Chapter Twenty Four.
May-Day in the Arctic Regions.
May-day! May-day in England! Surely, even to the minds of the youngest among us, these words bring some pleasant recollections.
“Ah! but,” I think I hear you complain, “the May-days are not now what they were in the good old times; not the May-days we read of in books; not the May-days of merrie England. Where are the may-poles, with their circles of rosy-cheeked children dancing gleesomely around them? Where are the revels? Where are the games? Where is the little maiden persistent, who plagued her mother so lest she should forget to wake and call her early—
“‘Because I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother,
I’m to be Queen o’ the May?’
“And echo answers, ‘Where?’”
These things, maiden included, have passed away; they have fled like the fairies before the shriek of engine and rattle of railway wheels.
But May-day in England! Why, there is some pleasure and some joy left in it even yet. Summer comes with it, or promises it will soon be on the wing. Already in the meadows the cattle wade knee-deep in dewy grass, and cull sweet cowslips and daisies. A balmier air breathes over the land; the rising sun is rosy with hope; the lark springs from his nest among the tender corn, and mounts higher to sing than he has ever done before; flowers are blooming on every brae; the mossy banks are redolent of wild thyme; roses begin to peep coyly out in the hedgerows, and butterflies spread their wings, as a sailor spreads a sail, and go fluttering away through the gladsome sunshine. And yonder—why, yonder is a little maiden, and a very pretty one, too, though she isn’t going to be Queen o’ the May. No, but she is tripping along towards the glade, where the pink-blossomed hawthorn grows, and the yellow scented furze. She is going to—
Bathe her sweet face in May-morn dew,
To make her look lovely all the year through.
She glances shyly around her, hoping that no one sees her. You and I, dear reader, are far too manly to stand and stare so.
Hey! presto! and the scene is changed.
May-day! May-day in Greenland! An illimitable ocean of ice, stretching away on all sides towards every point of the compass from where those ships are lying beset. It looks like some measureless wold covered with the snows of midwinter. It is early morning, though the sun shines brightly in a sky of cloudless blue, and, save for the footfall of the solitary watchman who paces the deck of the Arrandoon, there is not a sound to be heard, the stillness everywhere is as the stillness of death. An hour or two goes slowly by, then the watchman approaches the great bell that hangs amidships.
Dong-dong! dong-dong! dong-dong! dong-dong! Eight bells. The men spring up from hatch and companion-way, and soon the decks are crowded and the crew are busy enough. They have discussed their breakfast long ago, and have since been hard at work on the May-day garland, which they now proceed to hoist on high, ’twixt fore and main masts. That garland is quite a work of art, and a very gay one, too. Not a man in the ship that has not contributed a few ribbons to aid in decorating it. Those ribbons had been kept for this special purpose, and were the last loving gifts of sisters, wives, or sweethearts ere the vessel set sail for the sea of ice. But there is more to be done than hoisting the garland. The ship has to be dressed, and when this is finished, with her flags all floating around her, she will look as beautiful as a bride on her marriage morning.
None the worse for the ducking and fright of the previous day, Rory was first up on this particular May-day, and tubbed and dressed long before either Allan or Ralph was awake.
“Get up, Ray!” cried Rory, entering his friend’s cabin.
“Ray, Ray, Ray!”
The last “Ray” was shouted.
“Hullo! hullo!” cried Ray. “Oh! it’s you, is it, Row? Is breakfast all ready, old man?”
“Ray, arise, you lazy dog!” continued Row, shaking him by the shoulder. “This is May-morning, Ray, and I’m to be Queen of the May, my boy, I’m to be Queen of the May!”
At half-past eight our heroes, Captain McBain included, went on deck in a body, and this was the time for the crew to cluster up the rigging, man the yards, and give voice to a ringing cheer; nay, not one cheer only, but three times three; and hardly had the sound died away ere it was taken up and re-echoed back by the crew of the Canny Scotia. It seemed that Captain Cobb’s cockle-shell was not to be left out of the fun either, for the crew of even that tiny craft must man the rigging and cheer, though after the lusty roar that had gone up from the other ships, their voices sounded like that of a chicken learning to crow.
After this, while the men went to work to rig a great platform on the upper deck, Peter, arrayed in fullest Highland costume, played pibroch after pibroch, and wild march after wild march, as he went strutting up and down the quarter-deck.
The decks were cleared of everything that could be removed, and a great tent erected from mizen to foremast; when this was lined with flags there was but little light, but lamps in clusters were hung here and there, and a stove was brought up to give heat, so that the whole place was as gay as could be, and comfortable as well.
