The Old Man meets the Little People under Peculiar
Circumstances, and relates to them how the Young Man,
being cast away in the Cold, rescued a Shipmate, and
also other Matters, which, if put into this Title, would
spoil the Story altogether.
[Illustration]
This time Captain Hardy was not to be caught napping, as on the previous
day. Indeed, he was out looking for his young friends even before the
time. "If they don't come soon," said he to himself, "I'll go after
them";--and they did not come soon, at least the Captain thought they
were a long time in coming, and he started off, if not after them, at
least to look after them. When he had reached the brow of the hill from
which both the Captain's and Mr. Earnest's houses could be seen, the old
man discovered the children coming down one of the winding paths which
led through Mr. Earnest's grounds. It was some moments before they saw
the Captain, and when they did see him there was much wondering what had
happened to bring him up so far on the hill.
"Why, what's the matter with him?" exclaimed William. "Look, he's
flinging up his hat!"--and the little people set off upon a rapid run.
Meanwhile the Captain stood on the brow of the hill, whirling round his
tarpaulin hat with the long blue ribbons flying wildly in the wind. When
the children came nearer, they heard the old man calling loudly to them,
"Come, my hearties, you are slow to-day. Be lively, or we'll lose the
chance."
"What chance?" asked William, when they had come up with him.
"The wind, the wind,--why, don't you see there's a spankin' breeze? I
was afraid we'd lose our sail, so I came to hurry you up."
"Hurrah! hurrah!" shouted both the boys together; and without further
ado the Captain hurried the little people along with him down through
the woods to the water.
The old man had been down there before, and had everything in readiness.
The little yacht was lying close beside the little wharf. "Look sharp
now, and be lively," exclaimed the Captain as he helped them one by one
aboard; and then he got in himself, and shoved the yacht off from the
landing, and with the assistance of a singular-looking boy, whom the
Captain called "Main Brace," he spread the sails, and the lively craft
was soon skimming over the waters, carrying as lively a party as ever
set out on an afternoon frolic. "Jolly" was the only word which seemed
at all to express the children's pleasure, and if the boys said "it's
jolly" once, they must have said it fifty times at least; while little
Alice exhibited her excitement by jumping from one side of the boat to
the other, stopping now and then to lean over the side and watch the
little waves gurgling past them, sometimes dipping her delicate hands
into the water, and screaming with delight when the spray flew over her.
The party were seated (when seated at all) in what is called the "stern
sheets," that is, on the seat in the open space behind the cabin
heretofore described,--the good-natured and kindly Captain in the midst
of them, firmly holding the helm or tiller of his boat, and guiding it
with steady hand wherever he wished it to go, cracking a pleasant joke
now and then, and enjoying in all the fulness of his big, warm heart the
joyous delight of his young guests. And he was in no hurry to stop the
sport, for he ran on clear across the harbor, and then said he would
"'bout ship," and put back again.
"What's 'bout ship?" inquired William.
"That's going about on the other tack," replied the Captain.
"What's going about on the other tack?" asked William, as wise as he was
before.
"I'll show you," said the Captain. "Now see here: first I give the
proper order, as if somebody else was giving it to me, and I was the man
at the wheel: 'Hard-a-lee,' do you observe;--now look, I put the helm
down as far as I can jam it,--there;--look now, how that turns the boat
and brings her up into the wind,--you see the sails begin to
shiver,--the wind is blowing right in your faces now;--now we have
turned nearly round; the boat, you see, has come up on an even
keel,--level, you know;--now look out sharp for your heads there,--the
boom is going to jibe over to the other side;--there, don't you see
we've turned round,--that house over there near the beach that was
almost ahead of us is now behind us. There goes the boom,--bang! There
fills the sail, see it bulging out,--the jib, you see, shakes a little
yet,--but there she goes now filled out like the other; and now you see
I've got the helm back where I had it before, in the middle, 'steady,'
you know, and there goes the _Alice_ off on the starboard tack, and an
easy bowline back towards the Mariner's Rest again. Wasn't that nicely
done?"
