PADDY'S ADVENTURE WITH THE BEAR--FUN ON THE ICE--THE LITTLE PURPLE
CLOUD.
Tobogganing? A strange word, is it not? We are indebted to the
Americans for it, as we are for many other handy, but hardly elegant,
additions to our vocabulary. Those who are fond of hunting for the
origins of words, and who cannot live happily unless they find out how
_this_ is _that_, tell us that the sport--and fine fun it is--was first
suggested to mankind by the beavers. They say that these busy-brained
active animals, by way of keeping their blood-heat up in winter-time, go
in a crowd to some snow-clad hill, scurry up to the top of it with their
broad flat tails behind them, and go sliding down all in a row, rushing
up again as soon as they find themselves at the bottom, and joining the
other end of the procession, and that they keep "the pot arboiling" for
hours with the highest glee imaginable. Well, perhaps the beavers do,
but in one form or other the sport is as old, probably, as the days of
Noah.
Canada is perhaps the home of tobogganing, for there the frost is severe
and lasts long. Now, the scenery all round the "Sea of Dunallan," for
thus had the waters in which our heroes lay been named by them, was very
wild indeed. The hills close beside the beach were high and rounded;
beyond these they were higher still, many of them rising into peaks that
seemed to have their homes among the stars.
It occurred to Paddy O'Connell, who seemed to be the inventive genius of
the crew, and foremost wherever fun was to be had, that a species of
tobogganing might be got up from which some "rale diversion" could be
had.
So one fine moonlight night, with the stars all shining as well as they
could, for the tails and ribbons of brilliant aurora that were hanging
in the sky, Paddy went prospecting.
"Shall I come with you, Paddy?" said Byarnie, who was the best of
friends with the "Oirlander."
"Not to-night, me bhoy," replied Paddy. "It's after a bit av diversion
I'm going, and I think best when I'm all alone by me swate little self."
"Well, you might take a gun with you," suggested Byarnie, "for there may
be bears about, you know."
"Bad cess to them. No. There's never a fear of Paddy."
Byarnie watched him disappear round the brow of a high knoll, about a
quarter of a mile from the _Icebear_; then went quietly below.
The weather had been fine for weeks, and no snow had fallen. It was
just the season when the sun might soon be expected. Already, indeed,
there was twilight at noon, so all hearts were gay and hopeful.
Paddy was in search of a hill, and he was very particular as to both its
shape, its height, and its condition. At last his prospecting cruise
was crowned with success.
"C'dn't have been better," said Paddy, talking to himself, half aloud,
as he had a habit of doing; "c'dn't have been better if me own mother
had made it."
The one drawback was that it was fully a mile and a half from the ship;
but, after all, that was a small matter. So Paddy started to go back.
It had been tedious work, and hours of it, and, feeling tired, he began
to think of his pipe. To think was to act with this son of Green Erin.
He stuck his alpenstock in the snow, and forthwith scratched a match and
lit up.
"That's comforting, anyhow," he said, after a few whiffs. "Now, if I
could only find a stone to sit upon. Troth, I might as well look for a
stone in the midst av the say, or the big bay of Tralore, as--Hullo!
what's yonder, anyhow?"
Paddy was on the bare brow of a steep hill; but on rounding a hummock
and looking back, he found one side of it was dark and free from snow.
He returned, and gave the darkness a poke with his stick, and the stick
struck--nothing. It was the entrance to a cave.
"I'll just light a match and have a look," says Paddy.
The feeble glimmer revealed only a portion of what seemed a great vault.
"I'll creep in for a moment, out av the cowld," says Paddy, "and stand
in a corner; sure there can't be any crayture worse than meself in the
cave."
It was an eerisome situation enough, but our gallant Irishman did not
mind it a bit.
For fully five minutes he smoked, when he thought, or fancied he
thought, he heard a sigh.
"It's draining I am entoirely; who could be there; at all?"
Presently the sigh--a heavy, long-drawn one--was repeated. There could
be no mistake about it this time.
"Ghost of Saint Patrick!" thinks Paddy; "is it in the cave av an evil
spirit I am? But never moind, it's sleeping he is, anyhow. I'll have a
look, and chance it."