At one end of the tent a platform was erected. There the piano was placed all handy, and Rory’s fiddle and the doctor’s flute, as well as several armchairs and a kind of a throne, the use of which will soon be seen. On the stage at one side was an immense tub nearly filled with cold, icy water; two steps led up to it, and on the edge thereof was a revolving chair. Very comfortable it looked indeed, but, on touching a spring, backwards it went, and whoever might be sitting on it had the benefit of a beautiful bath. My readers already guess what this is for. Yes, for May-day in Greenland is not only a day of fun and frolic, but the self-same kind of performance takes place as on southern ships while crossing the line.
The day itself was dedicated to games on the ice, for not until towards evening would the real fun begin. The seals had a rest to-day, and so had the sharks; even the terrible zugaena wasn’t once thought of, and Bruin himself might sit on one end licking his chops and looking on, so long as he kept at a respectful distance. The games were both Scotch and English, a happy medley in which all hands joined. The morning saw cricket and football matches in full swing, the afternoon golf—and golf played on hummocky ice is golf—and hockey. Peter was the band, and right well he played; but when, tired of march quadrille, or pibroch, he burst into a Highland reel, and the crews began to dance—well, the scene on the snow grew exciting indeed. It was grotesque enough, too, in all conscience, for everybody, without exception, was dressed in fancy costume.
No wonder, too, that Cockie, whom his master had brought on deck to look down on them from the bulwarks, lost all control of himself, and shouted, “Go on—go on—keep it up—keep it up.” Then when Cockie began to throw his head back and shriek with laughter, the men couldn’t resist it any longer; they joined in that laugh, and laughed till sides ached and eyes ran water, and many had to roll in the snow to prevent catastrophes. But the louder the men laughed, all the louder laughed Cockie, till Freezing Powders was obliged to run below with him at last.
“Oh!” said his master, as he restored the cage to its corner, “I tell you all day, Cockie, you eat too much hemp. It’s drefful, Cockie, to hear you laugh like all dat.”
Suddenly from the bows of the Arrandoon a big gun is fired, and the revel stops. Then comes a hail from the crow’s-nest,—
“Below there?”
“Ay, ay!” roared McBain.
“A procession coming along over the snow, sir, towards the ship.”
A consultation was at once held, and it was resolved to march forth to meet them.
“It is Neptune, I know,” said McBain, “for a snowbird this morning brought me a note to say he’d dine with us.”
It wasn’t long before our friends came in sight of the royal party. It was Neptune, sure enough, trident and all, both his trident and he looking as large as life.—He was drawn along in a sledge by a party of naiads, and Amazon jades they looked. On one side of him walked his wife, on the other the Cock o’ the North, while behind him came the barber carrying an immense razor and a bucket of lather. Silas Grig, I may as well mention, played Neptune, and Seth his wife—and a taller, skinnier, bristlier old lady you couldn’t have imagined; and her attempts to act the lady of fashion, and her airs and graces, were really funny. The Cock o’ the North was Ted Wilson. He was dressed in feathers from top to toe, with an immense bill, comb, and wattles, and acted his part well. He was introduced by Neptune as—
“One who ne’er has been to school,
But keeps us fat—in fact, our fool;
A fool, forsooth, yet full of wit
As he can stand, or lie, or sit.”
After the usual introduction, salaams, and courtesies, Neptune made his speech in doggerel verse, with many an interruption both from his wife and his fool, telling how “his name was Neptune”—“though it might be Norval,” added the Cock o’ the North. How—
“From east to west, from pole to pole,
Where’er waves break or waters roll,
My empire is—”
His Wife—“And you belong to me.”
Cock o’ the North.—“All hail, great monarch of the sea!”
Neptune—“The clouds pay tribute, and streams and rills
Come singing from the distant hills.”
His Wife.—“Do stop, my dear; you’re not a poet,
And never were—”
Neptune.—“Good sooth, I know it.
But now lead on, our blood feels cold,
For truth to tell, we’re getting old.
We and our wife have seen much service,
Besides—the dear old thing is nervous,
So to the ship lead on, I say,
We’d see some fun on this auspicious day.
My younger sons I fain would bless ’em.”
His Barber.—“And I can shave.”
His Wife (rapturously).—“And I can kiss ’em.”
The six poor lads who were to be operated on, and whose only fault was that they had never before crossed the line, trembled in their prison as they heard the big guns thunder forth, announcing the arrival of King Neptune. They trembled more when, dressed in white, they were led forth, a pair at a time, and seated blindfolded on the chair of the terrible tub, and duly shaved and blessed and kissed; but they trembled most when the bolt was drawn, and they tumbled head foremost into the icy water; but when, about twenty minutes thereafter, they were seen seated in a row in dry, warm clothing, you would not have known them for the same boys. Their faces were beaming with smiles, and each one busied himself discussing a huge basin of savoury sea-pie. They were not trembling then at all.
