Gordon Stables - Wild Adventures round the Pole

She was a gallant sight, the Arrandoon , as she stood away out to sea, past the rocky shores of Bute, bound south on her trial trip by the measured mile. Fifteen hundred tons burden was she, with tall and tapering masts: lower, main, topgallant, and royal; not one higher; no star-gazers, sky-scrapers, or moon-rakers; she wouldn’t have to rake much for the wind in the stormy seas they were going to. Then there was the funnel, such a funnel as a man with an eye in his head likes to see, not a mere pipe of a thing, but a great wide armful of a funnel, with the tiniest bit of rake on it; so too had the masts, though the Arrandoon did not look half so saucy as the Snowbird . The Arrandoon had more solidity about her, and more soberness and staidness, as became her – a ship about to be pitted against dangers unknown.

Her figure-head was the bust of a fair and beautiful girl.

That day, on her trial trip, the ladies were on board; and Rory made this remark to Helen Edith:

“The fair image on our bows, Helen, will soon be gazing wistfully north.”

“Ah! you seem to long for that,” said Helen, “but,” she added archly, “mamma and I look forward to the time when she will be gazing just as wistfully south again.”

Rory laughed, and the conversation assumed a livelier tone.

Steamers, I always think, are very similar in one way to colts, they require a certain amount of breaking in, they seldom do well on their trial trip. The Arrandoon was no exception; she promised well at first, and fulfilled that promise for twenty good miles and two; then she intimated to the engineers in charge that she had had enough of it. Well, this was a good opportunity of trying her sailing qualities, and in these she exceeded all expectations.

McBain rubbed his hands with delight, for no yacht at Cowes ever sailed more close to the wind, came round on shorter length, or made more knots an hour. He promised himself a treat, and that treat was to run out some day with her in half a gale of wind, when there were no ladies on board. He would then see what the Arrandoon could do under sail, and what she couldn’t. He did this; and the very next day after he came back he made the journey to Leigh Hall, and stopped there for a whole week. That was proof enough that the captain was pleased with his ship.

Early in the month of the succeeding February, the Arrandoon lay at the Broomielaw, with the blue-peter unfurled, steam up, all hands on board, and even the pilot. That very morning they were to begin their adventurous voyage. Ralph, Allan, and Rory would be picked up at Oban, and the vessel now only awaited the arrival of McBain before casting off and dropping down stream.

The Broomielaw didn’t look pretty that morning, nor very comfortable. Although the hills all around Glasgow were white with snow, over the city itself hung the smoke like a murky pall. There was mud under feet, and a Scotch mist held possession of the air. Here was nothing cheering to look at, slop-shops and pawn-shops, and Jack-frequented dram-shops, bales of wet merchandise on the quay, and eave-dripping dock-houses; nor were the people pleasant to be among; the only human beings that did seem to enjoy themselves were the ragged urchins who had taken shelter in the empty barrels that lined the back of the warehouses; they had shelter, and sugar to eat. McBain thought he wouldn’t be sorry when he was safely round the Mull of Cantyre.

“Come on, Jack,” cried one of these tiny gutter-snipes, rushing out of his tub; “come on, here’s a row.”

There was a row; apparently a fight was going on, for a ring had formed a little way down the street; and simply out of curiosity McBain went to have a peep over the shoulders of the mob. As usual, the policemen were very busy in some other part of the street.

Only a poor little itinerant nigger boy lying on the ground, being savagely kicked by a burly and half-drunken street porter.

“Oh!” the little fellow was shrieking; “what for you kickee my shins so? Oh!”

McBain entered the ring in a very businesslike fashion indeed; he begged for room; he told the mob he meant thrashing the ruffian if he did not apologise to the poor lad. Then he intimated as much to the ruffian himself.

“Come on,” was the defiant reply, as the fellow threw himself into a fighting attitude. “Man, your mither’ll no ken ye when you gang home the nicht.”

“We’ll see,” said McBain, quietly.

For the next three minutes this ruffianly porter’s movements were confined to a series of beautiful falls, that would have brought down the house in a circus. When he rose the last time it was merely to assume a sitting position, “Gie us your hand,” he said to McBain. “You’re the first chiel that ever dang Jock the Wraggler. I admire ye, man – I admire ye.”

“Come with me, my little fellow,” said McBain to the nigger boy; and he took him kindly by the hand. Meanwhile a woman who had been standing by placed a curious-looking bundle in the lad’s hand, and bade him be a good boy, and keep out of Jock the Wraggler’s way next time.

“I’ll see you a little way home, Jim,” continued McBain, when they were clear of the crowd. “Jim is what they call you, isn’t it?”

“Jim,” said the blackamoor, “is what dey are good enough to call me. But, sah, Jim has no home.”

“And where do you sleep at night, Jim?”

“Anywhere, sah. Jim ain’t pertikler; some time it is a sugar barrel, an oder time a door-step.”

A low, sneering laugh was at this moment heard from the mysterious bundle Jim carried. McBain started.

“Don’t be afeared, sah,” said Jim; “it’s only de cockatoo, sah!”

“Have you any money, Jim?” asked McBain.

“Only de cockatoo, sah,” replied Jim; “but la!” he added, “I’se a puffuk gemlam (gentleman), sah – I’se got a heart as high as de steeple, sah!”

“Well, Jim,” said McBain, laughing, “would you like to sail in a big ship with me, and – and – black my boots?”

“Golly! yes, sah; dat would suit Jim all to nuffin.”

“But suppose, Jim, we went far away – as far as the North Pole?”

“Don’t care, sah,” said Jim, emphatically; “der never was a pole yet as Jim couldn’t climb.”

“Have you a surname, Jim?”

“No, sah,” replied poor Jim; “I’se got no belongings but de cockatoo.”

“I mean, Jim, have you a second name?”

“La! no, sir,” said Jim; “one name plenty good enough for a nigga boy. Only – yes now I ’members, in de ship dat bring me from Sierra Leone last summer de cap’n never call me nuffin else but Freezin’ Powders.”

McBain did not take long to make up his mind about anything; he determined to take this strange boy with him, so he took him to a shop and bought him a cage for the cockatoo, and then the two marched on board together, talking away as if they had known each other for years.

Freezing Powders was sent below to be washed and dressed and made decent. The ship was passing Inellan when he came on deck again. Jim was thunderstruck; he had never seen snow before.

“La! sah,” he cried, pointing with outstretched arm towards the hills; “look, sah, look; dey never like dat before. De Great Massa has been and painted dem all white.”

“La la lay lee-ah, lay la le lo-O” So went the song on deck – a song without words, short, and interrupted at every bar, as the men hauled cheerily on tack and sheet.

Such a thing would not be allowed for a single moment on board a British man-o’-war, as the watch singing while they obeyed the orders of the bo’sun’s pipe, taking in sail, squaring yards, or doing any other duty required of them. And yet, with all due respect for my own flag, methinks there are times when, as practised in merchant or passenger ships, that strange, weird, wordless song is not at all an unpleasant sound to listen to. By night, for instance, after you have turned in to your little narrow bed – the cradle of the deep, in which you are nightly rocked – to hear it rising and falling, and ending in long-drawn cadence, gives one an indescribable feeling of peace and security. Your bark is all alone – so your thoughts may run – on a wild world of waters. There may not be another ship within hundreds of miles; the wind may be rising or the wind may be falling – what do you care? What need you care? There are watchful eyes on deck, there are good men and true overhead, and they seem to sing your cradle hymn, “La la lee ah,” and before it is done you are wrapt in that sweetest, that dreamless slumber that landsmen seldom know.