CHAPTER TEN.
BEGINNING OF WINTER--MEETUCK EFFECTS A REMARKABLE CHANGE IN THE MEN'SAPPEARANCE--MOSSING, AND WORKING, AND PLANS FOR A WINTER CAMPAIGN.
In August the first frost came and formed "young ice" on the sea, butthis lasted only for a brief hour or two, and was broken up by the tideand melted. By the 10th of September the young ice cemented the floesof last year's ice together, and soon rendered the ice round the shipimmovable. Hummocks clustered round several rocky islets in theneighbourhood, and the rising and falling of the tide covered the sidesof the rocks with bright crystals. All the feathered tribes took theirdeparture for less rigorous climes, with the exception of a small whitebird about the size of a sparrow, called the snow-bird, which is thelast to leave the icy north. Then a tremendous storm arose, and the seabecame choked up with icebergs and floes which the frost soon lockedtogether into a solid mass. Towards the close of the storm snow fell ingreat abundance, and when the mariners ventured again to put their headsup the opened hatchways, the decks were knee-deep, the drift to windwardwas almost level with the bulwarks, every yard was edged with white,every rope and cord had a light side and a dark, every point and truckhad a white button on it, and every hole, corner, crack, and crevice waschoked up.
The land and the sea were also clothed with this spotless garment, whichis indeed a strikingly appropriate emblem of purity, and the only darkobjects visible in the landscape were those precipices which were toosteep for the snow to lie on, the towering form of the giant flag-staff,and the leaden clouds that rolled angrily across the sky. But theseleaden clouds soon rolled off, leaving a blue wintry sky and a brightsun behind.
The storm blew itself out early in the morning, and at breakfast-time onthat day, when the sun was just struggling with the last of the clouds,Captain Guy remarked to his friends, who were seated round the cabintable: "Well, gentlemen, we must begin hard work to-day."
"Hard work, Captain!" exclaimed Fred Ellice, pausing for a second or twoin the hard work of chewing a piece of hard salt junk; "why, what do youcall the work we've been engaged in for the last few weeks?"
"Play, my lad; that was only play--just to bring our hands in, beforesetting to work in earnest! What do you think of the health of the men,Doctor?"
"Never was better, but I fear the hospital will soon fill if you carryout your threat in regard to work."
"No fear," remarked the second mate; "the more work the better health ismy experience. Busy men have no time to git seek."
"No doubt of it sir," said the first mate, bolting a large mouthful ofpork. "Nothing so good for 'em as work."
"There are two against you, Doctor," said the captain.
"Then it's two to two," cried Fred, as he finished breakfast, "for Iquite agree with Tom, and with that excellent proverb which says: `Allwork and no play makes Jack a dull boy.'"
The captain shook his head as he said: "Of all the nuisances I ever metwith in a ship a semi-passenger is the worst. I think, Fred, I must getyou bound apprentice, and give you regular work to do, yougood-for-nothing."
We need scarcely say that the captain jested, for Fred was possessed ofa spirit that cannot rest, so to speak, unless at work. He was able todo almost anything _after a fashion_, and was never idle for a moment.Even when his hands chanced to be unemployed his brows were knitted,busily planning what to do next.
"Well now, gentlemen," resumed the captain, "let us consider the orderof business. The first thing that must be done now is to unstow thehold, and deposit its contents on the small island astern of us, whichwe shall call Store Island, for brevity's sake. Get a tent pitchedthere, Mr Bolton, and bank it up with snow. You can leave Grim tosuperintend the unloading. Then, Mr Saunders, do you go and set a gangof men to cut a canal through the young ice from the ship to the island.Fortunately the floes there are wide enough apart to let ourquarter-boats float between them. The unshipping won't take long. TellBuzzby to take a dozen men with him and collect moss; we'll need a largequantity for fuel, and if another storm like this comes, it'll be hardwork to get down to it. Send Meetuck to me when you go on deck; I shalltalk to him as to our prospects of finding deer hereabouts, and arrangea hunt. Doctor, you may either join the hunting party or post up theobservations, etcetera, which have accumulated of late."
"Thank you, Captain," said Singleton, "I'll accept the latter duty, themore willingly that I wish to have a careful examination of my botanicalspecimens."
"And what am I to do, Captain?" enquired Fred.
"What you please, lad."
