Chapter Thirty Two.
“News from Home.”
For some time after the wreck, the brothers seemed to experience a strange dreariness about the place which they never felt before.
They were now shut in entirely, being confined, as it were, to the little valley of the waterfall through the destruction of the tussock-grass ladder, which previously had opened the tableland on top of the crags to them, giving greater liberty of action; although the ascent had not been by any means an easy matter for Fritz.
Now, however, restricted to their scanty domain, bounded by the bare cliff at the back and encompassed by lofty headlands on either side, they were prevented from wandering beyond the limits of the bay, save by taking to their boat; and this, the strong winds which set in at the latter end of March rendered utterly impossible of achievement.
Consequently, they began to realise more fully their solitary condition, recognising the fact that they were crusoes indeed!
No event of any importance happened after the episode of the bonfire and the storm in which the crew of the brig perished, for some weeks, nothing occurring to break the monotony of the solitary life they were leading; until, one morning, without any warning, the penguins, which had been their constant companions from the commencement of their self-chosen exile up to now, suddenly left the island.
This was in the month of April.
Never was a migration more unexpected.
On the evening before, the birds, so long as daylight lasted, were seen still playing about in the bay and arranging themselves in lines along the rough escarpment of the headlands, where they were drawn up like soldiers on parade and apparently dressed in the old-fashioned uniform that is sometimes still seen on the stage. Really, their black and white plumage exactly resembled the white buckskin breeches and black three-cornered hats of the whilom mousquetaires; while their drooping flappers seemed like hands down their sides in the attitude of “attention!”—the upper portions of the wings, projecting in front, representing those horrible cross-belts that used to make the men look as if they wore stays.
The penguins seemed so much at home on the island that it looked as if they never intended leaving it, albeit the brothers noticed that the birds barked and grumbled more discordantly than they had done of late. No doubt there was something on hand, they thought; but they never dreamt that this grand pow-wow was their leave-taking of the rookery; but, lo and behold! when Eric came out of the hut next morning to pay his customary matutinal visit to the beach, there was not a single penguin to be seen anywhere in the vicinity, either out in the water or on land!
They had disappeared, as if by magic, in one single night. In the evening before, they were with them; when day dawned, they were gone!
Fritz and Eric had got so accustomed to the birds by this time, studying their habits and watching the progress of many of the adult penguins from the egg to representative birdom, as they passed through the various gradations of hatching and moulting, that they quite missed them for the first few days after their departure.
The cliffs, without their presence to enliven them, appeared never so stern and bleak and bare as now; the headlands never so forbidding and impassable; the valley never so prison-like, to the brothers, shut in as they were and confined to the bay!
However, the winter season coming on apace, the two soon had plenty to do in preparing for its advent. This served to distract their attention from becoming morbid and dwelling on their loneliness, which was all the more dismal now from the fact of their being debarred from their hunting-ground on the plateau—Fritz having got strong and well again after the wreck, and being now able to start on a second expedition in pursuit of “Kaiser Billy,” did he so wish, if the access to the tableland above the cliffs by way of the gully were only still open to them.
Goat-shooting, therefore, being denied them, the brothers busied themselves about other matters, as soon as the increasing coldness of the air and an occasional snow-storm warned them that winter would soon visit the shores of the island.
“I tell you what,” said Fritz, when the first few flakes of snow came fluttering down one afternoon as they were standing outside the hut, the sun having set early and darkness coming on. “We’re going to have some of the old weather we were accustomed to at Lubeck.”
“Ah; but, we can have no skating or slides here!” replied Eric, thinking of the canals and frozen surface of the sea near his northern home, when the frost asserted its sway, ruling with a sceptre of ice everywhere.
“No, and we don’t want them either,” rejoined the practical Fritz. “I am pondering over a much more serious matter; and that is, how we shall keep ourselves warm? My coat, unfortunately, is getting pretty nearly worn-out!”
“And so is mine,” cried Eric, exhibiting the elbows of his reefing jacket, in which a couple of large holes showed themselves. The rest of the garment, also, was so patched up with pieces of different coloured cloth that it more resembled an old-clothes-man’s sack than anything else!
“Well, what do you think of our paying our tailor a visit?” said Fritz all at once, after cogitating a while in a brown study.
Eric burst out into a loud fit of laughing; so hearty that he nearly doubled himself up in the paroxysms of his mirth.
“Ha, ha, ha, what a funny fellow you are, Fritz!” he exclaimed. “I wonder where we are going to find a tailor here?”
“Oh, I know one,” said his brother coolly, in such a matter-of-fact way that the lad was quite staggered with surprise.
