve
flapping against his right side, and as he went he peered here and
there where leaves grew thickest. In his wake followed, on tip-toe,
Alick Carnegy and Ned Dempster, all three intent on seeking for young
bullfinches.
When Jerry Blunt ran away to sea from his native village, Northbourne,
with his soul athirst for adventure, his body was furnished with as
many limbs as other folk. Little did he dream that the golden future
he panted to grasp would make of him a cripple. As time went by, and
he became a full-grown man, Jerry had his fill of hairbreadth escapes,
his last exploit of all being to join an enterprising American
expedition got up in the name of science to find the North Pole. This
venture, one of many, proved the most unfortunate of all for Jerry
Blunt. Through his own heedless carelessness in refusing to listen to
the advice of his experienced betters, he neglected a severe
frost-bite; in consequence, he lost his arm, which had to be amputated
by the ship's surgeon. After this catastrophe, Jerry as a man on that
expedition was worth little or nothing. So he returned, in course of
time, to his native place, 'like a bad shilling,' said Northbourne--and
with an empty coat-sleeve.
'The right arm, too, worse luck!' was all the sympathy he got, and
Jerry, therefore, began to look round for himself. He knew it was
imperative on him to do something for a living to help out his good old
mother's feeble efforts, and to keep a roof over their two heads. He
set his wits to work to puzzle out a way. Without a right arm he was
of little or no use in the fishing-boats, which constituted the sole
trade of Northbourne. So fishing was out of the question.
Now people don't go the length of Franz Josef Land without picking up a
few odds and ends of information. Therefore it was not long before
Jerry did hit upon a trade, and it was one thoroughly to his mind.
From his boyhood he had been a passionate lover of the open, and Mother
Nature had shared her secrets with him in no niggard fashion.
He was tolerably well acquainted with the ways and the haunts of his
winged neighbours, and could, perhaps, have 'given points' to many a
scientifically educated naturalist. And it came to pass that he
bethought himself of certain valuable hints he had got anent the
artificial training of the inhabitants of the air from an astute old
Frenchman, one of those curiosities to be met with but rarely, whose
minds are human museums--treasure-houses in which are stored scraps of
varied knowledge.
'You may keep school, my lad,' dryly commented his mother when she had
carefully digested Jerry's plan, 'but you won't find it easy to keep
scholars.'
'Well, you'll see!' was the quietly spoken prediction; for Jerry Blunt
had fully determined to be a bird-trainer, and the pupils he was in
search of were young bullfinches.
Of course when this remarkable intention became known among the
fisher-folk it was derisively condemned by the elders. On the other
hand, Jerry's younger neighbours, particularly Ned Dempster, were
immediately fired with an eager desire to assist him in the novel
enterprise. Ned's enthusiasm naturally infected both the Carnegy boys;
they also would fain become bird-trainers on the spot, lacking all
knowledge of the matter though they, naturally, did. With the frenzy
that possesses boys in regard to every absolutely new amusement, the
two Carnegys slept, ate, drank, and, as it were, breathed to the tune
of one thought--the determination that they also would be bird-teachers.
This all-powerful, novel freak was at the bottom of the furious meeting
at the Bunk. Philip Price, the tutor, sympathising fully with the
ardent pursuits of boyhood, had been over-indulgent in the matter of
granting whole Wednesdays, instead of half-holidays. Any excuse
sufficed. Skating on inland ponds in the winter; fishing in the bay,
as the year wore on; and, latterly, digging for primrose or fern roots
in Brattlesby Woods. But Philip Price was beginning to find out by
results that too much play and not enough work was making dull scholars
of his pupils, and he had determined to stand out firmly against any
more indulgences in the future. It was high time that Alick and Geoff
should realise that 'life is real, life is earnest'; put their
shoulders to the wheel they must and should. The boys knew this, and
in their hearts admitted the determination to be a just one enough.
But the entrancing novelty of Jerry Blunt's proposed trade carried them
away; they were extravagantly crazed to join in it, by fair means or by
foul. Hence the outburst of rebellion, and Alick's stubborn refusal to
sue for pardon.
When Wednesday morning arrived, he set off in company with Jerry and
Ned before the early sun had dried the dew on the grass.
As they trudged at Jerry's heels he had explained to them, before
entering the woods, the mode of operation to be carried out. In order
to pipe tunes as bullfinches so marvellously do, they have to go
through a period of training, and downright severe training the hapless
mites find it. But, as Jerry tersely put it to his hearers, one of
whom winced secretly, what is training but 'keeping the body under
subjection'--a period of toilsome effort that any degree of perfection
necessitates?
Taken from the nest at the age, say, of ten days or so--the most
suitable to begin operations--the callow young things are carefully
tended by one person solely, who accustoms the birds to himself, the
sound of his voice and his cautiously tender touch, before he attempts
anything approaching to training.
