WILD SPORTS OF THE FAR NORTH--AN ARCTIC STORM--BREAKING UP OF THE SEA OF
ICE.
It was a matter of no small wonderment to the men of the _Icebear_ why
Dr Barrett should now, in a great measure, forsake the mine, where it
seemed that wealth could be accumulated, slow though it might be in
coming.
But the worthy surgeon "ken't his ain ken," as the Scotch say; in other
words, he knew what he was about. He was not a gold-digger nor a
silver-miner: he was sent out for the purpose of scientific discovery;
not to load the _Icebear_ with the spoils of this frozen wilderness, but
to spy out the richness of the land.
Was it not possible, he argued with himself, that at some future day an
expedition might be sent out, and a company formed to work mines here.
It would give him, Dr Barrett, the greatest pleasure to be in charge of
it Meanwhile he was very busy indeed.
Dr Barrett's character and habits were such as might well be imitated
by the youth of the rising generation, both male and female. Let me
give one or two examples of it.
ONE. He was never idle unless taking wholesome healthful recreation.
TWO. He considered the strict performance of duty as a part and parcel
of his religion, and its neglect a grievous and _cowardly_ sin.
THREE. He was always ahead of the work he had to perform, and therefore
always easy in his mind.
FOUR. He had method and exactness in carrying on his work.
FIVE. Having done his duty he trusted all else to that kind Providence
who guides and rules everything here below.
Yes, the doctor was busy and kept his men busy.
As long as the snow lay on the ground sledging expeditions were made
every day, if it did not blow too high, or if the drifting snow was not
blinding.
Very pleasant and delightful, sometimes, were those sledging trips, very
dangerous at others. The sledges were large and strong; they had been
built specially for the purpose, and were furnished, not only with
plenty of provisions, but with all that would be necessary in an
extended tour of, say, a week, though three days was generally about the
limit the doctor gave himself. He was hardy himself, and cared little
for fatigue; he was, in fact, an enthusiast, but he hesitated to expose
his men too much. Besides, he had sick patients on board, and an
accident might happen at any time.
There was plenty of capital sport to be got in these rambles. The
animals that had returned to this country, however, were not yet very
numerous. Bears there were, but they could certainly as yet have but
little to eat. They growled about among the rocks, and wandered by the
side of ice-water swollen streams. Probably they caught fish, perhaps
they lived on love; but there they were, lean, long, and hungry looking,
their great shaggy coats alone preventing them from having the
appearance of downright starvation.
But precisely in the ratio of their hunger was their ferocity. The very
sight of a man made them howl with anger.
"Come on!" they seemed to cry. "I won't run away; I'm not afraid of
such as you. Come on, and be eaten up."
There were two "hands" in the ship who took great delight in these
pleasure parties; one was Paddy, the other the boy Bounce, and both
constituted themselves Dr Barrett's special attendants and body-guard.
Paddy, of course, carried a rifle; and, after some preliminary training,
boy Bounce was permitted to do so likewise. And right proud was the lad
to march at his master's heels with his gun and his shot-belts.
His master was terribly absent-minded.
Boy Bounce used to relate of an evening, to his special friend--on
board--the cook, how many times a day he saved his master's life.
"Blowed if he wouldn't walk right into the river sometimes!" said boy
Bounce, "if I didn't holler at 'im; or over a cliff, if I didn't pull
'im back by the coat-tails."
One fine sunny day the doctor was sitting sketching a pretty snow
scene--ice, mountain, glen, and waterfall, and the boy Bounce was lying
not far from his feet, facing him.
"Ahem!" began the boy. "I say, sir."
"Well, well, well?" cried the doctor, impatiently.
"It's a dee-licious morning--ain't it, sir?"
The surgeon made no reply, but went on sketching.
"Think the frost'll hold, sir?"
The doctor looked up now--he knew boy Bounce's ways.
"What else have you to say, boy, eh? Out with it."
"Oh, nothing sir, only there's been a bear a-squatting yonder, and
a-lookin' at ye for the last five minutes, and maybe he's going to
spring."
Dr Barrett sprang first though. The monster was within thirty yards of
him. He seized boy Bounce's rifle, and next moment Bruin rolled over
the ledge dead at their feet.
"Why didn't you hit him, you young goose?"
"Cause as 'ow, sir," said boy Bounce, coolly, "you told me never to do
nought 'athout first consulting you."
"Is it a bear?" said Paddy, rushing to the scene of action.
"Well," replied the doctor, smiling as he resumed his work, "it is
something very like it, Paddy."
"Sure and it's meself ought to have killed him, and not that young
spalpeen Bounce."
Boy Bounce smiled and took all the credit, and Paddy at once set about
taking Bruin out of his jacket, singing to himself some wild Irish lilt
as he did so.
There was one other individual who attached himself to these sleighing
expeditions, who had really no business there, namely, the noble
deerhound Fingal.