"Splendid! splendid!" cried William; "I wish I could do it."
"I'll teach you,--it's easy learned," answered the Captain; "but look
out there, or you'll go overboard; get up to windward, and trim the
boat; you see we are leaning over to the other side now."
And thus the Captain kept on "tacking" across the harbor, going to and
fro, for more than an hour, enjoying every minute of it just as much as
the children did. When at length, however, the children began to quiet
down a little (the sharp edge of novelty being worn off), the Captain
ran into shoal water, and brought his boat's head once more up into the
wind; but this time, instead of letting her head "pay" off to starboard,
he steered her right into the wind's eye, with the sails shivering all
the time, until the boat stopped, when he cried out to Main Brace to
"let go the anchor," which Main Brace did promptly, with an "Ay, ay,
sir!" and then he "clewed" up the sails, and spread a white and red
striped and red-fringed awning over the place where they were seated,
and said he was now going on with the story. "Isn't this a tip-top
place," said he, "for story-telling?" And the children all said it was
"tip-top," and "jolly," and "grand," and made many little speeches about
it, which to put down here would make this account so long that
everybody would get tired before getting to the end of it.
"Now I call this a much better place than the 'Crow's Nest,'" went on
the Captain; "for, don't you see, when we knocked off yesterday I was
standing in the middle of the sea, on a great ice-raft. To be sure we
are not exactly in the middle of the sea here, nor on an ice-raft
either, but we are on salt water, and that's where I like to be. The air
is better for the wits, and the tongue too, for that matter, than on the
land there, which is a good enough place to be when there is no wind;
but I like to be on the water, and have plenty of sea-room, when the
wind blows, especially when it blows a gale,--for on land, at such
times, I'm always afraid that the trees will blow over on me, or the
house will blow down on my head, or some dreadful accident will happen,
whereas on the sea one has no fears at all; and besides, at sea one is
always at home,--come rain or shine, he's always his house with him, and
never has to go groping about for shelter."
"Only you mustn't be in the forecastle," put in cunning William, who
remembered the Captain's fright when he first found himself at sea in
the _Blackbird_.
"Never mind that, lad," replied the Captain, "I was only a boy then, and
hadn't come to years of discretion. I've made better friends with the
sea since that day. But let us go on, or we'll never get through with
this story, any more than the Flying Dutchman will get into port, though
he keeps on beating up and down forever; and as for to-day, why, we'll
leave off just where we began, like thieves in a treadmill, if we don't
get started pretty soon.
* * * * *
"Well, you see, as I was saying, you left me standing on an ice-raft in
the middle of the Arctic Sea, cast away in a cold and forbidding place,
and all alone. My shipmates were all either drowned or killed outright
by the falling ice, so far at least as I knew. The prospect ahead was
not a pleasing one, for of course, as I think I have said before, the
first thought which crossed my mind was, that I should starve or freeze
to death very soon. I was greatly astonished by what had happened, and
indeed it was hard for me to believe my senses, so suddenly had this
great disaster come upon me. I stood staring into the mist, and
listening to the terrible sounds which came out of it, as one petrified;
yet after a little time I recovered myself sufficiently to realize my
situation. The instinct of life is strong in every living thing, and
young sailor-boys are no exception to the rule; so, after I had stood in
the presence of this frightful chaos for I have not the least idea how
long, I began to think what I should do to save myself.
"The waves which had been raised after a while began steadily to
subside, and, as the sea became more calm, I found that I could approach
nearer to where the wreck had happened by jumping over some of the
cracks which had been made in the ice, and walking across piece after
piece of it. These pieces were all in motion, rolling on the swell of
the sea, and, the farther I went, of course the greater the motion
became. I had to proceed cautiously, and when I jumped from one fragment
of ice to another, I was obliged to look carefully what I was about, for
if I missed my footing I should fall into the sea, and be either drowned
or ground up by the moving ice.
