evening, however, as we were sitting on deck after dinner smoking our
cigars and gazing at the peerless panorama of the tropical heavens, we
saw him come on deck. We hushed our talk, for we felt that something
was pending. Goodhew was sitting by Mrs Fuller’s chair—that is, poor
Mac’s chair—at some distance from us. Mac seeing this, strode up and
down the deck behind them. Presently, Mrs Fuller rose, wished us
good-night, and disappeared below. We nudged one another, watched round
the corners of our eyes, and listened.
Mac strode up to Goodhew, who was approaching us. ‘Mister Goodhew,’ he
said, ‘oi call that a dirty mane trick!’
‘What do you mean, sir?’ angrily retorted Goodhew, stopping short.
‘Oi mane what oi say, sir,’ said Mac. ‘It was a dirty mane trick. Mrs
Fuller asked me to get the bird for her, and oi got it; and you come in
with a pole like a mast, and you fish it out under me very oyes!’
‘Under your very stick, you mean, Mac,’ said Goodhew, laughing.
‘No matter what oi mane!’ exclaimed the infuriated Irishman. ‘Oi
mane, that when one gintleman recaives a commission from a lady, and
another gintleman executes it by a mane trick, the other gintleman’s no
gintleman at all at all—but a cad, Mister Goodhew, a cad!’
‘I say, Mac, draw it mild,’ said Goodhew, in his turn irritated; ‘we’re
not all bogtrotters here!’
‘Is it bogtrotter ye’re callin’ me!’ exclaimed Mac in a frenzy. ‘Bedad,
oi’ll tache ye to call a MacWhirter a bogtrotter, ye spalpeen!’ And he
sprang at Goodhew furiously.
Goodhew seized him by the waist, and in another minute would have
certainly dropped Mac overboard, had we not all jumped up and
interposed. Mac danced and kicked and struggled and used every
vilifying expression he could. Goodhew also was endeavouring to wrest
himself from our grasp; but we held on, and the opponents seeing that
they could not get at each other, gradually desisted from trying.
‘Doctor!’ said Mac, after a breathing-space, ‘this is an affair for
immadiate settlement.’
‘Pooh! my dear fellow,’ said the officer, ‘who can fight duels on the
deck of a P. and O. steamer? Better wait till we get to Hong-kong;
there’s plenty of room there.’
‘Hong-kong be it then,’ said Mac.—‘Mister Goodhew, oi’ll send ye me
card in the morning.’
‘All right, Mac,’ replied Goodhew, who was recovering his good temper.
‘Send as many as you like. But don’t you think we’re a couple of fools,
to be going on in this absurd way about a trifle?’
‘A trifle ye call it?’ roared Mac. ‘An’ if there’s a fool hereabouts,
it isn’t Terence MacWhirter; but ye needn’t travel very far to find
him.’
The doctor whispered in Goodhew’s ear. The latter nodded and smiled,
and said: ‘All right, Mac. You challenge me to a duel. I accept it.
Pistols?’
‘Of coorse,’ replied Mac. ‘Ye didn’t think oi mane fishing-rods?
Insulting a MacWhirter’s no trifle, oi tell ye.’
So they separated.
It may be imagined that the chief topic on board during the interval
between Singapore and Hong-kong was the approaching duel. Mac had given
out more than once that he was no novice; and he certainly had shown
himself a dead-shot with a rook-rifle at bottles or pieces of wood; but
whether, considering the extreme excitability of his nature, he would
preserve his calmness on the field of battle sufficiently to make any
use of his accomplishment, we were inclined to doubt. Goodhew had never
fired a pistol in his life; but there was an easy, calm confidence
about him that foretold no want of nerve on his part.
‘Pat,’ said the doctor, on the evening before our arrival at Hong-kong,
‘haven’t you a qualm of conscience about going to shoot this poor
fellow?’
‘Faith, doctor,’ replied Mac, ‘the odds are even. If he wins the toss,
he shoots me.’
‘You’re not afraid of the consequences of manslaughter?’ continued the
doctor. ‘I don’t mean the judicial consequences, but the remorse, the
fear of being haunted’——
‘Doctor,’ said Mac, ‘oi took ye for the only sensible man on the ship,
and ye go and talk blarney about haunting and all that. Oi tell ye,
doctor, oi’m not a believer in spirits; and if oi kill Goodhew, and his
ghost makes a pother about me afterwards, oi’ll have to settle him as
well. Look ye, doctor, ye and the whole lot of ’em want to get me off
this duel; but oi’ve been insulted; and if oi put up with it, oi’ll not
be worthy of the name of MacWhirter at all at all.’