“Do you?” he asked in astonishment. “Who is he?”
“Your humble servant,” said Fritz, with a low bow. “Can I have the pleasure of measuring you for a new suit, meinherr?”
Eric began laughing again.
“You can measure away to your heart’s content,” he replied; “but, I fancy it will puzzle even your lofty intellect to discover the wherewithal to make clothes with—that is, except sailcloth, which would be rather cold wear for winter, I think, eh, Master Schneider?”
“How about those two last sealskins we didn’t salt down, or pack up with the rest in the puncheon?” enquired Fritz with a smile.
“O–oh!” exclaimed Eric, opening his mouth wide with wonder.
“A–ah,” rejoined his brother. “I think they’ll do very well to make a couple of good coats for us; they’ll be warm and serviceable.”
“Of course they will,” said Eric, jumping at the idea. “And, they will be fashionable too! Why, sealskin jackets are all the rage in Berlin and Hanover; so, we’ll be regular dandies!”
“Dandies of the first water, oh yes,” replied Fritz quizzingly. “I wonder what they would think of us at, Lubeck if they could just see us now!”
“Never mind, brother, we’ll astonish them when we go back with our pockets full of money,” said Eric in his happy fashion; and then, without further delay, the two set to work making themselves winter garments, as Fritz had suggested, from the sealskins.
These had been dried, instead of being salted down with the rest, in the ordinary way whalers preserve them for the furriers; so, now, all that remained for the brothers to do was to make the skins limp and pliable.
This they managed to effect by rubbing grease over the inner surface of the skins with a hard piece of lava slab selected from the volcanic débris at the foot of the cliff, in the same way, as Eric explained, that sailors holystone the decks of a ship; and, after the pelts of the seals were subjected to this process, they underwent a species of tanning by being steeped in a decoction of tea leaves, keeping, however, the hair out of the liquor. Lastly, the outside portion of the skins was dressed by pulling off the long fibrous exterior hairs, concealing the soft fur below that resembled the down beneath a bird’s rough feathers.
The skins being now thoroughly prepared, all that remained to do was to cut out the coats, a feat the crusoes accomplished by using their old garments for patterns; and then, by the aid of the useful little housewife which Celia Brown had given Eric, after an immense amount of stitching, the brothers were able at last to clothe themselves in a couple of fur jackets. These, although they were perhaps roughly made, the good people at home could not have turned up their noses at, for the articles were certainly intrinsically worth more than the best-cut masterpiece of the best outfitter, even if not of so perfect a fit or style!
Fritz was the chief tailor in this operation; but, while he was busily engaged with needle and thread, Eric was employed in another way, equally for the good of both.
The hut had been found somewhat cold and damp in consequence of the sun’s power beginning to wane by reason of its shifting further north, through the periodic revolution of the earth; so it was determined to build a fireplace within the dwelling.
This had not been necessary before, all their cooking operations having been carried on without the hut at an open-air campaigner’s stove designed by soldier Fritz.
Now, however, Master Eric devoted himself to the task of improving their household economy, accomplishing the feat so well that, wonderful to relate, the place never smoked once after the fire had been lit in the new receptacle for it, excepting when the wind blew from the westward. Then, indeed, coming from over the top of the plateau above, it whirled down the gorge, roaring through the lad’s patent chimney like a cyclone.
From May, until the end of July—during which time the extreme severity of the winter lasted—the brothers did little, save stop indoors and read, or play dominoes.
Really, there was nothing else for them to occupy their minds with; for, it was impossible to cultivate the garden, while the weather was too rough for them to venture out in the whale-boat.
Early in August, however, the penguins returned.
The birds did this as suddenly as they had left; although they did not come all together, as at the period of their migrating from the island.
It need hardly be said that Fritz and Eric welcomed them joyfully as the early swallows of the coming summer; for, as the summer advanced, their life would be more varied, and there would be plenty for them to do.
Besides, the brothers had not forgotten Captain Brown’s promise to return at this period and visit them with the Pilot’s Bride, the arrival of which vessel might be expected in a couple of months or so.
The male penguins were the first to make their reappearance in the bay, Eric returning to the hut with the news of this fact one morning in August.
“I say, Fritz,” he called out, when yet some distance off from their dwelling—“I’ve just seen two penguins down by the sea!”
“Have you?” exclaimed the other eagerly. “That’s good news.”
“Is it?” said Eric. “I didn’t think you cared about them so much.”
“Ah, I’m looking out for their eggs,” replied Fritz.
