Chapter Twenty Three.
The Great Black Frost—Funny Jack Frost—The Cold Half-Hour—A Terrible Apparition under the Ice—Blowing Soap-Bubbles—Strange Effect—Snow and Snow-Shoes.
For week after week the great black frost continued, seeming only to wax more and more intense as the time went on. With the exception of the mysterious pool, mentioned in last chapter, and the small hole kept open alongside the yacht, there was no water to be met with anywhere. The sea, as far as the eye could reach, was a smooth unbroken sheet of glass, two feet in thickness if a single inch. If there was any ripple or swell in the now far-off blue water, it did not affect the ice for miles around the Snowbird in the slightest. There was never a crack and never a flaw in it. It was hard, solid, and black, adamantine one might almost say in its extreme hardness. The chips broken off from the edge of the ice-hole looked like pieces of greenish rock crystal. The ice-hole itself required to be broken every time a bucket was dipped in it.
Meanwhile the days grew shorter and shorter, but there was never a breath of wind, and never a cloud in the sky. And the sun looked cold and rayless, yet at night the stars shone out with extraordinary brilliancy.
Breakfast was now a meal to be partaken of by lamplight, and so too was dinner, but they both passed off none the less pleasantly for that.
“It seems to me,” said Allan one morning, “that one of these days the sun won’t trouble to get up at all.”
“We are just in the latitude,” remarked McBain, “where even at midsummer there is a little night, and at mid-winter a little day.”
“But we will never be positively in the dark, I should think, while the stars are so brilliant?” Allan asked.
“We’ll have the glorious aurora borealis by-and-bye,” said McBain, “to say nothing of long spells of moonlight; but we are, as I said before, in the very centre of a land of wonders, and there will doubtless be nights when the storm spirit will be abroad in all his might and majesty, clothed in clouds and darkness, a darkness more intense and terrible than any we have ever experienced in our own country.”
“It is a good thing,” said Rory, “that you thought of taking such an array of beautiful lamps.”
Yes, Rory was right, it was a beautiful array. As Ralph remarked, “the Snowbird was strong in lamps.”
They hung in the passage, they hung in the snuggery, and four of them lit up the saloon, with a brightness almost equal to that of day itself.
And those lamps gave heat as well as light, but large fires were kept constantly roaring in the stoves. The stove that stood in the snuggery was a very large one, and to make the place all the more comfortable the deck was almost buried in skins—trophies of the prowess of our heroes in the hunting-field. And yet with all this it must be confessed that at times the cold was felt to be very severe; indeed, the thermometer kept steadily down many degrees below zero. There was one way of defying it during the day, however, and that way lay in action.
“Keep moving is my motto,” said Rory one day on the ice.
“Indeed, Rory boy,” said McBain, “you act well up to it; if I were asked to define you now, do you know the words I would use?”
“No,” said Rory.
“Perpetual motion personified,” said McBain.
“Thank you,” Rory said, lifting his cap.
There was an excellent way of keeping out the cold after dinner, and that was to make a circle round the snuggery stove, reclining on the skins with cups of warm fragrant coffee, and engaging in pleasant conversation. There was another way of keeping out the cold in the long evenings, and that was to retire to the new hall and give a dance. This was the favourite plan with the crew at all events, and McBain, well knowing the value of healthful happy exercise, was always delighted when Rory professed himself ready and willing to discourse sweet music to the men tripping it on the light fantastic toe.
But the time of all others when our heroes really did feel the effects of the excessively low temperature, was the cold half-hour immediately after turning into bed. Of course the curtains would be carefully and closely drawn, ay, and heads carefully covered with bedclothes, but for all that, shiver they must for the cold half-hour. But gradually the feeling wore away, warmth stole over them, then noses could be protruded over the quilts, and by-and-by sleep sealed up their senses.
When they awoke in the morning, lo and behold they were lying in caves of snow! Top and bottom of the bed, back and roof, were covered with snow to the depth of half an inch; and so were the curtains, and so were the quilts. Where in the name of mystery had the snow come from? The explanation is easy enough. The snow was nothing more nor less than their frozen breath.
I do not think a single day passed that Rory did not, during this black frost, make a sketch from a frozen pane of glass. The frost effects on the frozen glass were simply magical, and it was very curious to notice that some of the panes had been but lightly touched with the frost; they were unfinished sketches, so to speak, while others represented whole landscapes, mountain and forest and sky as well.