I have no idea what induced him to do so, unless it was to constitute
himself captain over the two teams of dogs, and to enjoy good sport
among the Arctic foxes, to say nothing of the grand galloping he had.
Fingal used to fly along at the head of the foremost team, keeping well
beyond reach, however, of the leader's fangs and of the driver's
cracking thong. He used to hunt the foxes on his own account all day,
and spent his whole night in keeping them off the camp.
There is no end to the impudence these little animals possess,
especially when snow is on the ground. They are then mostly white. I
have an idea that, like Scotch hares, they change their colour with the
season of the year; at all events, in summer they are of many different
hues, and they then keep farther away from the habitations of men.
At night, in snow time, they are singularly annoying. They yelp and
yap, and howl and fight, and unless you are very tired indeed, sleep is
all but impossible. If you fire at one and wound it, the chances are he
will not run off if he could. You march up to club him, and he grins
and whines and fawns at you in the most ridiculous manner; in fact, he
_argues with you_. Well, what _can_ you do with a wounded animal who
argues with you? You cannot brain him. No, you simply retire, feeling
mightily ashamed of yourself for having fired at him.
Wounded monkeys have this same trick, and several other animals I could
name.
Camping out by the River Thames in the sweet summer-time, and camping in
the shelter of a rock on the snowfields of the far north, are two very
different things. The members of Dr Barrett's sledging parties and the
doctor himself slept in the sledges; slept with their bodies in warm
flannel-lined bags, with rags over this, and rags right over their
heads. Even then it was bitterly, oppressively cold.
The men of the _Icebear_ used to envy Jack and Joe, the Eskimo Indians,
who slept on the snow near their dogs with no other covering except the
clothes they had worn during the day.
Fingal, poor fellow, never rested by night--if night I dare call it,
with the sun ablaze in the sky--he was constantly roaming round the camp
doing sentry duty, and keeping off the gangs of foxes. Often a horrid
yelling would awaken all hands, and, on looking up, Fingal would be seen
shaking a fox as Sarah Jane shakes a mat or a carpet skin.
One evening in May, when the sun was declining, or taking his dip
towards the lower part of the northern sky, clouds began to bank rapidly
up from the south-west. It had been clear and frosty before this.
It soon grew quite dusk. The clouds were very dense and very black--in
great rolling masses that certainly threatened something most unusual.
Dr Barrett gazed with some uneasiness at the gathering storm.
In less than half an hour the sky was entirely obscured, and the wind,
which had blown at first as if to place the clouds in position, fell
dead. So for a time matters remained, the clouds still in shapeless
masses rolling around among each other without any apparent cause.
Gradually, however, they lost shape, and the whole firmament merged into
one unbroken vault of darkest grey. Then pellets of snow, not bigger
than millet seeds, began to fall, faster and faster and faster.
Dr Barrett gave orders for the camp to be made up at once, and supper
to be cooked.
The snow-pellets merged into great flakes larger than crown pieces, and
it grew darker and darker.
Then there was a thunder-clap that appeared to shake the very earth.
Darker still. What with the gloom of this abnormal night, and the
falling snow, the men could hardly see each other's faces. The thunder
was now loud, awful, incessant; the lightning spread all round among the
still fast-descending snow. It was lightning of a sort you never see
except in Greenland. You are enveloped in the blaze; it is around and
above you everywhere--a white, dazzling bath of flame.
Poor Byarnie knelt beside the sledge, and buried his head in his hands.
The giant was praying, Paddy crossed himself, and boy Bounce began to
cry. Meanwhile the doctor sat on a bundle of bags, stolidly smoking,
and Fingal crouched close to his feet; and ever, in the intervals of the
thunder-claps and their awful reverberation among the mountains, was
heard the melancholy howling of the sledge dogs.
"D'ye think, sorr," said Paddy O'Connell, touching the doctor gently on
the sleeve,--"d'ye think there's any danger at all, at all?"
"The danger is this, Paddy," replied the doctor: "the snow is very soft
and powdery. We are thirty miles from the ship; and if it comes on to
blow, we will never reach her alive."
"Then, the Lord help me mother and me poor sister Biddy," said Paddy,
piously.
But some time after midnight the thunderstorm retired, growling over the
distant hills, and with it went every cloud.
Then oh! to see the beauty of the newly fallen snow, its purity, its
whiteness, its stars of many shapes and ever-changing colours of light
and radiance.
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After two days of a wind that blew steadily from the south, the silence
of that great inland sea was suddenly broken.
You might have imagined you were on some great battle-field, there was a
constant series of rifle-like reports in all directions, with now and
then a louder report, as if a piece of artillery had been discharged.
And amid these ominous sounds you could hear, as it were, the shrieks of
the wounded and the groans of the dying.
It was the breaking up of the inland sea of ice, and the noise continued
for a whole day, and still the soft wind blew from the south.