"Then I'll go and take care of Meetuck; he's apt to get into mischiefwhen left--"
At this moment a tremendous shout of laughter, long-continued, came fromthe deck, and a sound as of numbers of men dancing overhead was heard.
The party in the cabin seized their caps and sprang up the companion,where they beheld a scene that accounted for the laughter, and inducedthem to join in it. At first sight it seemed as if thirty polar bearshad boarded the vessel, and were executing a dance of triumph beforeproceeding to make a meal of the crew; but on closer inspection itbecame apparent that the men had undergone a strange transformation, andwere capering with delight at the ridiculous appearance they presented.They were clad from head to foot in Esquimaux costume, and now bore asstrong a resemblance to polar bears as man could attain to.
Meetuck was the pattern and the chief instrument in effecting thischange. At Uppernavik Captain Guy had been induced to purchase a largenumber of fox-skins, deer-skins, seal-skins, and other furs as aspeculation, and had them tightly packed and stowed away in the hold,little imagining the purpose they were ultimately destined to serve.Meetuck had come on board in a mongrel sort of worn-out seal-skin dress,but the instant the cold weather set in he drew from a bundle, which hehad brought with him, a dress made of the furs of the Arctic fox, someof the skins being white and the others blue. It consisted of a loosecoat somewhat in the form of a shirt, with a large hood to it, and ashort elongation behind like the commencement of a tail. The boots weremade of white bear-skin which, at the end of the foot, were made toterminate with the claws of the animal, and they were so long that theycame up the thigh under the coat, or "jumper" as the men called it, andthus served instead of trousers. He also wore fur mittens, with a bagfor the fingers, and a separate little bag for the thumb. The hair onthese garments was long and soft, and worn outside, so that when a manenveloped himself in them, and put up the hood, which well-nighconcealed the face, he became very much like a bear, or some suchcreature, standing on its hind-legs.
Meetuck was a short, fat, burly little fellow by nature, but when he puton his winter dress he became such a round, soft, squat, hairy, andcomical-looking creature that no one could look at him without laughing;and the shout with which he was received on deck the first time he madehis appearance in his new costume was loud and prolonged. But Meetuckwas as good-humoured an Esquimaux as ever speared a walrus or lanced apolar bear. He joined in the laugh, and cut a caper or two to show thathe entered into the spirit of the joke.
When the ship was set fast, and the thermometer fell pretty low, the menfound that their ordinary dreadnoughts and pea-jackets, etcetera, werenot a sufficient protection against the cold, and it occurred to thecaptain that his furs might now be turned to good account. Sailors areproverbially good needle-men of a rough kind. Meetuck showed them howto set about their work; each man made his own garments, and in lessthan a week they were completed. It is true the boots perplexed them alittle, and the less ingenious among the men made very rare andcurious-looking foot-gear for themselves, but they succeeded after afashion, and at last the whole crew appeared on deck in their newhabiliments, as we have already mentioned, capering among the snow likebears, to their own entire satisfaction and to the intense delight ofMeetuck, who now came to regard the white men as brothers--so true is itthat "the tailor makes the man!"
"'Ow 'orribly 'eavy it is, hain't it?" gasped Mivins, after dancinground the main-hatch till he was near
ly exhausted.
"Heavy?" cried Buzzby, whose appearance was such that you would havehesitated to say whether his breadth or length was greater,--"heavy,d'ye say? It must be your sperrits wot's heavy, then, for I feel aslight as a feather myself."
"O morther! then may I niver sleep on a bed made o' sich feathers!"cried O'Riley, capering up to Green, the carpenter's mate, and throwinga mass of snow in his face. The frost rendered it impossible to formthe snow into balls, but the men made up for this by throwing it abouteach other's eyes and ears in handfuls.
"What d'ye mean by insultin' my mate?--take that!" said Peter Grim,giving the Irishman a twirl that tumbled him on the deck.
"Oh, bad manners to ye," spluttered O'Riley, as he rose and ran away,"why don't ye hit a man o' yer own size."
"'Deed, then, it must be because there's not one o' my own size to hit,"remarked the carpenter with a broad grin.
This was true. Grim's colossal proportions were increased so much byhis hairy dress that he seemed to spread out into the dimensions of twolarge men rolled into one. But O'Riley was not to be overturned withimpunity. Skulking round behind the crew, who were laughing at Grim'sjoke, he came upon the giant in the rear, and seizing the short tail ofhis jumper, pulled him violently down on the deck.
