"SILAS GRIG, HIS YARN"--THE WHITE WHALE--AFLOAT ON AN ICEBERG--A DREARY
JOURNEY--BEAR ADVENTURES--"THE SEALS! THE SEALS!"
There was only one subject in the whole world that Silas Grig was
thoroughly conversant with, and that was the manners and customs of his
friends the seals. Had you started talking upon either politics or
science, or the state of Europe or Ireland, Silas would have become
silent at once. He would have retired within himself; his soul, so to
speak, would have gone indoors, and not come out again until you had
done. Such was Silas; and he confessed frankly that he had never sung a
song nor made a speech in his lifetime. He was a perfect enthusiast
while talking about the natural family _Phocidae_. No naturalist in the
world knew half so much about them as Silas. On the evening of the day
in which he had chosen his men from the crew of the _Arrandoon_, he was
pronounced by both Ralph and Rory to be in fine form. He was full of
anecdote, and even tales of adventure, so our heroes allowed him to
talk, and indeed encouraged him to do so.
"What!" he cried, his honest, fear-nothing face lighting up with smiles
as he eyed Rory across the table after dinner. "Spin you a yarn, d'ye
say? ah! boy, and you'll excuse me calling ye a boy. Silas never could
tell a story, and I don't suppose he ever had an adventure as signified
much to you in his life."
"Never mind," insisted Rory, "you tell us something, and I'll play you
that old tune you so dearly love."
"Ah! but," said Silas, "if my matie were only here; now you wouldn't
think, gentlemen,"--here he glanced round the table as seriously as if
contradiction were most unlikely--"you wouldn't think that a fellow like
that, with such an ugly chunk of a head, had any sentiment; but he has,
though, and he owns the prettiest wife and the smartest family in all
Peterhead."
"Look here," cried Rory, "be quiet about your matie. Sure this is what
we're waiting for."
He exhibited the doctor's slate as he spoke, and on the back thereof,
behold! in large letters, the words,--
"Silas Grig, His Yarn."
Silas laughed till his sides ached, his eyes watered, the chair creaked,
and the rafters rang. It was a pleasant sight to see. After this he
lit up a huge meerschaum pipe, "hoping there was no offence," cleared
his throat, turning his face upwards at the pendent compass, as if
seeking help there. Then he began,--
"Of the earlier days of Silas Grig little need be said. I daresay he
was no better and no worse than other boys. He nearly plagued the life
out of his grandmother, and drove three maiden aunts to the verge of
distraction, and made any amount of work for the tailor and the
shoemaker; and when they couldn't stand him any longer at home they sent
him to school, reminding the teacher ere they left him there, that to
spare the rod was to spoil the child. The teacher didn't forget that;
he whipped me three times a day, drilled me through the English grammar
and Grey's arithmetic, then flogged me into Caesar; and when I
translated the passage, `Caesar triduas vias fecit' [Caesar made three
days' journey.] into `Caesar made three roads,' the dominie gave me such
a dressing that I followed Caesar's example--I made three days' journey
due north, and never returned to my maiden aunts, nor the dominie
either.
"I found myself now in the heart of what I then took to be a big town,
for I wasn't very big myself, you know. It was only Peterhead, after
all. I marched boldly down to the docks, and on board a great
raking-masted Greenlandman.
"`What use would you be?' inquired the skipper when I told him what I
wanted. `Bless me!' he added, `you ain't any size at all; the bears
would eat you up.'
"`I'll have him,' said the doctor, `if you'll let me, captain. He can
be my lob-lolly-boy and body-guard.'
"And so, gentlemen, from that day to this I've been a sailor o' the
northern seas; and there isn't much to be seen in these regions that old
Silas hasn't come across, from Baffin's Bay to Kamschatka, from lonely
Spitzbergen in the north to Iceland in the south."
"And so you've been in Spitzbergen, have you?" said McBain.
"Why, bless you, yes," replied Silas. "It was there I was in at the
death of the great white whale, and a sad day it was for us, I can tell
you. He was white with age. [Very old whales are sometimes found in
the far northern seas covered with a kind of parasite, which gives them
a white or light-grey appearance.] I should think he couldn't have been
much under a hundred years old, and just as sly and wary as a hundred
and forty foxes all rolled in to one. Many and many a boat had tried to
catch him, but he had a way of diving and doubling to avoid the harpoons
that some believed was rather more than natural; then when you thought
he was miles and miles away, pop! up he would come among the very midst
of the boats, and a funny thing it would be if he didn't knock one o'
them to smithereens with that tail o' his. We killed him though. Our
skipper himself speared him, but it was hours after that before he died.
And before he died terrible was the revenge he took on his destroyers.
Gentlemen, Silas Grig has no language in his vocabulary to describe the
vicious wrath of that sea-demon. I think I see him now as he rose to
the surface, blowing blood and spray, snorting with fury, with fire
seeming to flash out of his little evil eyes. We in the boats thought
our last hour had come, as he ploughed down through us. But our hearts
stood still with fear and dread when he dashed past us and made for the
ship itself. Onward with lightning speed went the brute, leaving a wake
astern such as a man-o'-war might have left.