“Look at this pane,” said Rory, one morning. “Now I wonder what Jack Frost meant to have filled that picture in with?”
“Jack seems to have been having a frolic,” said Allan. “Why, there is only one long white thread down the centre of the pane, and this is all hung over with battle-axes and crosses. Jack’s a funny fellow.”
“Jack is,” said Rory.
“Poor Seth!” he continued; “d’ye know the trick he played him yesterday?”
“No,” said Allan.
“Oh! then,” said Rory, “what should John Frost, woe worth him! do but go and freeze the poor man’s nose, and sure enough to-day it is as big as the teapot; there is no looking at him without laughing.”
“Poor fellow!” Allan remarked.
Frost-biting was far from a rare accident now, and when on the ice it was found necessary for both men and officers to keep a sharp look-out on each other’s faces; a white spot represented a sudden frost-bite, unfelt by the person most interested, and only visible to his companion. But it had at once to be rubbed with ice to gradually restore the circulation, else the part, after the lapse of some hours, would mortify.
Here is a strange thing. For the first day or two of frost, while the ice was still comparatively thin, by lying flat down and gazing beneath, they were in a short time able to perceive fishes and other denizens of the deep close underneath them. Even sharks, and creatures with shapes still more dreadful, at times appeared. There was a strange fascination in this to Rory, these dark, turning, twisting shapes close under him, that stared at him with their terrible eyes, or mouthed at the ice as if they would fain swallow him, appearing and disappearing in the dark water; it was fascinating, yet fearful.
When coming from the shore on the evening of the second day, “Let us skate for a mile or two in the starlight,” said Rory.
“Agreed!” said Allan, and off they went.
They skated quite a mile from the shore.
“Now,” said Rory, “let us have a peep through the ice.”
“We can’t see anything in the dark,” replied Allan.
But Rory was of a different opinion, and no sooner had he lain down than, “Oh, Allan, Allan! look, look!” he cried.
Allan saw it too—a terrible shape, seemingly made of fire, wriggling up from the dark depths and approaching the spot where they lay, until they could see it easily. A gigantic snake apparently, as big as the stem of the tallest oak, all quivering and phosphorescent, with crimson eyes and a mouth of awful teeth! The boys felt fear now if they never felt it before. They were spellbound, too; they could not remove their gaze from the apparition, and a kind of nightmare dread took possession of their hearts.
But the thing disappeared at last; it vanished as it had come, leaving only the blackness of darkness. The spell was broken, and they skated back again towards the yacht in silence, but wondering greatly at what they had seen.
The country around them, with its hills and its forests, looked dismal enough now at times. There was no cloud scenery, and consequently no lovely sunrises or sunsets, but just in the gloaming hour, soon after the sun had gone down, the lower part of the sky all round, between the immediate horizon and the upper vault of blue, used to assume a strange sea-green hue, in which the bright stars sparkled and shone like diamonds of the purest water.
“Hallo!” said Rory, one day, “I’ve got an idea.”
The day was one of intensest frost—probably the coldest they had ever yet experienced.
“Yes, an idea,” he continued—“and that is more than ever you had, you know, Ralph.”
“Well, then, tell us,” said Ralph; “but I should think it will get frozen hard if you attempt to put it into words.”
“But I won’t,” said Rory; “I mean to put it into action.”
Rory dived down below, and his two companions remained on deck, wondering what he was going to be up to.
But presently Rory returned, bearing long clay pipes and a basin of soapsuds. “The idea is a very ridiculous one,” he said, “but a funny one. Fancy, old sailors like ourselves, and mighty hunters, blowing soap-bubbles like so many babies! But here, boys, take your pipes and heave round.”
Next moment both Ralph and Allan entered into the business with spirit, and everybody looked on astonished, for, strange to say, the beautiful soap-bubbles were no sooner blown than they were frozen, and instead of floating away and fading shortly, they remained in existence. The boys blew them by the score and by the hundred, until the deck of the yacht and the top of the companion, and even the bulwarks, were laden with them.
“Now then,” cried Rory, in ecstasy; “what d’ye think of that, captain? Troth! there is a beautiful cargo for you.”