"Had the iceberg all gone to pieces at once, the sea would soon have
become quiet; but it was evident from the noises which reached me that a
considerable part of the berg was still holding together, and was
wallowing in the sea in consequence of its equilibrium being disturbed
by the first crash, and was still keeping the waters moving. I could
indeed vaguely see this remaining fragment, swaying to right and left,
and I could also perceive that, with every roll, fresh masses were
breaking off, with loud reports, like the crash of artillery. I could,
however, discover nothing of the ship nor either of the boats. I was
able to detect, even at a considerable distance, some fragments of ice
floating and rolling about, when the fog would clear up a little; and,
as I peered into the gloom, I thought at one time that I saw a man
standing upon one of them. It was but a moment, for the fog closed upon
the object, whatever it may have been, and it vanished as a spectral
figure.
"My eyes were strained to catch a further glimpse of this object, but
nothing more was to be seen of it. From this my attention was soon
attracted by a dark mass which had drifted upon the edge of the broken
ice, not far to the right of the place where I had been standing when
the boat left me. I soon made this out to be some part of the wreck of
the ship. In a few moments I could clearly see that it was a piece of a
mast; then I could plainly distinguish the 'foretop.' Each succeeding
wave was forcing it higher and higher out of the water, and I
discovered, after a few moments, that other timbers were attached to it,
and that beside these were sails and ropes, making of the whole a
considerable mass.
"After observing this fragment of the wreck attentively for some time, I
thought I perceived a man moving among the tangled collection of timbers
and ropes and sails, endeavoring to extricate himself. Whatever it might
be, it was some distance above the sea,--so high, indeed, that the waves
no longer washed it fairly,--only the spray.
"It soon became clear to me that my suspicions that this was a man were
correct; and being more convinced that one of my shipmates at least was
yet alive, I rushed forward to rescue him if possible, without once
stopping to give a thought to the risks I would encounter. It was clear
that he could not liberate himself.
"You will remember that I was now standing on a fragment of ice which
had been broken off from the solid ice-field by the waves. It was one of
a number of similar fragments, all lying more or less close together,
and between me and the place where I had been standing when the waves
began to subside, and the ice ceased to break up. Before me the ice was
in the same broken condition as behind me, only, being nearer the open
water, the pieces were rolling more, so that there was much greater
danger in springing from piece to piece. Without, however, pausing to
reflect upon this circumstance, I rushed forward as fast as I could go,
jumping with ease over every obstacle in my way, until I was on the
piece of ice that held up the end of the tangled wreck. I had evidently
arrived in the very nick of time, for the wreck was, instead of coming
farther up, now beginning to sink back into the sea.
[Illustration: Rescued from the Wreck.]
"What I had taken for a man proved to be one, or, as I soon found out, a
boy,--the cabin-boy of the ship, a light, pale-faced lad, and only
fourteen years old. The boy was evidently fast in some way among the
rigging, and had been trying to free himself. As I came closer, I
observed that he was entirely quiet, and had sunk out of view. Quick as
thought I mounted up into the wreck, and then I saw the boy with a rope
tangled round his leg, and lying quite insensible. Underneath him
another man was lying, much mutilated, and evidently quite dead. As I
was mounting up, a wave washed in under the wreck, but I escaped with
only a little spray flying over me, which, however, did not wet me
much. It was but the work of a moment to whip out my knife, which I
carried in a belt, like every other sailor, and cut the rope which bound
the boy down, and which he had tried in vain to loosen. After this I had
no further difficulty, and, seizing the boy around the waist with one
arm (he was very light even for his years), I clambered out of the wreck
to the ice without getting much more water upon me, and, hurrying off,
did not stop until I had jumped with my burden across several cracks,
and ran across several pieces of ice, reaching a place of present safety
on the unbroken or fast ice. Here I laid down my insensible burden, all
dripping with the cold water, and in a state of great anxiety I bent
over the boy. At first I thought that he was dead, but it was soon clear
that this was not the case, for he was breathing, although slowly, yet
freely. Out from his wet hair a little blood was oozing, and upon
examining the spot I found that there was a bad bruise there, and that