"Our craft--a small brig--was lying with her foreyard aback. She looked
as if sleeping on the gently rippling water. No one spoke in the boats,
every eye was fixed on our ship--our home, and on the fearful monster
advancing to attack her. We could see that the people left on the brig
knew the whole extent of their danger, for they seemed all on deck.
There were wild shouts, and guns were fired, but nothing availed to
avert the catastrophe. Then, oh! the sad, despairing cry that rose to
heaven from that doomed ship! It seems to ring in my ears whenever I
think of it. The whale struck her right amidships, and she went over
and down at once. No soul was saved; and when we rode up to the spot,
there was nothing to be seen, and nothing to be heard, save the body of
the great white whale, dead, on his side, with the waves lap-lapping
against it as it slowly rose and fell.
"For six long, cold, weary days we lived in the open boats, feeding on
the flesh of the seals we happened to kill, and quenching our thirst
with the snow we gathered from the ice. When we had almost despaired of
being saved, for we were far to the nor'ard and east of the usual
fishing-grounds, a Norwegian walrus-hunter picked us up, and landed us
at last, in midwinter, on a dreary shore in Lapland. But, gentlemen,
that is nothing to what we, the survivors of the ill-fated _Jonathan
Grey_, suffered some years afterwards. The ship got `in the nips'
coming out o' the pack. We were crushed just as you might crash an
egg-shell between your fingers. Thirty of us embarked upon the very
iceberg that had caused our ruin, with two casks of biscuit, and hardly
clothes enough to cover us. Then it came on to blow, and, huddled
together in the centre of the berg, we were blown out to sea, trying in
vain to keep each other warm, and defend ourselves from the cruel cold
seas that dashed over us, heavier than lead, more remorseless than the
grave. Fifteen days were we on the berg, and every day some one dropped
off, ay, and the living seemed to envy the quiet, calm sleep of the
dead. A sail in sight at last; and how many of us, think you, were
alive to see it? Three I only three! It was a year after this before I
was fit to brave the Arctic seas again, and meanwhile I had met my
Peggy--my little wife that is. Some difference, you will allow,
gentlemen, between Silas Grig afloat on a solitary iceberg in a troubled
northern sea, and Silas strolling on the top of a breezy cliff in the
bright moonlight of midsummer, with Peggy on his arm, and just as happy
as the sea-birds.
"Were these the only times that I was cast away? No--for I lost my ship
by fire once in the northern ice of Western Greenland, and it was two
whole years before either myself or my messmates placed foot again on
British soil. There wasn't a ship anywhere near us, and the nearest
settlement was a colony of transported Danes, that lived about three
hundred miles south of us. We saved all we could from the burning
barque, and that was little enough; then we constructed rough sledges,
and tied our food and chattels thereon, and set out upon our long,
dreary march. It took us well-nigh two months to accomplish our
journey, for the way was a rough one, and the region was wild and
desolate in the extreme. It was late in autumn, and the sun shone by
day, but his beams were sadly shorn by the falling snow. Five suns in
all we could count at times, though four, you know, were merely mirages.
We did not all reach the colony; indeed, many succumbed to the fatigue
of the march, to frost-bites, and to scurvy; and we laid them to rest in
hastily-dug graves, and the snow was their only winding-sheet. It was
more than a year before we found a passage back to our own country, and
kind though the poor people all were to us, the governor included, we
had to rough it, I can tell you. But you see, sailors who choose the
Arctic Seas as their cruising-grounds must expect to suffer at times.
"Bears, did you say? Thousands! I've counted as many as fifty at one
time on the ice, and I've had a few encounters with them too, myself,
though I've known those that have had more. I've known men fight them
single-handed, and come off scot-free, leaving Bruin dead on the ice.
Dickie McInlay fought a bear with a seal-club. You may be sure the duel
wasn't of his own proposing; but coming across the ice one day all
alone, he rounded the corner of a hummock, and lo! and behold! there was
a monstrous bear washing the blood off his chops after eating a seal.
"`Ho! ho!' roared the bear. `I have dined, but you'll come in handy for
dessert. Oho! Waugh, O! oh!'
"Dick was a little bit of a fellow, but his biceps was as big, round,
and just as hard as a hawser.
"`If you come an inch nearer me,' cried Dickie, quite undaunted, `it'll
be a dear day's work for ye, Mr Bruin.'
"The bear crouched for a spring. He never did spring, though; but
Dickie did; and he will tell you to this day that he never could
understand how he managed to clear the space betwixt himself and the
bear so speedily. Then there was a dull thud; Bruin never lifted head
again, for the iron of Dickie's club was planted deep into his brain.
"The doctor here," continued Silas, "can tell you what a terribly sharp
and deadly weapon of offence a large amputating knife would prove, in
the hands of a powerful man, against any animal that ever lived. But
the doctor I don't think would care to attack a bear with one."