"Ah! then give it him, boys," cried O'Riley, pushing the carpenter flatdown, and obliterating his black beard and his whole visage in a mass ofsnow. Several of the wilder spirits among the men leaped on theprostrate Grim, and nearly smothered him before he could gather himselfup for a struggle; then they fled in all directions, while their victimregained his feet and rushed wildly after them. At last he caughtO'Riley, and grasping him by the two shoulders gave him a heave that wasintended and "calc'lated," as Amos Parr afterwards remarked, "to pitchhim over the foretop-sail-yard!" But an Irishman is not easilyovercome. O'Riley suddenly straightened himself and held his arms upover his head, and the violent heave, which, according to Parr, was tohave sent him to such an uncomfortable elevation, only pulled the jumpercompletely off his body, and left him free to laugh in the face of hisbig friend, and run away.
At this point the captain deemed it prudent to interfere.
"Come, come, my lads," he cried, "enough o' this! That's not themorning work, is it? I'm glad to find that your new dresses," he addedwith a significant smile, "make you fond of rough work in the snow;there's plenty of it before us. Come down below with me, Meetuck; Iwish to talk with you."
As the captain descended to the cabin the men gave a final cheer, and inten minutes they were working laboriously at their various duties.
Buzzby and his party were the first ready and off to cut moss. Theydrew a sledge after them towards the Red-snow Valley, which was not morethan two miles distant from the ship. This "mossing", as it was termed,was by no means a pleasant duty. Before the winter became severe themoss could be cut out from the beds of the snow streams with comparativeease, but now the mixed turf of willows, heaths, grasses, and moss wasfrozen solid, and had to be quarried with crowbars and carried to theship like so much stone. However, it was prosecuted vigorously, and asufficient quantity was soon procured to pack on the decks of the ship,and around its sides, so as to keep out the cold. At the same time theoperation of discharging the stores was carried on briskly, and Fred, incompany with Meetuck, O'Riley, and Joseph West, started with thedog-sledge on a hunting expedition.
In order to enable the reader better to understand the condition of the_Dolphin_ and her crew, we will detail the several arrangements thatwere made at this time and during the succeeding fortnight. As ameasure of precaution, the ship, by means of blasting, sawing, andwarping, was with great labour got into deeper water, where one night'sfrost set her fast with a sheet of ice three inches thick round her; ina few weeks this ice became several feet thick, and the snow drifted upher hull so much that it seemed as if she were resting on the land, andhad taken final leave of her native element. Strong hawsers were thensecured to Store Island in order to guard against the possibility of herbeing carried away by any sudden disruption of the ice. The dispositionof the masts, yards, and sails were next determined on; the top-gallantmasts were struck, the lower yards got down to the housings. Thetop-sail yards, gaff, and jib-boom, however, were left in their places.The top-sails and courses were kept bent to the yards, the sheets beingunrove, and the clews tucked in. The rest of the binding sails werestowed on deck to prevent their thawing during winter; and the sparespars were lashed over the ship's sides, to leave a clear space fortaking exercise in bad weather.
The stores, in order to relieve the strain on the ship, were removed toStore Island, and snugly housed under the tent erected there, and then athick bank of snow was heaped up round it. After this was accomplished,all the boats were hauled up beside the tent and covered with snow,except the two quarter boats, which were left hanging at the davits allwinter. When the thermometer fell below zero it was found that thevapours below, and the breath of the men, condensed on the beams of thelower deck and in the cabin near the hatchway. It was thereforeresolved to convert some sheet-iron, which they fortunately possessed,into pipes, which, being conducted from the cooking-stove through thelength of the ship, served in some degree to raise the temperature andventilate the cabins. A regular daily allowance of coal was served out,and four steady men appointed to attend to the fire in regular watches,for the double purpose of seeing that none of the fuel should be wasted,and of guarding against fire. They had likewise charge of thefire-pumps and buckets, and two tanks of water, all of which were keptin the hatchway in constant readiness in case of accidents. In additionto this, a fire-brigade was formed, with Joseph West, a steady, quiet,active young seaman, as its captain, and their stations in the event offire were fixed beforehand; also a hole was kept constantly open in theice alongside to ensure at all times a sufficient supply of water.