the skin was broken, though there was not a serious cut. This was
clearly the cause of his present unconsciousness, as his breathing
seemed conclusively to show that he had managed to keep his head above
water, and had not been brought to his present state by drowning. It
occurred to me that the blow had simply stunned him, and that it had
come almost at the moment I arrived to rescue him. I could not perceive
that the skull was fractured, and I felt convinced that, if the boy
could be warmed and allowed to lie at rest, he would after a while come
to his senses. To this conclusion I arrived while leaning over the poor
fellow, examining his hurt, while he lay on the chilly ice, never once
thinking where I was, and all the while calling frantically to him; but
I might as well have called to a stone. When I rose up, fully impressed
with the necessity of securing for the lad rest and warmth, and fully
realized, for the first time, my powerless situation (that I was even
apparently unable to save myself, still less the boy), my heart seemed
to give way entirely, and I sank down once more beside him. A prayer to
Heaven for succor, which I had no thought could ever come to me, rose to
my lips, and at that very moment a ray of hope dawned upon me. The great
fog was breaking away, the bright sun was scattering the mists, and land
was bursting through it near at hand. Light, fleecy clouds were rolling
up above the sea, and, as they floated off before a gentle wind, a blaze
of sunshine burst through an opening in them and fell upon myself and
the boy whose life I had, at least for the present, saved.
"I could now look out over the sea for a considerable distance. Although
there was still much confusion, yet the ice was steadily quieting down,
and the waves caused by it were subsiding rapidly. But a change not less
marked had taken place in the space between where I stood and the open
water. The wreck from which I had rescued the boy had settled back into
the sea, and the fragments of ice were separating and floating off. Had
I delayed a few minutes longer, I should never have reached the fast
ice, but should have drifted off upon the dark waters, as the man had
done whom I saw standing in the fog that I have told you of before.
"As the fog cleared up more and more, the land which first appeared
stood out boldly, and the sea was visible over a range of many miles. It
was dotted all over with fragments of ice and numerous icebergs, many of
which reached up into the disappearing mists, looking like white
mountains in miniature, with clouds drifting across their summits. The
land did not appear to be more than a mile distant from me, and it was
evident that I stood upon ice which was fast to it. Indeed, when I was
first cast upon this ice, I might have known, had I paused to reflect,
that land must be very near, as the name 'fast ice' indicates clearly of
itself that simple fact.
"With this lighting up of the air, various thoughts came into my mind.
First, could I get to the land and save the boy as well as myself;
secondly, could I aid anybody else; and thirdly, could I save anything
of the wreck out of the sea. These last two reflections were quickly
disposed of, for although I could see many fragments of the wreck, none
were within reach, and no other person was in sight,--ship and boats and
men were all gone down before the crushing avalanche, and nothing was
left but myself and a senseless boy.
"I must here pause to tell you that, although we were in the Arctic
regions, and on the ice, the weather was not cold, the time being the
middle of the summer. Of course the dense fog made the air damp and
chilly, but, as I have said, not exactly cold. My shipmates, before the
wreck happened, never dressed in anything warmer than the usual woollen
clothing, and seldom wore coats. For some reason, I do not exactly
remember why, I had, upon going on deck from breakfast that fatal
morning, in addition to my ordinary coat, put on a heavy pilot-cloth
overcoat, which had been furnished me by the master of the ship,--the
price of it to be deducted from my wages. And it was most fortunate that
I had put this coat on, for it now served a good purpose in wrapping up
the boy.
"Seeing that there was now nothing to be gained by longer delay on the
ice, I picked up the boy in my arms and started for the land. It may
strike you as somewhat strange that I should have gone about it so
calmly, or indeed that I did not fall down in despair, and at once give
up the hope of saving myself when there was so little, or rather no,
apparent prospect of it before me. But for this there were some very
natural reasons. In the first place, the thought of saving the boy's
life kept my mind from dwelling too much upon my own misfortunes; and
then, the hope of finding the land which had come in sight out of the
fog inhabited, stimulated my courage, and inspired exertion.