“It’s a very fragile one,” said McBain.
“Ah! but,” said Rory, “it is poetic in the extreme, and entirely new, and I’m sure nobody ever saw such a sight before.”
“Nobody but yourself,” said McBain, “could have conceived so very strange an idea.”
“Truly,” said Rory, “Jack Frost is a funny fellow.”
“Jack Frost and you are a pair then, Rory; but I’ve got news for you.”
“What is it?”
“The glass is going down, and I think we’ll soon have a change.” McBain was right. That same day, shortly before sundown, a strange mist or fog gathered in the sky all around them, but not close aboard of them; the country was nowhere obscured, only the sky itself; and through this mist the great sun glared ruddy and angry-like.
“It is the snow-mist,” said McBain.
But still there was no wind; all nature was hushed, as if she held her breath and waited expectant.
The powdery snow began to fall as soon as the sun went down, and ere nightfall it lay inches deep on the decks, and on all the sea of ice beside them. It soon changed in its character—from being powdery it now came down in huge flakes; and when the morning broke, so deep was the fall, that there was little to be seen of the yacht save her tall and tapering masts. She was now, indeed, a Snowbird!
The fall had seemingly stopped, however, but the clouds with which the sky was now overcast were dark and threatening.
It was now “all hands on deck to clear the ship of snow,” and in less than an hour the yacht looked quite herself again, only all around her was the white waste of snow. There would be no more skating for a time, at least. A look of disappointment crept over Rory’s face, and he sighed as he saw Peter restoring the now useless skates to their box and putting them away. He had to fly to his fiddle for relief. That, at all events, was a never-failing source of comfort to this strangely-tempered Irish boy.
The men were very busy now for a few days. A road had to be dug through the deep snow to the shore, and a clearance made all around the new hall, as well as around the ice-hole. Had Rory had his will, he would have set the men to work on the ice itself, to clear roads all over it, so that he might still enjoy his favourite pastime, skating.
The snow was soft and powdery, and when he got over the side and attempted to walk on it, he almost disappeared entirely, but there was a remedy for even this evil.
From his store-room McBain produced half-a-dozen pairs of snow-shoes, and old Ap and his assistant were invited aft to study their construction, with the intention of imitating them, and making many more pairs, for all hands must be furnished with these curious “garments,” as Rory called them.
Our heroes felt very awkward in them at first, especially Ralph, but Seth came to the rescue and volunteered a few lessons.
“I guess,” he said to Rory, “you imagines you’ve got a pair of dancing-pumps on, and you wants to do a hornpipe. It ain’t a mortal bit of use trying that. You mustn’t lift your feet so high; you must just skoot along as I do, so, and—so.”
“Why, I wish I could skoot along like you,” said Rory, picking himself up the best way he could, for in trying to imitate the old trapper he had gone over and almost disappeared, shoes and all. “Troth, Seth, my bright young boy, these pedal appliances don’t suit me at all. Och! my poor ankles. I do believe the whole lot of the two of them is fairly out of joint. But one can’t learn anything useful without trying, so here goes again. Come along, Porpy. Cheerily does it. Hullo! Where is Porpy?”
There was at that present moment nothing of Porpy, as Rory often facetiously called his companion Ralph, to be seen except a pair of legs with snow-shoes at the end of them, and these were waggling most expressively.
But Ralph soon got up and alongside again, and then Rory did not call him Porpy any longer, because he did not like to have his ears pulled.
“I say, Ralph,” he said, slyly, “you’ve no idea what a pair of elegant legs you have.”
“Indeed!” said Ralph.
“Yes,” continued his tormentor, “and eloquent as well as elegant. They are a speaking pair. Had you only seen yourself two minutes ago, when there was nothing of you visible at all, at all, but just them same pair of beautiful limbs, you’d—”
But Rory never finished his sentence. He had stuck the toe of one of his snow-shoes into the snow, and away he went next.
Well, you see this learning to “skoot along,” as Seth called it, was not devoid of interest and fun, but in a few days they could skoot as well as Seth himself, and even carry their guns under their arms in the most approved fashion.
It was well for them that they had learned to hold their guns while walking with snow-shoes, for one day the trio had an adventure with some illustrious strangers, that taxed all their skill both in walking and shooting. I will introduce them to you in the next chapter.