daythat ever raged among the lone Grampian Hills could be compared to them.The winds seem to meet and unite in and from all directions. The snowfilled the air. It did not only fall; it rose, and the darkness wasintense. To proceed in the face of such terrible weather was of courseimpossible. Dogs and men huddled together in the lee of an iceberg; itwas found at times almost impossible to breathe.
They encountered more than one of these fearful storms; but at last thesky cleared, the stars and the radiant aurora-bow danced and flickeredin the air above them, and after a week of toil they had crossed thegulf, and stood on _terra firma_ on the shores of Labrador.
But their trials were only beginning. They found they could not make sostraight a way as they had at first imagined, owing to the mountains andrough state of the country.
These men, however, were British--their hearts were hearts of oak--sothey struggled on and on, happy, when each day was over, to think theywere a step nearer their native land. The dogs were staunch and true,and the natives simple, honest, and kind.
To recount all the hardships of this journey, which occupied in all fourlong months, would take a volume in itself. Let me give a brief sketchof just _One Day's March_.
They are well down in the middle of Labrador. Hardened as Leonard andDouglas now are, and almost as much inured to the cold as the Indianguides themselves, the bitterness of the night just gone has almostkilled them.
All the camp, however, is astir hours before the stars have given placeto the glaring light of a short, crisp winter's day. Dogs are barkingand howling for their breakfast, and the men are busy preparing theirown and that of their officers. It is indeed a meagre one--sun-driedfish and meat, with snow to eat instead of tea or coffee, that is all.But they have appetites; it is enough, and they are thankful.
Then sledges are got ready, and the dogs having been fed and harnessed,Captain Blunt and his young friends put on their snowshoes, and all incamp follow his example.
Then the start is made. The pace is slow, though the dogs would go morequickly if allowed. Their path winds through a rough and broken glen atfirst, and at sunrise scouts are sent on ahead to spy out the land froma mountain top. They can see but little, however; only hill piled o'erhill and crag o'er crag.
They cross a wild frozen stream, and at sunrise rejoice to findthemselves on the borders of a broad lake. It will be all plain sailingnow for some hours to come.
But, alas! the wind gets up, and there is no shelter of any kind here.On a calm day one can walk and keep warm with the thermometer far belowzero. But with a cutting wind the cold and the suffering are a terriblepunishment.
The wind blows higher and higher. It tears across the frozen lake--abitter, biting, cutting blast; there is hardly any facing it. Even dogsand Indians bend their heads downwards, and present their shoulders tothe wind.
The skin garments of the Esquimos, the coats of the dogs, and beards andhair of the sailors are massed and lumped with frozen snow, and cheeksand ears are coated with ice as if they had been glazed.
Struggling on thus for hours, they cross the lake at last, and gain theshelter of a pine wood. Here wood is gathered, and after much ado afire is lighted. They dare only look at it at first, for well they knowthe danger that would accrue from going too near it. But this in itselfis something, so they begin to talk, and even to laugh, though the laughhangs fire on their frozen lips, and sounds half idiotic.
On again, keeping more into shelter; and so on and on all the day, till,despite all dangers and difficulties, they have put fifteen milesbetwixt them and the camp-fire of the previous evening.
They find themselves in the shelter of some ice-clad rocks at last, withice-clad pine trees nodding over them, and here determine to bivouac forthe night.
The wind has gone down. The sun is setting--a glorious sunset it is--amidst clouds of crimson, gold, and copper.
How delightful is this supper of dried fish and broiled deer now! Theyalmost feel as if they had dined off roast beef and plum pudding. Sobeds are prepared with boughs and blankets and skins, a prayer is said,a hymn is sung, and soon our heroes forget the weary day's journey,their aching, blistered feet, and stiff and painful joints.
Ah! but the cold--the cold! No, they cannot forget that. They areconscious of it all the night, and awake in the morning stiffer almostthan when they lay down.
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During all their long and toilsome march our heroes never saw a singlebear nor met a hostile Indian. But the country now, I am told, ispeopled by nomadic tribes.