"Although the boy was not heavy, yet I found that in the distance I had
to carry him I grew much fatigued; but the necessity for haste made me
strong, and to save the boy's life seemed now much more desirable than
to save my own, inasmuch as if the boy died, and I survived him, and
could in any way manage to live on, I should be in a worse condition
than if dead, as it appeared to me,--being all alone.
"As I approached very near the land, I became much alarmed by
discovering that a considerable space of water, partly filled with
fragments of ice, intervened between me and the shore; but, after
holding to the right for a little distance, I came at length to a spot
where the ice was firmly in contact with the land, and, after climbing
over some very rough masses which had been squeezed up along the shore,
I got at last upon the rocks, and then on a patch of green grass, where
I laid down the insensible boy in the blazing sun.
"What was I now to do? The boy was yet in very much the same condition
that he was when I set out with him for the shore. Meanwhile more than
half an hour must have elapsed, during which time the boy was wrapped in
his wet clothes, which, to a man in the full possession of his senses,
would have been prostrating enough. It seemed to me that he was sinking
under the effects of the blow which he had received, and the wet clothes
which were on his body. I had, however, the gratification of knowing
that I was on firm land, and away from the cold ice. The grass was warm,
and the air, as I have said, was scarcely chilly. Under these improved
conditions it was clearly better to expose the boy's body wholly to the
air than to allow him to remain in his wet clothes. The first thing,
therefore, which I did was to divest myself of my own clothing, in order
that I might give my warm underclothing to the boy. This left for
myself only my pantaloons and my coat. After buttoning the coat tightly
round me, I undressed the boy, and rubbed his body with such parts of
the tail of my overcoat as his clothes had not wetted while carrying
him, and, this done, I drew on to him my shirt and drawers, and then,
pulling up the grass, I heaped that about him, and over this threw my
damp overcoat,--the grass preventing it from touching him. All this
occupied but a few minutes, for I worked with the energy of despair. I
then set to rubbing and pounding his feet and hands which were very
cold, to get some circulation back into them.
"I had now done all that it was possible for me to do for the present
towards the restoration of my poor companion, who still remained in
precisely the same insensible state as before, and I now determined to
look about me and ascertain if there were any evidences of human beings
living near at hand.
"The scene around me was dreary enough to strike terror into a stouter
heart than mine; and, when I had fully viewed it, I had to confess that
it did not seem probable that any living thing, not to mention human
beings, could possibly be there. The first thought I had was to shout
and halloo again and again at the very top of my voice; but no answer
reached me except the echo of my own words in a deep and dark gorge
close by. This echo startled me and made me afraid, though I never could
tell why. My loud calling had failed to produce any impression upon the
boy whatever, and I felt sure that he was going to die. Without exactly
knowing what I did, or what I was doing it for, I now ran to the right
over the green grass, and then over rough stones up to a considerable
elevation, and commenced hallooing again, when, much to my astonishment,
I heard a great fluttering and loud sounds right below and within
thirty feet of me. I sprang back as if some terrible enemy had attacked
me; but I recovered myself in an instant, when I observed that the
fluttering came from a number of birds which rose from among the rocks.
The birds were brown and quite large, and I knew at once that they were
eider-ducks, for I had seen them frequently before, while in the ship,
and the sailors had told me their name.
"Without having any distinct motive in doing so, I went down to where
the birds had risen, when still others rose before me in great numbers.
The rapidity of their flight, and the loud noise which they made,
startled others still farther away, and thus flock after flock kept on
rising from among the rocks, screaming, and flapping their wings in a
very loud manner. Several hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, must have
thus got upon their wings and commenced sailing overhead.
"You must know that the eider-duck, in order to protect its eggs from
the air when it goes off to get for food the little fish that it catches
in the sea, plucks from its breast the fine feathers called _down_, in
which it buries its eggs very carefully. In each of the nests I found
there was a good handful of this down, and the thought at once occurred
to me to gather a quantity of it, and cover the boy with it. I went to
work immediately, and collected a great armful of it, and, hastening to
where the boy was, I deposited it, and then hurried back for more. In a
very short time I had accumulated a great pile, and, spreading a thick
layer of it out close beside the boy, I drew him over upon it, and then
covered him completely, and spread my overcoat as I had done before.
