APPOINTMENT TO THE SERVICE OF THE HUDSON BAY COMPANY--THE "PRINCE
RUPERT"--THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE "H.B.C."--FELLOW-VOYAGERS--THREATENING
WEATHER--A SQUALL--ISLAND OF LEWIS.
Reader,--I take for granted that you are tolerably well acquainted with
the different modes of life and travelling peculiar to European nations.
I also presume that you know something of the inhabitants of the East;
and, it may be, a good deal of the Americans in general. But I
suspect--at least I would fain hope--that you have only a vague and
indefinite knowledge of life in those wild, uncivilised regions of the
northern continent of America that surround the shores of Hudson Bay. I
would fain hope this, I say, that I may have the satisfaction of giving
you information on the subject, and of showing you that there is a body
of civilised men who move, and breathe (pretty cool air, by the way!),
and spend their lives in a quarter of the globe as totally different, in
most respects, from the part you inhabit, as a beaver, roaming among the
ponds and marshes of his native home, is from that sagacious animal when
converted into a fashionable hat.
About the middle of May eighteen hundred and forty-one, I was thrown
into a state of ecstatic joy by the arrival of a letter appointing me to
the enviable situation of apprentice clerk in the service of the
Honourable Hudson Bay Company. To describe the immense extent to which
I expanded, both mentally and bodily, upon the receipt of this letter,
is impossible; it is sufficient to know that from that moment I fancied
myself a complete man of business, and treated my old companions with
the condescending suavity of one who knows that he is talking to his
inferiors.
A few days after, however, my pride was brought very low indeed, as I
lay tossing about in my berth on the tumbling waves of the German Ocean,
eschewing breakfast as a dangerous meal, and looking upon dinner with a
species of horror utterly incomprehensible by those who have not
experienced an attack of sea-sickness. Miseries of this description,
fortunately, do not last long. In a couple of days we got into the
comparatively still water of the Thames; and I, with a host of
pale-faced young ladies and cadaverous-looking young gentlemen, emerged
for the first time from the interior of the ship, to behold the beauties
and wonders of the great metropolis, as we glided slowly up the crowded
river.
Leave-taking is a disagreeable subject either to reflect upon or to
write about, so we will skip that part of the business and proceed at
once to Gravesend, where I stood (having parted from all my friends) on
the deck of the good ship _Prince Rupert_, contemplating the boats and
crowds of shipping that passed continually before me, and thinking how
soon I was to leave the scenes to which I had been so long accustomed
for a far-distant land. I was a boy, however; and this, I think, is
equivalent to saying that I did not sorrow long. My future companion
and fellow-clerk, Mr Wiseacre, was pacing the deck near me. This
turned my thoughts into another channel, and set me speculating upon his
probable temper, qualities, and age; whether or not he was strong enough
to thrash me, and if we were likely to be good friends. The captain,
too, was chatting and laughing with the doctor as carelessly as if he
had not the great responsibility of taking a huge ship across a
boundless waste of waters, and through fields and islands of ice, to a
distant country some three thousand miles to the north-west of England.
Thus encouraged, my spirits began to rise, and when the cry arose on
deck that the steamer containing the committee of the Honourable Hudson
Bay Company was in sight, I sprang up the companion-ladder in a state of
mind, if not happy, at least as nearly so as under the circumstances
could be expected.
Upon gaining the deck, I beheld a small steamboat passing close under
our stern, filled with a number of elderly-looking gentlemen, who eyed
us with a very critical expression of countenance. I had a pretty good
guess who these gentlemen were; but had I been entirely ignorant, I
should soon have been enlightened by the remark of a sailor, who
whispered to his comrade, "I say, Bill, them's the great guns!"
I suppose the fact of their being so had a sympathetic effect upon the
guns of the Company's three ships--the _Prince Rupert, Prince Albert_,
and _Prince of Wales_--for they all three fired a salute of blank
cartridge at the steamer as she passed them in succession. The steamer
then ranged alongside of us, and the elderly gentlemen came on board and
shook hands with the captain and officers, smiling blandly as they
observed the neat, trim appearance of the three fine vessels, which,
with everything in readiness for setting sail on the following morning,
strained at their cables, as if anxious to commence their struggle with
the waves.
