Chapter Eleven.
Summer on the Greenland Ocean.
There was not an officer nor able seaman on board the good ship Icebear, who had not been in the Arctic regions before.
Mostly Englishmen they were, with just a sprinkling of Scotch—“the leaven that leavened the lump,” that is how Rab McDonald, the third officer, expressed it, and it is needless to say that Rab himself was a Scot.
Onward went the Icebear, sometimes in a clear sea, though far into Baffin’s Bay—for this was what is called an exceptional year—but at other times she had literally to plough her way through the heavy ice.
When the weather was fine there was but little danger, unless, indeed, a swell rolled in, playing and toying with the monster pieces as schoolboys would with balls.
But when a breeze sprang up, even if only half a gale, then indeed the scene was changed. Then—
“Through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of man nor beasts they ken—
The ice was all between.
“The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around;
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound.”
During calm weather and in the open water Dr Barrett was busy indeed, taking soundings, deep or otherwise, and dredging for living objects at the sea’s bottom.
Very lovely and interesting indeed was the collection that soon grew up in his cabinet, under his magic spell. What could be in that tangled mass of mud and weed and sand, one would have asked, that was hauled on board, the sea-water dripping and trickling out of the bag?
To Dr Barrett—and to the savants at home—treasures more valuable than gold itself.
And after he had secured a haul, washed them, put them up, perhaps on cards of jet to show their beauties off, the clever surgeon would have handed you his great glass and bade you look. It was like gazing at creatures from fairyland. All shapes and colours, but all so minute that they could not well be seen with the naked eye. Here is a little fairy fish—no bigger is it than this letter ‘f.’ Take that glass, please. Now look. No wonder an expression of amazement steals over your face! It is a perfect fish, yet, strange to say, transparent and colourless—that is, there is no fixed colour any more than there is in the Arctic aurora, but greens dance and crimsons flit and play around it; and, stranger still, with a stronger glass, you can see its internal anatomy, see its heart beat and its pulses move! Could anything be more wonderful? And here are shells that, lying on this morsel of black cardboard, are no bigger than the letters “a,” or “e,” or “c.” Look at these. No wonder you smile with delight; they, too, are faultless in shape and curious in form; they, too, are transparent as glass; they, too, display all the colours of the finest pearl.
Put this one—it is no bigger than a comma to the naked eye—under the microscope in a drop of water. Lo! that drop of water is to it a small ocean, and round and round it crawls, legs all out and its shell high up on its shoulders, and of a bright translucent blue. I could sit here all the livelong night and write, sheet of foolscap after sheet of foolscap should flutter from my desk and fall upon the floor, and yet when the grey dawn of morning crept in through the casement of this red parlour, I should not have told you of one-half the mysterious and beautiful beings that this man of science dredged up from the dark depths of that mysterious sea.
I pause here and listen. There was not a sound in the house when I penned the last sentence, only a mouse nibbling the crumbs that I placed for it in the corner, but now there comes from an adjoining room the voice of some one singing. It is only poor old Janet. She does so every night before retiring; and, old though she be, I know she is very happy—happy with a happiness that can never be taken from her. But to-night the words she sings are so en rapport with my own spirit while writing, that I cannot but give a line or two—
“God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps on the sea,
And rides upon the storm.”
As much as it was practicable to do so, the Icebear hugged the western shores of Greenland, but here the ice was heaviest. As the summer advanced, however, the land became bare of snow; it was then that delightful excursions were made inland, up through the long, deep fiords that everywhere indent this coast. I do not like the word “indent,” though I use it; for an indentation means fork-like incision, widest at the mouth—a bay, for example,—but these Arctic fiords are, many of them, narrow at the inlet, then spread out as they go inland.
There are thousands and thousands of them yet unexplored, and which never will be explored as long as the world lasts.
Not altogether for the sake of pleasure were these excursions made, but for the purpose of scientific discovery.
I am sitting here to tell a story, and not to describe scenery, the yachting, the fishing, hunting, and all the pleasures that make a holiday in Greenland north, during the short summer-time, so enthrallingly delightful—a something that once enjoyed can never be forgotten, while the life-blood circulates in our veins.