The next evening we steamed into Hong-kong harbour. Mrs Fuller was
on deck, admiring the effects of the great mountain shadows upon the
moonlit water, and of the innumerable twinkling lights from the shore,
which mount up and up until they seem to mingle with the stars.
Mac was standing by her chair. ‘Mrs Fuller,’ he said, in a low
impressive voice, ‘this is a beauteous scene. It remoinds me of Doblin
Bay or the Cove of Cark. It is a sad scene.’
‘A sad scene, Mr MacWhirter!’ said Mrs Fuller. ‘Why, I was just
thinking it was a gay scene, with all those lights, and’——
‘It is a sad scene for those who are looking at it for the last toime,
Mrs Fuller,’ said Mac in an almost sepulchral tone.
‘Gracious! Mr MacWhirter, what do you mean?’ asked Mrs Fuller. ‘What a
dreadfully uncomfortable thing to say!’
‘Oi mane, Mrs Fuller,’ replied Mac, ‘that this toime to-morrow noight
there’ll be one less passenger on board the _Sicilia_.’
‘Why, of course, Mr MacWhirter; for I suppose our little company will
be broken up here, and it is never pleasant separating from kind
friends.’
‘Ye mistake me,’ said Mac. ‘The moon that will shoine to-morrow noight
will look upon the corpse of either Mister Goodhew or of Terence
MacWhirter; and it’ll be all for the sake of yerself, Mrs Fuller.’
Mrs Fuller saw that Mac was serious, and the idea flashed across her
mind that the two rivals for her hand were about to fight a duel on her
account, so she resolved to take the earliest opportunity of speaking
to the captain about it.
She did speak to the captain, who spoke certain words to her in return.
Very early the next morning, before even the sun had peered round
the corner of the Victoria Peak, the captain’s gig put off from the
_Sicilia_. In it were the captain himself, the doctor, Goodhew, Mac,
and we outsiders. We were soon alongside the Bund, and in a few seconds
were being whisked away in the direction of the Happy Valley as fast as
chairmen could take us. We went swiftly by the cemetery gate and the
Grand Stand to the extreme end of the Valley, where there was no chance
of interruption.
After each of the combatants had been armed with one of the captain’s
pistols, the doctor measured fifteen paces. The coin was spun into the
air. Mac won the toss, and took up his position, as did Goodhew.
‘Captain,’ said Goodhew, ‘if—if I fall, you’ll find a memorandum as to
the disposition of my property in a tin box in my cabin. Here’s the
key.’
‘At the word Three,’ said the captain, ‘Mr MacWhirter will fire.’
Mac raised his pistol, half closed his left eye, and took aim.
‘One! Two! Three!’
He fired. Goodhew, with a cry, pressed his hands to his head, and then
fell like a stone with one deep groan. The red stain on the right
temple told Mac the fatal truth. The Irishman’s vaunts and threats had
been justified.
‘You’ve done it, Mac!’ whispered the captain in a voice of agony. ‘Come
away as fast as you can. The doctor will attend to the poor fellow, if
life still remains.’
And so Mac and the captain hastened away, leaving Goodhew on the
ground, with us gathered around him.
* * * * *
As we were to shift over to the smaller steamer which was to convey us
to Yokohama the next day, and were to bid farewell to Mrs Fuller and
the captain and the old _Sicilia_, the banquet that evening was of an
unusually lavish description: the champagne went merrily round with
jest and gibe, as if there had never been such a being as poor Goodhew
in existence. Even Mac aroused himself after a few glasses, although at
first he was rather solemn, and remarked: ‘Ye’re a rum lot, all of
ye. If oi’d been killed instead of Mister Goodhew, ye’d have enjoyed
your dinner and drink all the same. Oi’m sorry for him; but it’ll be a
lesson to Sassenachs not to insult Oirishmen.’
Then Mrs Fuller’s health was drunk, and the captain’s, and every one
else’s, and not until a small-hour of the morning did we think of
breaking up.
‘I say, Mac,’ said the doctor, ‘aren’t you afraid of seeing poor
Goodhew to-night?’
‘Whisht, doctor; ye’ve taken more than’s good for ye!’ was the
contemptuous reply.
As the ship’s bell tolled two o’clock, we prepared to turn into bed,
when the saloon door opened quietly, and a tall figure, ghastly white,
with a crimson patch on its face, glided a few inches in. Mac was
seated next to the door, and saw it. His cigar fell from his fingers,
beads of perspiration burst upon his forehead, and he trembled
violently.
‘What on earth is the matter, Mac?’ we asked.