It is a custom of the directors of the Hudson Bay Company to give a
public dinner annually to the officers of their ships upon the eve of
their departure from Gravesend. Accordingly, one of the gentlemen of
the committee, before leaving the vessel, invited the captain and
officers to attend; and, to my astonishment and delight, also _begged
me_ to honour them with my company. I accepted the invitation with
extreme politeness; and, from inability to express my joy in any other
way, winked to my friend Wiseacre, with whom I had become, by this time,
pretty familiar. He, being also invited, winked in return to me; and
having disposed of this piece of juvenile freemasonry to our
satisfaction, we assisted the crew in giving three hearty cheers, as the
little steamer darted from the side and proceeded to the shore.
The dinner, like all other public dinners, was as good and substantial
as a lavish expenditure of cash could make it; but really my
recollections of it are very indistinct. The ceaseless din of plates,
glasses, knives, forks, and tongues was tremendous; and this, together
with the novelty of the scene, the heat of the room, and excellence of
the viands, tended to render me oblivious of much that took place.
Almost all the faces present were strange to me. Who were, and who were
not, the gentlemen of the committee, was to me matter of the most
perfect indifference; and as no one took the trouble to address me in
particular, I confined myself to the interesting occupation of trying to
make sense of a conversation held by upwards of fifty pairs of lungs at
one and the same time. Nothing intelligible, however, was to be heard,
except when a sudden lull in the noise gave a bald-headed old gentleman
near the head of the table an opportunity of drinking the health of a
red-faced old gentleman near the foot, upon whom he bestowed an amount
of flattery perfectly bewildering; and after making the unfortunate
red-faced gentleman writhe for half an hour in a fever of modesty, sat
down amid thunders of applause. Whether the applause, by the way, was
intended for the speaker or the _speakee_, I do not know; but being
quite indifferent, I clapped my hands with the rest. The red-faced
gentleman, now purple with excitement, then rose, and during a solemn
silence delivered himself of a speech, to the effect that the day then
passing was certainly the happiest in his mortal career, that he could
not find words adequately to express the varied feelings which swelled
his throbbing bosom, and that he felt quite faint with the mighty load
of honour just thrown upon his delighted shoulders by his bald-headed
friend. The red-faced gentleman then sat down to the national air of
rat-tat-tat, played in full chorus with knives, forks, spoons,
nut-crackers, and knuckles on the polished surface of the mahogany
table.
We left the dinner-table at a late hour, and after I, in company with
some other youngsters, had done as much mischief as we conveniently
could without risking our detention by the strong arm of the law, we
went down to the beach and embarked in a boat with the captain for the
ship. How the sailors ever found her in the impenetrable darkness which
prevailed all around is a mystery to me to this day. Find her, however,
they did; and in half an hour I was in the land of Nod.
The sun was blazing high in the heavens next morning when I awoke, and
gazed around for a few moments to discover where I was; but the rattling
of ropes and blocks, the stamping of feet overhead, the shouts of gruff
voices, and, above all, a certain strange and disagreeable motion in my
dormitory, soon enlightened me on that point. We were going rapidly
down the Thames with a fair breeze, and had actually set sail for the
distant shores of Hudson Bay.
What took place during the next five or six days I know not. The demon
of sea-sickness had completely prostrated my faculties, bodily and
mental. Some faint recollections I have of stormy weather, horrible
noises, and hurried dinners; but the greater part of that period is a
miserable blank in my memory. Towards the sixth day, however, the
savoury flavour of a splendid salmon-trout floated past my dried-up
nostrils like "Afric's spicy gale," and caused my collapsed stomach to
yearn with strong emotion. The ship, too, was going more quietly
through the water; and a broad stream of sunshine shot through the small
window of my berth, penetrated my breast, and went down into the centre
of my heart, filling it with a calm, complacent pleasure quite
indescribable. Sounds, however, of an attack upon the trout roused me,
and with a mighty effort I tumbled out of bed, donned my clothes, and
seated myself for the first time at the cabin table.