Taking half a dozen hearty puffs to give him courage, Paddy quietly
advanced. He had not gone three paces when--behold, curled up at his
feet, a gigantic yellow bear!
"Is it there you are, me darlint?" Paddy whispers to himself. "But
troth, I just remember it's toime I was going, so good night, me dear,
and bad drames to ye."
Now Bruin has excellent scent, and Paddy's tobacco was good and strong,
so no wonder he awoke. He rose to his forepaws, opening a great red
mouth that would have sheltered a coal-scuttle, and giving vent as he
did so to a yawning roar that appeared to shake the very cave.
Paddy threw the almost extinct match into the gulf and fled, with Bruin
at his heels.
Byarnie was very fond of Paddy O'Connell, and when his friend stayed so
long away, naturally grew anxious, and finally started off to look for
him. He would not take a rifle, "because," he argued, "if Paddy wasn't
afraid, sure I'm not." But he armed himself with that most deadly
weapon, a seal club, and away he strode. On and on went the giant over
the snowy hills; but Paddy's track, that he tried for a time to follow,
was as devious as a rabbit's. When he was just about to give up in
despair, who should he see but his friend himself coming round the brow
of the hill--it could be nobody else.
But when Paddy disappeared suddenly from view as effectually as if he
had sunk into the bowels of the earth, then no wonder big Byarnie rubbed
his eyes and stared in astonishment.
Byarnie was superstitious.
"'Twas his ghost," he thought; "poor Paddy is dead, and that was his
spirit!"
And down there on his knees, under the flickering aurora, knelt big
Byarnie to pray. While thus devotionally engaged, he was startled by a
roar that made him feel as if the earth was going to open and swallow
him, and yonder behold poor Paddy running towards him more quickly than
he had ever run before, and followed by something large and yellow.
Byarnie spat on his hands, and threw away his cap.
Well, I do not wonder, mind you, at Bruin's wrath. How would any one
like to be wakened from sweet dreamland, and have the fiery end of a
lucifer match pitched down his throat?
"Come on, Paddy," roared Byarnie.
"Sure ain't I coming as fast as I can?" cried poor innocent Paddy.
As the bear went floundering past, Byarnie struck at him with terrible
force.
The steel point of the club entered his neck, but held there, and both
Byarnie and Bruin rolled together on the ground, the former undermost,
and the blood flew spattering over the snow.
Paddy was back in a moment. He had all his wits about him, and his
first act was to free the seal club.
His next act was one which only a brave, merry-hearted Irishman would
have thought of. He thrust the alpenstock into Bruin's mouth as if it
had been a horse's bit, and, mounting the brute's back, pinned him by
seizing the staff close to the side of each jaw.
"I've got him," he cried.
Crack went the alpenstock, and down went Paddy; but Byarnie was up, and
in a second he had felled his terrible antagonist.
There lay the dead bear on his side, his tongue lolling out, his dead
eyes turned to the sky, and there stood Byarnie and Paddy, both puffing.
"Did you ever see the loikes?" says Paddy.
"No," Byarnie replied; "but, thank Heaven, you are safe. Let us go
home."
But Paddy carried out his tobogganing scheme all the same.
It was a very simple one, but afforded no end of capital exercise and
genuine fun. Carpenter Jones, _alias_ "Chips," manufactured the
tobogganing sledges. Chips said he was glad of the job--anything to
keep his hands in. With the help of his assistants he made a score of
them in a single day. Very simple they were, in shape somewhat similar
to those used by the Canadians, only these seated four abreast, so there
was, so Paddy said, four times the fun.
The tobogganing hill was high and round, but not very steep; the top of
it was a tableland; at the foot was an enormous bank of drifted snow,
and here the fun came in again, as you will presently see.
But let us go with the tobogganing party for just once in a way.
It is eleven o'clock in the forenoon. There is a shimmer of yellowish
white light in the east. There is a moon also. Fancy moonlight at
mid-day! What with these two lights, the aurora, which has been dancing
so merrily for many hours, looks slightly pale, though the colours
displayed are more glorious than any pantomimic transformation scene
your mind could imagine. Alongside the _Icebear_ are two huge sledges;
one is laden with the tobogganing boards and a few merry sailors, the
other with men and officers, and such a row there is and such a din!