"Indeed, no," said Sandy; "I would rather be excused."
"But the surgeon of the _North Star_ did," said Silas. "I was witness
myself to the awful encounter. But the poor surgeon was mad at the
time; he had given way to the rum-fever--rum-fiend it should be called.
With his knife in his hand he wandered off and away all by himself over
the pack. I saw the fight between the bear and him commence, and sent
men at once to assist him. When they reached the scene of action they
found the huge bear lying dead, stabbed in fifty places at least. The
snow for yards around had been trampled down in the awful struggle, and
was yellow and red with blood. The doctor lay beside the bear,
apparently asleep. I need not tell you that he slept the sleep that
knows no waking. The poor fellow's body was crushed to pulp.
"Charles Manning, a spectioneer of the _Good Resolve_, was lying on his
back on the sunny side of a hummock, snatching a five-minutes' rest, for
it was sealing time, when a bear crept up behind him, more stealthily
than any cat could have done. He drew his paw upwards along the poor
fellow's body. Only once, mind you, but he left him a mere empty
shell."
[The author is relating facts; names only are concealed.]
"Ah! but, gentlemen, you should have seen a two-mile run I had not five
years ago from a bear. Silas himself wouldn't have believed that Silas
could have done the distance in double the time. He was coming home all
by himself, when he burst his rifle firing at a seal, and just at that
moment up popped a bear.
"`All alone, are you, Silas?' Bruin seemed to say.
"`Yes,' replied Silas, moving off; `and I don't want your company
either. I know my way, thank you.'
"`Oh, I daresay you do!' says the bear. `But it will only be friendly
like if I see you home. Wait a bit.'
"`Never a wait!' said Silas; and so the race began.
"Of course they saw it from the ship, and sent men to meet me and settle
Bruin. Puffed? I should think I was! I lay on my face for five
minutes, with no more breath in my old bellows than there is in a dead
badger?"
"You've seen the sea-lion, I suppose, Captain Grig?" said Allan.
"I have that!" replied Silas, "and the sea-bear, too, and I don't know
which of the two I'd rather meet on the top of a berg, for they are
vicious brutes both."
"I've read some very interesting accounts of them," said Allan, "in the
encyclopaedias."
"So have I," laughed old Silas, "written by men who had never seen them
out of the Brighton Aquarium. Pardon me, but you cannot study nature
from books."
"Do you know the _Stemmatopus cristatus_?" inquired Rory.
"What ship, my boy?" said Silas, with one hand behind his ear; "I didn't
catch the name o' the craft."
"It isn't a ship," said Rory, smiling; "it is a great black seal, with a
thing like a kettle-pot over his head."
"Oho!" cried Silas; "now I know. You mean the bladder-nose. Ay, lad!
and a dangerous monster he is. A Greenland sailor would almost as soon
face a bear as fight one of those brutes single-handed."
"But the books tell us," said Rory, "that, when surprised by the hunter,
they weep copiously."
"Bother such books!" said Silas. "What? a bladder-nose weep!
Crocodile's tears, then, lad! Why, gentlemen, this monstrous seal is
more fierce than any other I know. When once he gets his back up and
erects that kettle-pot o' his, and turns round to see who is coming,
stand clear, that's what Silas says, for he means mischief, and he's as
willing to take his death as any terrier dog that ever barked. I would
like to see some o' those cyclopaedia-building chaps face to face with a
healthy bladder-nose on a bit o' bay ice. I think I know which o' them
would do the weeping part of the business."
"Down south here," said McBain--"if we can call it south--the seals have
their young on the ice, don't they?"
"You're right, sir," said Silas.
"And where do they go after that?"
"Away back to the far, far north," said Silas. "We follow them up as
far as we can. They live at the Pole."
"Ah!" said McBain; "and that, Captain Grig, is in itself a proof that
there must be open water around the Pole."
"I haven't a doubt about it!" cried Silas; "and if you succeed in
getting there you'll see land and water too, mountains and streams, and
maybe a milder climate. Seals were never made to live down in the dark
water; they have eyes and lungs, even, if they are amphibious. But
look! look! look, men, look!"
Silas started up from the table as he spoke, excitement expressed in
every lineament of his face. He pointed to the port from which at
present the _Canny Scotia_ was plainly visible, about half a mile off,
on the weather quarter. The men could be seen crowding up the
rattlings, and even manning the yards, and wildly waving their caps and
arms in the air.
Silas threw the port open wide. "Listen!" he cried.
Our heroes held their breath, while over the water from the distant
barque came the sound of many voices cheering. Then the _Arrandoon's_
rigging is manned, and glad shout after glad shout is sent them back.
Next moment Stevenson rushed into the cabin. "The seals! the seals!"
was all he could say, or rather gasp.
"Are there many?" inquired several voices at once.--"Millions on
millions!" cried the mate; "the whole pack is black with them as far as
ever we can see from the mainmast head."