This treatment Jerry Blunt intended to carry out with his timid pupils,
of which he gathered a goodly number, with the assistance of Ned and
Alick, long before sunset came round again. The trainer explained his
proposed code of education still more fully as he and the hungry boys
sat enjoying the picnic repast they had brought with them. Alick,
whose spirits were at their highest, thought it a delightful experience
to be eating cold chunks of pork and dry bread, which each guest carved
for himself with a clasp-knife. Infinitely superior was this
delightfully natural, manly style of feeding, than all the rubbishy
artificial formality of the decently appointed meals served at the
Bunk, thought he scornfully. The only drawback to his sense of
exhilarating pride was the fact that Geoff was not a witness of his
emancipation from society rules.
'Do you actually mean to tell us, Jerry, that in time you will be able
to teach those wretched young shavers to whistle real, proper tunes?'
Alick asked presently, pointing with his knife, in careful imitation of
the manners and customs of his company, to the shivery mites, each
wrapped in a wisp of cotton-wool, which thoughtful Jerry had not
forgotten to bring for the purpose of protecting the birdlings on their
debut into the world out of their warm nest-homes.
'Yes; you bide a wee, Muster Alick!' rejoined Jerry confidently, if
indistinctly, seeing his mouth was full at the moment. 'Before the
summer's out I'll engage that my scholards will sing "The Blue Bells of
Scotland" without a single false note! And when they do, I'll get a
good price for each on 'em from a chap I knows of in London, who trades
in singin' birds, and is always ready to buy 'em. But I was a-goin' to
say, Muster Alick, that I'll want some help from you boys. I can't do
the whole thing single-handed. I shall have to board out the birds,
after a bit; so there will be plenty of work for each of you, if so be
you're agreeable.'
Of course the boys were more than ready with their promises of help in
the labour of teaching, as soon as they understood how it was to be set
about.
'You will have to put us up to the trick first; how it's to be done,
you know, Jerry,' said Alick.
'All right, muster! But there's no trick in the matter, and no secret,
'cept it be kindness and firmness. Them's the two great rulin' powers
with dumb animals, same's with we humans. 'Tain't no good tryin' to
train a child by lettin' him do jes' whatever he pleases. You wouldn't
call that training, now, would you? Say!' Jerry looked up from the
pipe he was filling to put the question, with some little earnestness.
A strange flush stole up into Alick Carnegy's cheeks; for the life of
him he could not help applying Jerry's excellent logic to himself. The
stern, high-minded face of the tutor he had insulted floated before the
boy's eyes, and he winced, for the second time that day, at Jerry's
words, as he remembered how he had fought with and rebelled against the
authority set over him. Alick's conscience was by no means altogether
deadened, and his triumph was dashed.
'Yes,' continued Jerry reflectively, as he watched the smoke curling
upward in the air, 'and 'tis the very same wi' ourselves, after we're
growed up to manhood. That's how the Almighty deals with us. He's
firm--none firmer; and He's kinder to us than we knows on--none
kinder--if so be as we would but trust ourselves to His way.'
Jerry Blunt, exposed to temptations many and varied, had always been a
right-thinking, honest kind of lad. In spite of his wanderings to and
fro over the earth, he retained his early faith intact.
'Many's the time in my life,' he went on, speaking in a gravely
reverent tone, 'I've fought to get my will in some things--struck out
blindly, as you might say; but there was always the firm Hand guiding
me in His way, not my own. Even when this mishap befell me'--Jerry
touched his empty sleeve--'though I couldn't see it at the time, bein'
so ignorant-like, it was all a-purpose for my good.'
'How, Jerry? What on earth do you mean? To lose your right arm must
have been a frightful bit of bad luck!' Alick spoke in astonishment,
but with a certain amount of respect for one who had had such a large
experience as the bird-trainer.
'There ain't no such thing as luck, either good or bad,' Jerry took out
his pipe to say. ''Tis God's will; that's the properest word
for't--not luck. As for my own misfortin', as everybody called it,
why, after all it didn't turn out so bad, when you come to think it
out.'
'Why? Do tell us all about it, Jerry, will you?' urged Alick, to whom
the topic of the North Pole expedition was always attractive; and he
threw himself back on the mossy ground to listen in rapt attention.