At the dinner which followed, Neptune took the head of the table, with his wife on his right and McBain himself as vice-president. The dinner was good even for the Arrandoon, and that is saying a deal. In size, in odour, and beauty of rotundity, the plum-pudding that two stalwart men carried in and placed in front of Neptune, was something to remember for ever and a day. Size? Why, Neptune could have served it out with his trident. Ay! and everybody had two helps, and looked all the healthier and happier after them.
Our three chief heroes were in fine form, Rory in one of his funniest, happiest moods. And why not? Had not he dubbed himself Queen o’ the May? Yes, and well he sustained the part.
I am not sure how Neptune managed to possess himself of so many bottles of Silas Grig’s green ginger, but there they were, and they went all round the table, and even the men of the crew seemed to prefer it to rum. The toasts given by the men were not a few, and all did honour to the manliness of their hearts. The songs sung ere the table was cleared were all well worth listening to, though some were ballads of extreme length.
Neptune was full of anecdotes of his life and adventures, and his wife also had a good deal to say about hers, which caused many a peal of laughter to rattle round the table.
Some of the men recited pieces of their own composition. Here is one by the crew’s pet, Ted Wilson to wit:
The Ghost of the Cochin-Shanghai.
’Tis a tale of the Greenland ocean,
A tale of the Northern seas,
Of a ship that sailed from her native land
On the wings of a favouring breeze;
Her skipper as brave a seaman
As ever set sail before,
Her crew all told as true and bold
As ever yet left the shore.
And never a ship was better “found,”
She couldn’t be better, I know,
With beef in the rigging and porkers to kill,
And tanks filled with water below;
And turkeys to fatten, and ducklings and geese,
And the best Spanish pullets to lay;
But the pride of the ship, and the pet of the mess,
Was a Brahma cock, Cochin-Shanghai.
And every day when the watches were called,
This cock crew so cheery O!
With a shrill cock-a-lee, and a hoarse cock-a-lo,
And a long cock-a-leerie O!
But still as the grave was the brave bird at night,
For well did he know what was best;
Yes, well the cock knew that most of the crew
Were weary and wanted their rest
But one awful night he awoke in a fright,
Then wasn’t it dreary O!
To hear him crow, with a hoarse cock-a-lo,
And a shrill cock-a-leerie O!
Oh!
Then out of bed scrambled the men in a mass,
“We cannot get sleep,” they all cried;
“May we never reach dock till we silence that cock,
We’ll never have peace till the villain is fried.”
All dressed as they were in the garments of night,
Though the decks were deep covered with snow,
They chased the cock round, with wild yell and bound,
But they never got near him—no. And wherever he flew, still the bold
Cochin crew, With a shrill cock-a-lee, and a hoarse cock-a-lo,
And a long cock-a-leerie O!
Now far up aloft defiant he stands,
Like an eagle in eerie O!
Till a sea-boot at last, knocked him down from the mast,
And he sunk in the ocean below.
But the saddest part of the story is this:
He hadn’t quite finished his crow,
He’d got just as far as the hoarse cock-a-lo
But failed at the leerie O!
Oh-h!
And that ship is still sailing, they say, on the sea,
Though ’tis hundreds of years ago;
Till they silence that cock they’ll ne’er reach a dock,
Nor lay down their burden of woe;
For out on the boom, till the crack of doom,
The ghost of the Cochin will crow,
With his shrill cock-a-lee, and his hoarse cock-a-lo,
But never the leerie O!
No!
They tell me at times that the ship may be seen
Straggling on o’er the billows o’ blue,
That the hardest of hearts would melt like the snow,
To witness the grief of that crew,
As they eye the cold waves, and long for their graves,
Looking so weary O!
Will he never have done with that weird cock-a-lo,
As get to the leerie O!
Oh-h!
Dinner discussed, the fun commenced. In the first place, there were sailors’ dances, and the floor was kept pretty well filled one way or another. But certainly the dances of the evening were the barber’s “break-down,” Rory’s “Irish jig,” and the doctor’s “Hielan fling.” They were solos, of course, and the barber was the first to take the floor; and oh! the shuffling and the double-shuffling, and the tripleing and double-tripleing of that wonderful hornpipe! No wonder he was cheered, and encored, and cheered again. Then came Rory, dressed in natty knickerbockers and carrying a shillelah! nobody could say at times which end of him was uppermost, or whether he did not just as often strike his seemingly adamantine head with his heels as with his shillelah. Lastly came Sandy McFlail in Highland costume, and being a countryman of my own, I must be modestly mum on the performance, only, towards the end of the “fling,” you saw before you such a mist of waving arms and legs and plaid-ends, that you could not have been sure it was Sandy at all, and not an octopus.
But hark! there comes a shriek from the pack, so loud that it drowns the sounds of music and merriment. Men grow suddenly serious. Again they hear it, and there is a perceptible movement—a kind of thrill under their feet. It is the wail that never fails to give the first announcement of the breaking up of the sea of ice.