‘Why!—Don’t ye see? There, at the door!—Him! Mister Goodhew!’ stammered
Mac.
‘Nonsense, man; you’re dreaming. There’s nobody there at all!’ we said.
‘Strikes me you’ve had a drop too much, Mac,’ said the doctor, quietly.
The figure still stood there with its eyes fixed on Mac, who, after
remaining for a few moments petrified with horror, rushed with a shriek
into his cabin.
Such a night as the poor fellow passed will never be known to any one
but himself, although it was manifest that he was undergoing extreme
agony by the groans and smothered cries which we heard for a long
time after he had turned in. He was not visible at breakfast the next
morning; nothing was seen of him during the process of transferring
passengers, mails, and baggage from the _Sicilia_ to the Yokohama
steamer; and we began to fear that the poor fellow had really been
affected by what he had seen, and had taken some rash step. However,
about an hour before our starting-time, it was reported that Mac had
come on board. There was a festive assembly in the saloon, the captain,
doctor, and officers of the _Sicilia_ being our guests, although an
unusual spruceness in the general costume proclaimed that the affair
was something more than a mere return of the compliment paid us by the
captain of the _Sicilia_ on the previous evening.
The doctor had risen to his feet, was clearing his throat preparatory
to an important speech, when the saloon door was pushed open, and
Mac looked in—not the careless, swaggering Mac of past days, but Mac
haggard, weird, scarcely human, with unkempt locks and bloodshot eyes.
Goodhew was seated next to the pretty Londoner. ‘Hillo, Mac, old
fellow; come in, come in; you’re just in time,’ he said.
‘By the powers!’ exclaimed Mac, ‘ye’re not dead, Mister Goodhew!’
‘No, old fellow,’ replied Goodhew, with a laugh. ‘But if your pistol
had carried a bullet, I should have been.’
‘But the blood on your forehead—I saw it!’ cried Mac.—‘And Mrs
Fuller—she’s wid ye, I see!’
‘No, no, Mac; wrong this time,’ returned Goodhew, smiling. ‘There was
no blood on my forehead; and it isn’t Mrs Fuller that’s beside me.’
‘Whisht, man! I’m not draming now; I know what I’m talking about,’
exclaimed Mac. ‘D’ye mane that there was no blood on your forehead
after I’d hit ye, and d’ye mane that it isn’t Mrs Fuller alongside of
ye at all?’
‘Yes, old fellow,’ said Goodhew, rising, and stretching out his hand to
the bewildered Irishman. ‘The mark on my forehead was only a little red
paint carried in the palm of my hand, and ready to be slapped on the
moment you discharged your deadly weapon; and the lady’——
‘Yes, yes, the lady?’ interposed Mac with eagerness.
‘The lady was made Mrs Goodhew about a couple of hours back,’ calmly
replied the Englishman. ‘Give us your hand, and drink our healths.’
Mac did both, and ever after remained a firm friend of Goodhew’s,
although always a little touchy on the subject of ghosts.
SEALS AND SEAL-HUNTING IN SHETLAND.
IN TWO PARTS.—PART II.[1]
A relative of mine, now dead, used to be a mighty seal-hunter. It
was before the days of the modern ‘arms of precision,’ long before
breech-loaders were in common use, and even before the Enfield or Minié
rifles were invented. In those days, the old muzzle-loading rifle
was found to be not a trustworthy weapon; he therefore used a very
thick metalled fowling-piece, which was deadly up to sixty or eighty
yards. He had a splendid boat, which he named the _Haff-fish_, about
seventeen feet of keel, a capital sea-boat, equally good for sailing
and rowing, safe, therefore, in bad weather and rough sea, and at the
same time handy to manage when rapid movements might be required,
such as landing in narrow creeks, or on slippery shelving rocks, or
shallow beaches with a surf on. His crew was composed of four picked
men from amongst his fishermen tenants, and his henchman, who was as
much friend and adviser as servant, a man of great natural sagacity,
intelligence, and fertility of resource, and of prodigious bodily
strength; all of them first-class boatmen, expert pilots, familiar with
every rock and reef and tideway on the coast and amongst the islands,
and withal steady, bright, intelligent fellows. Master and men, all
save one, gone now! With this crew, my uncle was wont to start on his
seal-hunting expeditions. He would be absent for a week, sometimes
more, if the weather should turn out unfavourable; for the distance
from his residence to the haunts of the seals was considerable. The
first day would be spent amongst the nearest islands; and in the
evening he would land, and spend the night in the hospitable mansion
of one of his brother lairds, where he was always a welcome guest, his
boatmen at the same time making good their quarters at very small cost
in the nearest fishermen’s cottages. Next day, and each day while the
expedition lasted, he would explore new hunting-ground, spending the
nights at some other friends’ houses; and so he would hunt all the
islands in Blummel Sound and Yell Sound, the Holms of Gloup, the Neeps
of Gravaland, the long line of precipitous coast on the west side of
Roonees Hill, the Ramna Stacks, and even the distant Vee Skerries, and
other places well known as the principal haunts of the seal. Sometimes,
of course, the weather, always fickle in those latitudes, would put
a stop to all sport. Not often, but sometimes, even with the most
favourable weather, he would return ‘clean.’ At other times he would
bring back a number of very substantial trophies of his prowess. In
some seasons he would bag—_boat_ I should rather say—as many as forty
or fifty. In ten years, during which he kept a careful record of the
number he shot, he secured close upon three hundred of both species,
and of various ages and sizes, besides killing a considerable number
more, which sunk, and he was unable to recover. The most he shot in one
day was eleven, ten of which he secured. Not a bad day’s sport.