"The value of putting this discovery to prompt use was soon seen. The
boy, from being cold almost as a corpse, began to show some symptoms of
returning warmth. His breathing seemed to be more rapid and free, and
his eyelids began to move a little, though they did not fully open for
some time; but it was then only for an instant, and I was not certain
whether he recognized me or not. I called to him loudly by name, I
rubbed his forehead, I pounded his hands, but he gave no further
recognition; yet he was getting more and more warm, and in this
circumstance I rested my hope.
"Having accomplished this much, and feeling pretty sure that the boy
would recover in the end, my mind very naturally fell back upon the
contemplation of my own unhappy condition. I moved a few steps from the
boy, and sat down upon a rock overlooking the sea. There was nothing
there to inspire me with courage, when this question came uppermost in
my mind: 'Suppose the boy does recover from his present stupor, how are
we going to live?' Could anybody indeed be in a more sorry state? Let me
enumerate:--
"1st. I had been shipwrecked,--a fortune usually considered bad enough
under any circumstances.
"2d. I had lost all of my companions except a feeble boy whom I had
rescued from death, and who was now helpless on my hands.
"3d. I was cast away on a desert land, I knew not where, but very far
towards the North Pole, as was clear enough from the immense quantities
of ice which whitened the sea before me.
"4th. I was chilly, and had no fire nor means of making any. Nor had I
sufficient clothing to cover me.
"5th. I was hungry, and had no food nor means of obtaining any.
"6th. I was thirsty, and had nothing to drink, nor could I discover
anything.
"7th. I was without house or hut to shelter me.
"8th. I was without weapons to defend myself against the attacks of wild
beasts, if any there should be to molest me.
"To counteract these evils I had four things, namely:--
"1st. Life.
"2d. The clothes on my back.
"3d. A jack-knife.
"4th. The mercy of Providence.
"And this was all! What chance was there for me?
"Little enough, one would think. And, in truth, there did not seem to be
any at all. When I thought of all this, I buried my face in my hands,
and moaned aloud, and the big tears began to gather in my eyes."
* * * * *
"O, wasn't it awful!" exclaimed William.
"I don't see what you _could_ do, Captain Hardy," exclaimed Fred.
"The poor boy," exclaimed Alice,--"I hope he didn't die. Did he, Captain
Hardy?"--and the child began to imitate the example set by John Hardy,
when he rested on the rock and looked out upon the icy sea and
speculated upon the chances of his ever seeing again the home from which
he had so foolishly run away.
"Well, I'll tell you about that some other time," answered the Captain.
"You may be sure I didn't die, at any rate, whatever may have happened
to the boy; but just now I can tell you no more, for look there at that
cloud coming up out of the sea, appearing, for all the world, as if it
meant to pipe a squall after us, by and by; and now, with your leave,
we'll slip home while the play's good. So here goes. Up anchor."
"Ay, ay, sir," answered William, as he jumped forward very unnecessarily
to help Main Brace, to whom the order to "up anchor" was given.
"Halloo!" cried the Captain. "Turned sailor already, eh?"
While Main Brace and William were getting in the anchor, the Captain was
stowing away the awning, and then, the yacht being free, he spread the
sails, and with his helm brought her to the wind; and there being now a
lively breeze, the party were not long in crossing over to the Captain's
anchoring-ground, where he turned so as to stop her as he had done
before, and then cried out, "Stand by to let go the anchor," to which
William answered, "Ay, ay, sir!" and when the boat had stopped, the
Captain cried out again, "Let go," and William answered, "Ay, ay!"
again, and let it go. Then, as soon as the Captain had secured his yacht
and stowed away the sails, the whole party hurried ashore, and up the
path to the Captain's cottage, for already great drops of rain were
beginning to patter on the leaves, and the roaring wind was heard among
the forest trees, giving the first warning cry of a coming shower.