Civilisation at long, long last. Only a little fisher village, but mendwell there who speak the English tongue, and a right hearty welcome dothey accord to the wanderers.
Book 2--CHAPTER SEVEN.
A SATURDAY NIGHT AT SEA.
"Meanwhile some rude Arion's restless hand Wakes the brisk harmony that sailors love; A circle there of merry listeners stand, Or to some well-known measure featly move, Thoughtless as if on shore they still were free to rove."
Scene: The upper deck of a barque in mid-Atlantic, homeward bound.Sailors dancing amidships to the music of flute and fiddle. Aft, underan awning, a table is spread, at which sit Leonard, Douglas, CaptainBlunt, with the skipper of the vessel, and one of his officers.
Skipper James, of the timber barque _Black-eyed Susan_, was a sailor ofthe good old school. He was homeward bound, and happening to call at avillage on the west shore of Newfoundland, he heard that a shipwreckedcrew of his countrymen were residing at a small fishing station on theLabrador coast. He did not hesitate a moment. He put about, and sailedback right away to the nor'ard and west and took every soul on board.Men like Skipper James, I fear, are, nowadays, like angels' visits, fewand far between. Ah! and they are angels, too, when you find them;rough enough to all outward appearance, perhaps, but good in the main,and men, too, who carry their hearts upon their sleeves.
Skipper James and our heroes got friendly at once. And before they werethree days on board they felt as if they had known this kindly skipperall their lives.
"My ship's only a rough one," he had told them frankly; "and your faremay not be first-class; but by my song, gentlemen, you are right welcometo the best I have."
It was a Saturday night. They had been three weeks at sea, with fineweather nearly all the time, so no wonder all hands were happy, fore andaft.
Now I have said that this skipper was an old-fashioned sailor, and so hewas; and this being Saturday night, he determined, as he always did,that his men should enjoy themselves forward as much as the officersaft. There was singing, therefore, and dancing, and sea-pie. Aglorious sea-pie steamed on the table of the quarter-deck, and a dozenof the same sort aft.
Rory O'Reilly was the mate's name; the life and soul of the mess he was.He could sing a song or tell a story with any one.
"Dear Captain James," he said to-night, "do tell us a story. Do youbelieve in the sarpint, sorr?"
Captain James quietly finished his second plate of sea-pie, and put theplate in a corner so stayed up that the ship's motion could not displaceit. For this skipper was a most methodical man. Then he took his oldbrown clay with its tin lid, and proceeded to fill it. He shook out the"dottle," as the unburned portion of tobacco in the bottom was called,and put it carefully on Rory O'Reilly's open palm, held out in afriendly and obliging way for James's benefit. Then he loaded up tonear the top with fresh cut, broke up the dottle and put that above,then pinched up the dust and put that over all, then slowly and solemnlylit up. When he had blown a few blasts of such density of volume thatfurther proofs of the pipe's being well lit up were needless, theskipper cleared his throat and commenced--
A STRANGE, STRANGE STORY.
"Rory asked me," he said, "if I believed in the great sea-serpent. Heasked me with a kind of incredulous smile on his face, which spokevolumes as to his own disbelief. Well, I am not sitting here to-nightto lay proof before you as to
the actual existence of sea-serpents of amonstrous size, but I beg to remind my friend here, that not only one ortwo officers of the mercantile and fighting navies of the world, butdozens have come forward, and given their oath, that such monsters wereseen by them, or by their whole crew, at certain times and in certainlatitudes and longitudes. And these men, both at the times of the awfulvisitations, and at the times of their swearing to what they consideredfacts, were neither intoxicated nor otherwise out of their minds.
"But my story is not about sea-serpents altogether, though it may throwa new light on those submarine monsters.
"It is a strange, strange story--one told me years and years ago by mygallant old grandfather. I remember, as though it were but yesterevening, the first time I heard him tell it.
"Grandfather, mates, had at this time retired from the army. He was ofan old Scottish family, that had been crushed at Culloden, so that withthe exception of the half-pay a