Our party consisted of the captain; Mr Carles, a chief factor in the
Company's service; the doctor; young Mr Wiseacre, afore-mentioned; the
first and second mates; and myself. The captain was a thin,
middle-sized, offhand man; thoroughly acquainted with his profession;
good-humoured and gruff by turns; and he always spoke with the air of an
oracle. Mr Carles was a mild, good-natured man, of about fifty-five,
with a smooth, bald head, encircled by a growth of long, thin hair. He
was stoutly built, and possessed of that truly amiable and captivating
disposition which enters earnestly and kindly into the affairs of
others, and totally repudiates self. From early manhood he had roughed
life in the very roughest and wildest scenes of the wilderness, and was
now returning to those scenes after a short visit to his native land.
The doctor was a nondescript; a compound of gravity, fun, seriousness,
and humbug--the latter predominating. He had been everywhere (at least,
so he said), had seen everything, knew everybody, and played the fiddle.
It cannot be said, I fear, that he played it well; but, amid the
various vicissitudes of his chequered life, the doctor had frequently
found himself in company where his violin was almost idolised and
himself deified; especially when the place chanced to be the American
backwoods, where violins are scarce, the auditors semi-barbarous
Highlanders, and the music Scotch reels. Mr Wiseacre was nothing! He
never spoke except when compelled to do so; never read, and never cared
for anything or anybody; wore very long hair, which almost hid his face,
owing to a habit which he had of holding his head always down: and
apparently lived but to eat, drink, and sleep. Sometimes, though very
rarely, he became so far facetious as to indulge in a wink and a low
giggle; but beyond this he seldom soared. The two mates were simply
_mates_. Those who know the population of the sea will understand the
description sufficiently; those who don't, will never, I fear, be made
to understand by description. They worked the ship, hove the log,
changed the watch, turned out and tumbled in, with the callous
indifference and stern regularity of clock work; inhabited tarpaulin
dreadnoughts and sou'-westers; came down to meals with modest
diffidence, and walked the deck with bantam-cock-like assurance.
Nevertheless, they were warm-hearted fellows, both of them, although the
heat didn't often come to the surface. The first mate was a _broad_
Scotchman, in every sense of the term; the second was a burly little
Englishman.
"How's the wind, Collins?" said the captain, as the second mate sat down
at the dinner-table, and brushed the spray from his face with the back
of his brown hand.
"Changed a point to the s'uthard o' sou'-west, sir," he answered, "and
looks as if it would blow hard."
"Humph!" ejaculated the captain, while he proceeded to help the fish.
"I hope it'll only keep quiet till we get into blue water, and then it
may blow like blazes for all I care,--Take some trout, doctor? It's the
last you'll put your teeth through for six weeks to come, _I_ know; so
make the most of it.--I wish I were only through the Pentland Firth, and
scudding under full sail for the ice--I do." And the captain looked
fiercely at the compass which hung over his head, as if he had said
something worthy of being recorded in history, and began to eat.
After a pause of five minutes or so--during which time the knives and
forks had been clattering pretty vigorously, and the trout had become a
miserable skeleton--the captain resumed his discourse.
"I tell you what it is now, gentlemen; if there's not going to be a
change of some sort or other, I'm no sailor."
"It does look very threatening," said Mr Carles, peering through the
stern window. "I don't much like the look of these clouds behind us.
Look there, doctor!" he continued, pointing towards the window. "What
do you think of that?"
"Nothing!" replied the doctor, through a mouthful of duff and potatoes.
"A squall, I fancy; wish it'd only wait till after dinner."