What with the wild shouts of Jack and Joe, the Eskimos; the cracking of
whips; the snarling, barking, and yelping of the dogs, the noise is
deafening and indescribable.
But they are off at last.
The men have breakfasted well, and, although it is very cold--ten
degrees below zero--they are happy, nay, even boisterously merry. Paddy
starts a song and all join in the chorus. Claude is there; he knows
that Paddy is a favourite, and lets him do pretty much as he pleases.
The doctor is there also in case of an accident, and he sings and laughs
like the rest, for he is quite a boy, although an old and very learned
one.
Mercy on us! how those dogs do fly over the ground to be sure. They are
as fleet as the reindeer. Now and then one falls and is dragged a
little way, but always manages to scramble up again.
"Hoorup, Hooreeup, Hooree--e?" screams Joe. Crack, crack, crack goes
the whip.
Higher and wilder rises Paddy's song and chorus. Never before were the
echoes of the mountains awakened by such boisterous mirth. Even bears
asleep in their dens and caves hear and arouse themselves to listen.
"Hoorup, Hooreeup, Hooree--ee--e?"
The sledge goes over a rough bank, and Tom Tatters tumbles out. Boy
Bounce waves his cap and laughs at him, but on goes the sledge, over the
hills and round the hills and across some frozen streams, and at last
straight up the side of the tobogganing hill, and two more men fall out
here, and all the rest are thrown on their backs with their heels in the
air--what sailors call catching crabs.
"We--e, wee--e, woh--ip!"
The sledge comes to a standstill on the flat top of the mountain, and
the dogs stand still also, their tongues lolling out, and panting.
The other sledge is coming up fast and furious, and soon is on the
ground.
Then the fun begins.
Four men seat themselves on a tobogganing sledge, and others start
them,--with a will too. Down they shoot, the others watching.
The sensation is like that of descending from a balloon with a sense of
pleasure substituted for that of danger. The moon and stars are hardly
seen by those bold tobogganers. Faster and faster, they can hardly
believe they have fairly started till they are at the bottom, and--
buried in the wreath of snow.
They are completely buried. Those above for some moments cannot see
them at all.
Paddy O'Connell was in the first lot, and he declared that "the dacint
burial at the foot av the hill was the best av it entoirely."
The fun has fairly commenced, and sledge follows sledge down the
mountain-side, sometimes three abreast. Even Claude himself and the
doctor embark at last, both in the same boat, and find the sensation so
delightful that they keep it up.
The dogs have exercise at this game too, for they have to gallop along
the plateau to haul the sledges up again.
It is a mad scene and a merry one.
But lo! while the fun is at its fastest, "Look! look!" cried Dr
Barrett, pointing skywards; and every eye is turned upwards.
A little purple cloud!
It was twelve o'clock and almost daylight.
What a shout rent the air then!
The sun would rise to-morrow.
Claude and Dr Barrett shook hands, but neither spoke; their hearts were
too full. Perhaps both were at that moment breathing a prayer of
thankfulness to the kind Father who had hitherto protected them from
every danger and from sickness itself.
There were great doings that night in the _Icebear_ and in the
_Icebear's_ snow-house. A supper on board, a concert on shore!
Paddy's Irish jig was pronounced to be "a caution out and out," so the
men phrased it.
Boy Bounce's "break-down" almost outstripped it.
Even Byarnie must take the floor to dance all by himself a wild Norse
"hoolichan."
If you can imagine a rhinoceros tripping it on the light fantastic toe,
then you see honest Byarnie. If you cannot, then I have only to confess
that figures of speech fail me.
The doctor played a selection of airs on his violin, that the engineer,
who, like most good engineers, was a Scotchman, declared made him "laugh
and greet (cry) by turns."
Why were those mariners--far away in the desolate regions of the Pole--
so happy, so gay?
Because they were hopeful. The purple cloud had done it all. The sun
was returning. The long Arctic night had received notice to quit, and
in two or three months at most summer would be with them; they would
accomplish the object of their adventurous voyage, and bear up for home.
Home! What a charm it has for a sailor's heart!