Sometimes for whole weeks the darkness would be intense (Note 2), then the Icebear’s crew had to seek their pleasures indoors or on board the ship. That house on shore was an incalculable boon to these forlorn adventurers. It was devoted, not to games—these could be played on board—but to music, dancing, acting, and to lectures. The musicians were several, and therefore a by no means bad ship’s band was formed. Those, therefore, who could not play could listen; moreover, many of those who could not play, could spin a yarn, dance, or sing.
The lectures were given by good Dr Barrett, whose gentleness and thoughtfulness of the men had rendered him a very great favourite.
These lectures of his, although often on such abstract subjects as chemistry, botany, geology, or astronomy, were always simple and always interesting, and often amusing.
But there were games on the snow-covered ice—frolics we might call them—invented by the men themselves, but none the less exhilarating on that account. The sea about them might be as deep as the hills around were high, but no fear could be entertained of any one falling through—a band of elephants might have frolicked and floundered on it without the least danger.
The snow in some places had been swept off the ice by the wind, leaving it but a few inches deep. These were just the spots for a right roaring game of genuine football. But there was another game, invented by Paddy O’Connell, who was the life and soul of his mess, if not of the whole ship. It was carried on among deep snow, and was very amusing and exciting.
Paddy called it “football.” Well, it was “Irish football,” for the only man in the ship who could kick the thing a yard was gigantic Byarnie. “It was as large as the biggest pumpkin ever you saw, and quite as big as the largest,” so said Paddy. You had to throw it to begin with, and when you got it you had to run with it, and you did not run many yards before you fell with half a dozen on top of you. But the cream of the game lay in the fact that, however much light there might be, before you had played many minutes you could not tell who was your opponent and who not, everybody being as white as the dustiest of millers. When you were struggling for the ball, it was just as likely as not that you were trying to trip up a friend Besides, often when you got it, and could have a fair shy, then, as you could not see well, what with the uncertain light, and what with the powdery snow, you perhaps threw it the wrong way. It was a rare game, and oh! did it not make you hungry!
No wonder that on returning on board you could eat a hot supper with all the appetite of a Highland drover.
“Paddy,” said Dr Barrett once, as he patted him on the back, “you’re a genius!”
“Thrue for you, sorr,” says Paddy, “and it’s just that same me mother towld me. ‘Paddy,’ says she, ‘you’re a born ganious, and there ain’t the likes o’ ye ’twixt Killarney and Cork.’”