I have often heard him tell with pride the story of the most deadly
shot he ever fired. The weapon was a favourite fowling-piece charged
with two bullets, which occasionally wrought great havoc. A small
herd of tang-fish was lying on a rock within easy range of some large
boulders in the ebb, close to the water’s edge, to which, with infinite
labour and circumspection, my relative had crept. Very cautiously, his
piece on a good rest, he took a well-calculated aim at the seals, lying
close together in a particularly favourable position, and fired. The
first bullet killed no fewer than three, and the second ball struck,
but did not kill two others, which floundered into the water and
escaped; but the other three were secured.
The most extraordinary _hour’s_ sport I have ever heard of was that
of a young Shetlander, about three years ago. Reports of it had
reached me; but they seemed so incredible, that I thought they must
be exaggerated. I therefore wrote to the gentleman himself for the
particulars; so I can vouch for the accuracy of what I am going to
relate. I quote from his letter:
‘My evening sport at Muckla Skerry was certainly a good one. I started
from the Whalsay Skerries about five o’clock of an evening about the
end of August or first of September 1881. When nearing the rock, I
could see with a glass that it was almost covered with seals—I should
say there would have been eighty or more—but all took to the water
before a shot was fired, and while we were three to four hundred
yards off, and were soon sporting about the boat, but keeping at a
respectable distance. It had been perfectly calm for some days, and the
sea was like a mirror. I fired eight shots from a short Enfield rifle
with government ball cartridge. Two shots missed, and the other six
secured a seal each. They were all shot in the water; and singular to
say, every one floated on the surface till we took hold of it. One of
them was a large fish, measuring six feet four inches long; the others
would run from three and a half to five feet in length.... I feel
certain I could have shot as many more, if we could have taken them in
the boat; but the boat was only ten and a half feet keel, and I had
four sturdy oatmeal-fed islanders with me, so that you can fancy how
much freeboard we had when the six seals were in our little craft. The
time we were at the rock did not exceed forty minutes, and I think that
half the time was expended in getting the largest seal into the boat.
This was no easy matter, and attended with very considerable risk; but
he was quite a prize, and we did not like to let him go.’
Several things in this interesting and spirited account are, so far
as I am aware, unprecedented in the annals of seal-hunting in this
country. I have never known or heard of any one in so short a time and
out of a single herd getting so many fair shots. When one gets amongst
a lot of seals, swimming and diving around the boat, one shot is
commonly all that you can hope for, and whether you kill or not, it is
almost invariably sufficient to send the rest at once far beyond range.
Then out of eight shots, to strike and kill with six, considering
the expertness of seals in ‘diving on the fire,’ is, I believe, also
unprecedented; and to cap all, that not one of the six should have sunk
when shot, is extraordinary and unaccountable; for, as I have already
said, they sink when killed in the water quite as often as they float,
if not oftener. Anyhow, Mr A—— had the rare good fortune to encounter a
splendid opportunity, and he made a splendid use of it.
A good dog is a useful auxiliary to a seal-hunter; but he requires a
good deal of training to learn his work. Very soon he acquires the art
of stalking; but most dogs at first are apparently afraid to lay hold
of a dead seal floating in the water, and very commonly, when sent off
to fetch him ashore, simply attempt to mount on him, and in consequence
do harm rather than good by helping to sink him. But generally—not
always, for some dogs we never could train to do the right thing—we
succeeded in teaching them to retrieve. When we had brought a seal
home, we used to throw it over the jetty or out of a boat with a stout
cord attached, and encourage the dog to fetch him. Great praise was
bestowed when he learned to lay hold of a flipper and tow the selkie
shoreward; in this way, with a little patience and perseverance, the
dog soon came to learn what was required; and many a seal was secured
by his help, which without it might inevitably have been lost, for a
seal shot in the water from the shore, which they often were, was very
generally on the opposite side of an island or long promontory, where
a landing had been effected; and it took many minutes before the boat
could be got round; and by that time, but for the dog, the seal might
have sunk.