'Well, muster, I make no doubt that you've heard tell fifty times over
how I got a frost-bite when I was in Franz Josef Land with the
expedition. It all came about with me bein' in such a hurry like to
finish a job I'd to do, that I put off rubbin' my hands with snow, as
is the right thing to do, remember, if so be as you boys ever get
frostbit. Well, the long and the short of that neglect was, they was
forced to take off my arm--there wasn't no chice in the matter--above
the elbow too. We happened at the moment to be at a fixed camping
dépôt--not one of them nasty movin' floes, but on a good sound
spot--and the expedition was under orders to march norrards when the
thing happened to me. Well, in course, they nat'rally said as they
didn't want to be saddled with a one-handed man, and I was turned
back--me and old Pierre Lacroix, the Frenchman who taught me how to
train them little customers.' Jerry pointed with his pipe to the
infant finches under his handkerchief. 'Old Pierre was too rheumatic,
they soon found out, to be any use, in spite of his long head, which
was as full of wisdom as an egg's full of meat. None but sound,
able-bodied men will do for that work, I tell you. He was a queer old
fish, Pierre was. Poor chap, he was a Roming, you know; but for all
that he was, in his mistaken way, a pious, God-fearing man. It was
kind o' queer to see him, when we two were on our way back through all
them ice-plains; if we so much as heard the howl of a hungry wolf,
Pierre would pull out his beads and rattle off a prayer. But I didn't
so much wonder at his fright, for the cries of them wolves certainly
did freeze one's marrow through and through. And we once came to
pretty close quarters with the brutes. It was one night, a starless,
cloudy night, with a storm brewing, and we heard behind us a faint
sound that struck us dumb with horror. The wolves had scented us from
afar, and were giving chase. We took to our heels, as the sayin' is;
but you don't make much way on that there ground. The awful baying
voices gained on us, minute by minute. On, on, we breathlessly fought
our way, desperate to escape. At last, so close was the pack behind
us, that I could count 'em, half a dozen or so, and by the light of the
torches we carried I could plainly see their red tongues lolling out of
their hungry jaws. So did Pierre, and out came his beads. But reely,
boys, there are more wonderful escapes in real life than ever folks
read of in books. Now, what do you suppose saved us that night? Under
Providence, of course, I means. We might have turned at bay and shot
one or two, and there was a knife apiece. But we should have been
doomed men had we done so. However, help was close, just as hope was
dying out in our hearts. Running for our lives we had reached the
land,--before that, you understand, we'd been traversing an
ice-floe,--we knew 'twas land by the low bank sheering down. As we set
foot on it a mighty roaring crack sounded, breaking up into a thousand
echoes in the white silence. It was the ice parting from the shore,
through the wind-storm that had risen. Between us and our savage
hunters the cold black waves boiled up instantly, released from their
prison, and the baffled wolves howled furiously at the fissure growing
wider each second. We were saved; and, boys, never did I see the
finger of God more plainly than at that moment! I am glad I wasn't
ashamed to throw myself on my knees and thank Him aloud, and Frenchy
joined me with all his heart.'
'But,' began Alick wonderingly, after a long pause, 'how on earth did
you find your way back, you two, through all that frozen white country
with no landmarks?'
'How? Why, I s'pose you don't know the watchword of all Arctic
expeditions, young master? 'Tain't likely as you should, so I'll tell
you. The law out yonder is: keep your line of retreat open; and a
better rule couldn't be. It so be as you take heed to it keerful, you
can't be cut off from the world. So Pierre an' me, in due time, found
our way back to the ship, which was stationed in the Spitzbergen Sea.'
'And what about t'others, the rest of the expedition? They pushed on,
didn't they?' asked Ned eagerly.
'Ah! that's the queer thing that I be a-comin' to,' said Jerry,
speaking solemnly. 'In course they pushed on. But never a man of the
lot came back to tell the story of what they'd seen. They was too
venturesome; they went too far ahead, and must have perished of sheer
cold; leastways that's what I've heard. If you don't see a meanin'
under that, well, I do! And real grateful I feel to the Almighty. I
lost an arm, but them poor lads they lost their lives.'
There was another silence. Jerry industriously puffed away; Alick
stared up unblinkingly into a chink of blue between the tree-tops; and
Ned gravely whittled away at a tiny boat of wood, one of a fleet with
which he kept Miss Queenie so numerously supplied that it bade fair to
develop into a Lilliputian navy in time.
'Did you ever use any dogs on the expedition, Jerry?' asked Alick,
whose thoughts had been travelling along the silent white expanse of
the far-away North.
'Dogs? No, muster, we didn't in them days. But Frenchy used to talk
away, I remember, o' nights round the camp-fires, about the proper use
dogs would be on an expedition. There was one breed in pertikler he
spoke well off--the West Siberian, I think he called 'em.'
'Yes,' eagerly put in Alick, 'they're the ones, the West Siberian.
Father was speaking about them. They're considered to be awfully
useful.'
'I dessay!' assented Jerry, knocking the ashes out of his pipe before
carefully stowing it away in one of his many pockets. 'But 'pears to
me we've got to be thinking of going home. The trunks o' the trees are
reddening, which tells us the sun's slantin'; and these little shavers
must be fed and bedded before sundown. Come, musters, rouse
yourselves; we must be steppin' Northbourne way!'
Picking up the shivering, quaking mites in their cotton-wool wrappings,
Jerry lodged them in his several pockets and even in his cap. But he
firmly refused to suffer the two boys to share his burdens.
'We can't be too keerful for the first day or so after takin' of 'em
out of the nest; so you leave 'em to me,' he persisted; and presently
the trio were trudging on their way back to Northbourne village.