“Why, you never seemed to fancy them last year, old fellow,” said the sailor lad surprised. “What means this change of view on your part?”
“Well, you know, when we arrived here first, the birds were already sitting; and, I certainly confess I did not care about the eggs then, for they would probably have been half addled! Now, however, if we look out each day, we can get them quite fresh, when they’ll be ever so much better. Young Glass told us, as you ought to remember, that they tasted very nice and not in the least fishy.”
“Oh, yes, I recollect,” said Eric. “I will keep a good look-out for them now you say they’re worth looking after!”
And he did.
The two male birds, who first came, were succeeded on the following day by half a dozen more, a large number coming later on the same afternoon.
All these penguins were in their best plumage, and very fat and lazy, contenting themselves with lolling about the beach for a day or two, as if to recover from the fatigues of their journey.
Then, after a solemn conference together close to the rookery, the birds began to prepare their nests, so as to be ready for the reception of the females, which did not make their appearance for nearly a month after the first male penguins were seen.
A fortnight later, there was in almost each nest an egg of a pale blue colour, very round in shape and about the size of a turkey’s—the sight of which much gratified Master Eric, who, fearless of consequences, made a point of investigating the tussock-grass colony every morning. He called the birds habitat his “poultry yard,” seeming to be quite unmindful of his mishap there the previous year; although now, as the penguins had not begun regularly to sit yet, they were not so noisy or troublesome as when he then intruded on their domain. Besides, as the sailor lad argued, the eggs were uncommonly good eating, and well worth risk getting them.
September came; and the brother crusoes were all agog with excitement, watching for the expected coming of the old Yankee skipper.
“Do you know what to-day is?” asked Fritz one morning, as Eric woke him up in turning out.
“What a fellow you are for dates!” exclaimed the other. “You ought to go and live in the East, where they cultivate them, brother! No, I can’t say I recollect what day it is. Tuesday, is it not?”
“I don’t mean that,” said Fritz petulantly. “I alluded to the sort of anniversary, that’s all.”
“Anniversary of what?”
“Our landing here last year,” replied Fritz.
“Oh, I forgot that!” exclaimed Eric.
“It strikes me you forget a good many things,” said his brother in his dry way. “Still, what I was thinking of was, that we might now really begin to look out for Captain Brown. What a pity it is that you can’t ascend to your old signalling station on top of the gully.”
“Yes, it was all on account of the grass burning that our ladder got spoilt and—”
“Of course you didn’t set it on fire, eh?” interposed Fritz.
“Ah well, it’s of no use our talking about that now; words will not mend matters,” said Eric. “We’ll have look out from here!”
The wind latterly had been from the east, blowing right into the bay. On account of this, the brothers could not venture out in the boat and thus get round the headland, so as to climb the plateau from the other side of the island and scan the offing from thence.
Still, no amount of looking out on their part—or lack of observation, whichever way the matter was put—seemed to effect the arrival of the expected ship; for, the month passed away in daily counted days without a trace of a sail being seen on the horizon.
At last, just when the brothers had given up in despair all hope of hearing from home, Eric, one morning in October, reported that there was something in sight to windward of the bay; although, he said, he did not think she looked like the Pilot’s Bride.
Hastily jumping into his clothes—for Fritz, sad to relate, could never practise early rising, in which good habit day after day Eric set him a praiseworthy example—the elder followed the younger lad again to the shore of the bay; from which point, well away out to sea, and her hull just rising from the rolling plane of water, could be seen a vessel. She was steering for the island apparently, with the wind well on her beam.
“It isn’t Captain Brown’s ship,” said Eric now decisively, his sailor eye having distinguished while she was yet in the distance that the vessel was a fore-and-aft-rigged schooner, although Fritz could not then tell what sort of craft she was. “It is one of those small whalers that ply amongst the islands, such as I saw down at Kerguelen.”
“What can have become of the skipper, then?” cried Fritz, quite disappointed. “I hope nothing has happened to him.”
“We’ll soon know,” replied Eric. “If I mistake not this very schooner, which is evidently going to call here, is the Jane. I know her by that queer patch in her jib; and, if that’s the case, she is one of the consorts of the Pilot’s Bride and will be bound to be able to tell us something about her.”
“I sincerely hope so,” said Fritz.
The two then remained silent for some time, watching the approaching vessel; but they took the precaution to run down their whale-boat to the beach, so as to be ready to put off as soon as the visitor should come near enough for them to board her.