Strict regulations as to cleanliness, and the daily airing of thehammocks, were laid down, and adhered to throughout the winter. Aregular allowance of provisions was appointed to each man, so that theyshould not run the risk of starving before the return of the wild fowlin spring. But those provisions were all salt, and the captain trustedmuch to their hunting expeditions for a supply of fresh food, withoutwhich there would be little hope of their continuing in a condition ofgood health. Coffee was served out at breakfast, and cocoa at supper,besides being occasionally supplied at other times to men who had beenengaged in exhausting work in extremely cold weather. Afterwards, whenthe dark season set in, and the crew were confined by the intense coldmore than formerly within the ship, various schemes were set afoot forpassing the time profitably and agreeably. Among others a school wasstarted by the captain for instructing such of the crew as chose toattend in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and in this hyperboreanacademy Fred Ellice acted as the writing-master, and Tom Singleton asthe accountant. The men were much amused at first at the idea of "goin'to school", and some of them looked rather shy at it, but O'Riley, aftersome consideration, came boldly forward and said: "Well, boys, bad luckto me if I don't think I'll be a scholard afther all. My oldgran'mother used to tell me, whin I refused to go to the school that waskip be an owld man as tuck his fees out in murphies and photteen,--saysshe: `Ah ye spalpeen, ye'll niver be cliverer nor the pig, ye wont.'`Ah, then, I hope not,' says I, `for sure she's far the cliverest in thehouse, an' ye wouldn't have me to be cliverer than me own gran'mother,would ye?' says I. So I niver wint to school, and more be token, Ican't sign me name, and if it was only to learn how to do that, I'll goand jine; indeed I will." So O'Riley joined, and before long every manin the ship was glad to join, in order to have something to do.
The doctor also, twice a week, gave readings from Shakespeare, a copy ofwhich he had fortunately brought with him. He also read extracts fromthe few other books they happened to have on board, and after a time,finding unexpectedly that he had a talent that way, he began to drawupon his memory and his imagination, and told long stories (which werefacetio
usly called _lectures_) to the men, who listened to them withgreat delight. Then Fred started an illustrated newspaper once a week,which was named the _Arctic Sun_, and which was in great favour duringthe whole course of its brief existence. It is true, only one copy wasissued each morning of publication, because, besides supplying thegreater proportion of the material himself, and executing theillustrations in a style that would have made Mr Leech of the presentday envious, he had to transcribe the various contributions he receivedfrom the men and others in a neat, legible hand. But this _one_ copywas perused and reperused as no single copy of any paper extant--notexcepting _The Times_ or _Punch_--has ever yet been perused; and when itwas returned to the editor to be carefully placed in the archives of the_Dolphin_, it was emphatically the worse for wear. Besides all this, atheatre was set agoing--of which we shall have more to say hereafter.
In thus minutely recounting the various expedients which these banishedmen fell upon to pass the long dark hours of an Arctic winter, we may,perhaps, give the reader the impression that a great deal of thought andtime were bestowed upon _amusement_, as if that were the chief end andobject of their life in those regions. But we must remind him thatthough many more pages might be filled in recounting all theparticulars, but a small portion of their time was, after all, taken upin this way; and it would have been well for them had they been able tofind more to amuse them than they did, for the depressing influence ofthe long-continued darkness, and the want of a sufficiency of regularemployment for so many months, added to the rigorous nature of theclimate in which they dwelt, well-nigh broke their spirits at last.
In order to secure warmth during winter, the deck of the ship was paddedwith moss about a foot deep, and, down below, the walls were lined withthe same material. The floors were carefully plastered with commonpaste, and covered with oakum a couple of inches deep, over which acarpet of canvas was spread. Every opening in the deck was fasteneddown and covered deeply over with moss, with the exception of one hatch,which was their only entrance, and this was kept constantly closed,except when it was desirable to ventilate. Curtains were hung up infront of it to prevent draughts. A canvas awning was also spread overthe decks from stem to stern, so that it was confidently hoped the_Dolphin_ would prove a snug tenement even in the severest cold.
As has been said before, the snow-drift almost buried the hull of theship; and, as snow is a good _non-conductor_ of heat, this furtherhelped to keep up the temperature within. A staircase of snow was builtup to the bulwarks on the larboard quarter, and on the starboard side aninclined plane of snow was sloped down to the ice to facilitate thelaunching of the sledges when they had to be pulled on deck.
Such were the chief arrangements and preparations that were made by ouradventurers for spending the winter; but although we have described themat this point in our story, many of them were not completed until a muchlater period.