"It never does," said the captain. "I've been to sea these fifteen
years, and I always find that squalls come on at breakfast or dinner,
like an unwelcome visitor. They've got a thorough contempt for tea--
seem to know it's but swipes, and not worth pitching into one's lap; but
dinner's sure to bring 'em on, if they're in the neighbourhood, and make
'em bu'st their cheeks at you. Remember once, when I was cruising in
the Mediterranean, in Lord P---'s yacht, we'd been stewing on deck under
an awning the whole forenoon, scarce able to breathe, when the bell rang
for dinner. Well, down we all tumbled--about ten ladies and fifteen
gentlemen, or thereabouts--and seated ourselves round the table. There
was no end of grub of every kind. Lord P--- was eccentric in that way,
and was always at some new dodge or other in the way of cookery. At
this time he had invented a new dumpling. Its jacket was much the same
as usual--inch-thick duff; but its contents were beyond anything I ever
saw, except the maw of an old shark. Well, just as the steward took off
the cover, _hiss-iss_ went the wind overhead, and one of those horrible
squalls that come rattling down without a moment's warning in those
parts, struck the ship, and gave her a heel over that sent the
salt-cellars chasing the tumblers like all-possessed; and the great
dumpling gave a heavy lurch to leeward, rolled fairly over on its
beam-ends, and began to course straight down the table quite sedate and
quiet-like. Several dives were made at it by the gentlemen as it
passed, but they all missed; and finally, just as a youngster made a
grab at it with both hands that bid fair to be successful, another howl
of the squall changed its course, and sent it like a cannon-shot
straight into the face of the steward, where it split its sides, and
scattered its contents right and left. I don't know how it ended, for I
bolted up the companion, and saw the squall splitting away to leeward,
shrieking as it went, just as if it were rejoicing at the mischief it
had done."
The laugh which greeted the captain's anecdote had scarce subsided when
the tough sides of the good _Prince Rupert_ gave a gentle creak, and the
angle at which the active steward perambulated the cabin became absurdly
acute.
Just then the doctor cast his eye up at the compass suspended above the
captain's head. "Hallo!" said he--But before he could give utterance to
the sentiments to which "hallo" was the preface, the hoarse voice of the
first mate came rolling down the companion-hatch,--"A squall, sir!
scoorin' doon like mad! Wund's veered richt roond to the nor'-east."
The captain and second mate sprang hastily to their feet and rushed upon
deck, where the rest of us joined them as speedily as possible.
On gaining the quarter-deck, the scene that presented itself was truly
grand. Thick black clouds rolled heavily overhead, and cast a gloom
upon the sea which caused it to look like ink. Not a breath of wind
swelled the sails, which the men were actively engaged in taking in.
Far away on our weather-quarter the clouds were thicker and darker; and
just where they met the sea there was seen a bright streak of white,
which rapidly grew broader and brighter, until we could perceive that it
was the sea lashed into a seething foam by the gale which was sweeping
over it.
"Mind your helm!" shouted the captain.
"Ay, ay, sir!" sang out the man at the wheel. And in another moment the
squall burst upon us with all its fury, laying the huge vessel over on
its side as if it had been a feather on the wave, and causing her to fly
through the black water like a dolphin.
In a few minutes the first violence of the squall passed away, and was
succeeded by a steady breeze, which bore us merrily along over the
swelling billows.
"A stiff one, that," said the captain, turning to the doctor, who, with
imperturbable nonchalance, was standing near him, holding on to a
stanchion with one hand, while the other reposed in his breeches pocket.
"I hope it will last," replied the doctor. "If it does, we'll not be
long of reaching the blue water you long so much for."
Young Wiseacre, who during the squall had been clutching the
weather-shrouds with the tenacity of a drowning man, opened his eyes
very wide on hearing this, to him, insane wish, and said to me in an
undertone, "I say, do you think the doctor is quite right in his mind?"
"I have no doubt of it," replied I. "Why do you ask?"
"Because I heard him say to the captain he wished that this would last."
"Is that all?" said I, while a very vile spirit of vanity took
possession of me, inducing me to speak in a tone which indicated a
tranquillity of mind that I certainly did not enjoy. "Oh, this is
nothing at all! I see you've never been on salt water before. Just
wait a bit, old fellow!" And having given utterance to this somewhat
dark and mysterious expression, I staggered across the deck, and amused
myself in watching the thick volumes of spray that flew at every plunge
from the sides of the bounding vessel.
The doctor's wish was granted. The breeze continued steady and strong,
sending us through the Pentland Firth in grand style, and carrying us in
a short time to the island of Lewis, where we hove-to for a pilot.
After a little signalising we obtained one, who steered our good ship in
safety through the narrow entrance to the bay of Stornoway into whose
quiet waters we finally dropped our anchor.