Claude himself was a lover of nature. In his soul he had all the poetry of a Wordsworth, though there it remained, for he never wrote verses. He could love and admire every tiny flower, every moss or lichen or tender and beautiful saxifrage that clad the rocky uplands. Neither could he classify them.
Dr Barrett both admired and classified. He was ever on the outlook for new species, and I verily believe he dreamed about them by night. So his cabinet, of the rare and lovely specimens found on shore, grew even bigger than did his deep-sea collection.
Cold? No, it was not cold—these regions at this season. Cool sometimes, but never cold.
The Icebear would be cautiously steered up some of those fiords and the anchor let go, in an inland sea or harbour in which all the navies in the world, both mercantile and man-o’-war, could easily have ridden.
While the doctor and his assistants would be prospecting among the hills, leaving the ship in charge of the mate, and, accompanied only by the faithful Fingal and giant Byarnie, Claude would start in a small boat, a kind of elegant dingy, which he had had made on purpose, and go off up the fiords for miles with gun and fishing-rod.
The snow-bird, strange to say, always remained on board. What truth there may be in the statement I do not know, but they say that a snow-bird, or tern, that has once been domesticated by mankind dare not return to its kindred birds under pain of death.
Claude used to enjoy those excursions on the fiords very much. Here is how he generally spent the day: First, Byarnie would pull him slowly about close to the rocks, where the fish were most numerous. A few dozen were speedily caught and thrown in the bottom of the boat. Fingal used to take them in charge, apparently delighting in doing so, for his wise eyes never left them, and if one flopped Fingal held it down with an air of seriousness on his rough hairy face that was highly amusing.
But Claude soon got tired of fishing, and put up the rod. Then he told Byarnie to pull him away out into the centre of the fiord, and let the boat float as she liked in the sweet sunshine. Claude would have a book, perhaps, and very often, when his eyes were riveted on it, it was upside down, which showed where his thoughts were.
Just for fun then he would say to Fingal, “Speak, Fingal.”
Fingal would speak with a vengeance, till every hill and every rock re-echoed his bow-wow-wows. But the sound was sure to bring up a great head or two with goggle eyes out of the water, sea-lions, walruses, or saddle-back or bladder-nose seals, for they are all most inquisitive.
Lying very still sometimes, with the oars in, one single seal would pop his head out of the sun-glazed water and have a look at the boat.
“Sit still, Byarnie; don’t move,” Claude would say.
The seal would come nearer and have another look; then down he would go, tail first, and in three minutes more the sea all around would be black with great heads and sweet, soft, wondering eyes.
“Well,” they would seem to say, “we can’t make it out. Never mind, let us have a romp; the sunshine is so delightful. Hurrah!”
Then a scene of diving, and chasing, and splashing, such as it is impossible to describe, would ensue; it was, in fact, a seals’ ball. If Byarnie would suddenly explode with a loud “Ho! ho! ho!” of merriment, or if Fingal barked, then, hey! presto, every head would sink as if by magic, and in a few minutes the sea would be as smooth as usual, with only the gulls, divers, or grebes floating lazily on it.
Next, Claude would make Byarnie tell him some wild old Norse story—he was full of them—with Sagas, or Vikings, or fairies in it, and then sing. Oh! Byarnie could sing well, but a strange, monotonous kind of lilt it was—very pleasant, nevertheless, for it never once failed to put Claude to sleep. So sure, indeed, was Claude of falling asleep when Byarnie began to sing, that he used to lie down in the stern-sheets with a cushion beneath his head.
Sometimes he awoke with such a happy, happy half-dazed look on his handsome face, and say, “Oh! Byarnie, I’ve had such a pleasant dream!”
Next they would land, and Claude would now read in earnest, while poor Byarnie cooked the dinner in gipsy fashion.
Very often after this Claude would keep his companion talking about Iceland, with Meta always the centre figure, for hours, till, when near sundown, they would probably hear the report of a rifle at some distance off. This was Dr Barrett signalling to his men, and not long after the whaler would come sweeping up, and the boats would return together, often enjoying the fun and frolic of a good race, for Byarnie was a splendid oarsman; his skiff was light, and he, if not a feather, had the strength of three ordinary seamen.
Thus pleasantly passed the summer days on that lonesome Greenland ocean.