In a short time, bowling up before a good breeze, although it seemed hours to them, they were so anxious, the schooner lay-to off the bay, hoisting her flag as a signal that she wished to communicate. But, long before the bunting had been run up to the masthead, the brothers had launched their boat and were pulling out towards the vessel, which did not anchor, for there was a heavy ground swell on—this latter, indeed, cost them, too, some trouble in getting their little craft out to sea, the rolling surge first lifting her up and then plunging her down so that everything was hidden from them for the moment by a wall of water on either side.
However, they managed to get through the waves somehow; and, presently, they were alongside the schooner,—pulling in under her stern, whence a rope was hove them to get on board by.
An active-looking, slim, seamanlike young fellow advanced to them as they scrambled on the schooner’s deck; and Eric appeared to recognise him.
“Hullo, Captain Fuller,” he said, “where’s the Pilot’s Bride and the old skipper?”
“I’m sorry you won’t see him this trip,” replied the other. “The barque got damaged in a gale off the African coast a month ago: so, she had to put into the Cape of Good Hope for repairs, which’ll take such a time that Captain Brown couldn’t manage to come along here and see you as he promised. Howsomever, the old skipper has sent me in his stead, to bring you some letters and take home any cargo you might have ready in sealskins and oil. He told me, likewise, to let you have any provisions you may want; but, I’m sorry to say, while coming here I helped an American ship that was short, and now I only have a little flour left to spare.”
“Thank you, all the same,” said Fritz, who had been waiting patiently while the master of the schooner gave this explanation. “I’m very sorry at not seeing Captain Brown; however, I suppose he’ll come for us next year, as he said, won’t he?”
“Oh yes,” answered the other cordially. “I’m sure he will, for it seemed a great disappointment to him not to be able to do so now. He told me to be certain to say that, ‘blow great guns and small arms or not, he’ll be at Inaccessible Island next year!’ But, you must be anxious about your letters. Here they are,” and the nice-looking young fellow, whom Fritz had quite taken a fancy to, handed a little packet to him, adding, “I am afraid I’ll have to hurry you up about your return messages, as the wind is getting up from the eastwards and I shan’t be able to remain here long.”
Fritz at once broke the seal of a thick letter, which Captain Brown had enclosed in one of his own. This he saw came from Lubeck, although it had the Capetown post mark on it, and he glanced hurriedly over the front page and then at the end.
“All right at home, thank God!” he said aloud for Eric’s benefit, the lad staring at his brother with eager eyes. “And now, Captain Fuller, I’m ready to attend to you. I shall be glad of a barrel of flour if you can spare it, but our other provisions can hold out. Will you let a man or two come ashore to help get our freight aboard?”
“How much have you got to ship?” asked the other.
“Thirty sealskins and twenty barrels of oil,” replied Fritz at once; he and Eric had counted over their little store too often for him not to have their tally at his fingers’ ends!
“Come now,” said Captain Fuller encouragingly. “That’s not bad work for a couple of novices as their first take here! Next year, you’ll be able to fill up the Pilot’s Bride, ‘I reckon,’ as the old skipper would say.”
“Not quite that,” replied Fritz, while he and Eric joined in the other’s laugh; “still, I’ve no doubt we’ll do better than this, for we’ll take care to be beforehand with some folks!”
The commander of the schooner looking puzzled by the latter part of this speech, Fritz proceeded to tell the young seaman all about Nat Slater and the Tristaners, anent which he became very indignant.
“I’ll take care to call at the island and spoil the mean fellow’s game for him, so that you shan’t be troubled in the same way again!” cried their new friend, with much heartiness; “but, do, please, let these men go ashore with you now and fetch your produce at once, or else we’ll have to be off without it! Here, Harris and Betkins,” he sang out to two of the schooner’s men, “go along with these gentlemen in their boat and bring off some cargo they’ll point out to you!”
“I don’t think we can stow all in one boat,” said Eric.
“Then, we must make two or three trips till we do,” answered the other, equal to the occasion; and this procedure was adopted until all the brothers’ sealskins and barrels of oils were shipped in the schooner. The goods were consigned to Captain Brown, who had undertaken to dispose of all the produce of their expedition; and, when the freight was all shipped, the schooner, filling her sails, bore away from the island on her return trip to the Cape—not without a hearty farewell to Fritz and Eric from those on board.
This visit of the little craft cheered them up wonderfully, reconciling them cheerfully to another year’s sojourn in their island home; for, had not the schooner brought them comfort and hope, and, above all else, what was to their longing hearts like manna to the Israelites in the wilderness, water to a dry ground, warmth to those shivering with cold—in other words, “good news from home?”
Aye, that she had!