We tried many breeds of dogs—Newfoundland, Retriever, St Bernard, Rough
water-dog, and Collie; but after all, the best seal retriever of the
lot was a Collie. When he comprehended what was wanted and how to do
it, he did it neatly and thoroughly. I well remember the first seal I
shot. I had landed on the weather-side of a small island. A cautious
reconnoitring discovered a good-sized seal ‘lying up’ on a detached
rock. Then I commenced the stalking, closely followed by my dog. But
ere I could approach within range, one of those seal-sentinels and
provoking tormentors of the seal-hunter, a herring gull, set up his
wild warning scream. The seal perfectly understood what it meant, at
once took the alarm, plunged into the water, and disappeared. I sprang
to my feet, rushed down along a little promontory, and then crouched
behind a big boulder, in hopes that selkie would show his head above
water and give me a chance at him. And he did. Raising his head and
neck, he took a good look shoreward; but seeing nothing to account for
the gull’s persistent screaming, he turned round, and raised his head
preparatory to a dive. I had him well and steadily covered; now was
my chance. I pulled the trigger; no splash followed, which would have
meant a miss; but the _lioom_—that is, the smoothing of the water by
the flow of the oil—told that my bullet had taken effect. ‘Fetch him,
old dog! fetch him!’ I cried. In an instant he plunged into the sea
and swam to the seal, which I could see was floating. Neatly he dipped
his head under water, seized a hind flipper, turned it over his neck,
and towed him towards the shore. Passing the rock on which I stood in
his way to the beach, he turned his eyes upwards for the praise and
encouragement I was not, it may well be believed, backward to lavish
on him. Such a look it was! I shall never forget it, instinct with
the brightest intelligence, joy, pride, triumph. Indeed, I don’t know
whether he or his master was proudest and happiest that day. Alas, that
our noble ‘humble friends’ should be so short-lived!
I have not shot a great many seals. They are not now, nor were they
in my younger and sporting days, so numerous as they were fifty or
sixty years ago, when but a very few persons here and there owned a
gun, which with scarcely an exception was only the old regulation
flintlock musket. But since the invention of percussion locks, and of
the splendid rifles and breech-loaders of the present day, and still
more since steamers and sailing-vessels have been constantly plying
amongst the islands, where formerly they never were seen, the seals
have not had so peaceful a time of it; slaughter and persecution, and
the inroads of modern civilisation in general, have greatly diminished
their numbers; at least they are not now so frequently met with in
their old haunts, from which it is probable most of them have retired,
to more inaccessible and therefore safer quarters. These remarks
apply only to the common seal. The Great seal was never very numerous
anywhere, and there is not much chance of his wild retreats being
disturbed except by an occasional hunter.
I have shot only three Great seals; but the largest one certainly I
ever saw, I might have shot, but did not—dared not, I should say.
Thus it happened. It was at the Holms of Gloup—some outlying rocks
and skerries off the north point of the island of Yell. There is a
fine hellyer here. According to the usual practice, I had landed on
an abutting point or promontory at the outer entrance to the hellyer,
and sent the boat inwards. If a seal happens to be in the hellyer, he
plunges into the sea, swims out under water, and very generally rises
up at no great distance, to see what is the cause of the disturbance
and noise—for seals, as I have said, are very inquisitive as well as
shy—and in this way the sportsman in ambush often gets a capital shot.
As the boat went slowly inwards, the men kept shouting and peering
into the darkness, all eyes directed towards the inner beach, which
was dimly visible. Presently from my perch of some twenty or thirty
feet, I saw, in the clear water, what they did not see, a rushing white
figure coming outwards under water. Then, not thirty yards distant, the
head and neck of an enormous haff-fish[2] rose above the surface. For
time enough to have shot him five times over, he gazed at the boat,
the back of his head turned towards me, and offering such a mark as I
never had before or since. I covered him with the sights; my finger
trembled on the trigger; I knew my weapon would not fail me. I knew I
could kill him easily, and secure him too, even if he should sink, for
the water was clear and shallow. But, as ill-fortune would have it, he
was directly in the line between me and the boat, and I did not dare to
fire. The boatmen never saw him, and of course I could make no sign.
So the great ocean patriarch, having satisfied his curiosity, quietly
withdrew under water.