"I would advise, sir, to begin hardening the men as soon as I could. We have too much fire in the stove, both for our stock of wood and for the good of the people. Make the men sleep under fewer clothes, and don't let any on 'ern hang about the galley fire, as some on 'em love to do, even now, most desperately. Them 'ere men will be good for nothin' ten weeks hence, unless they're taken off the fires, as a body would take off a pot or a kettle, and are set out to harden."
"This is a process that may be easier advised than performed, perhaps," Roswell quietly observed.
"Don't you believe that, Captain Gar'ner. I've known the most shiverin', smoke-dried hands in a large crew, hardened and brought to an edge, a'ter a little trouble, as a body would temper an axe with steel. The first thing to be done is to make 'em scrub one another every mornin' in cold water. This gives a life to the skin that acts much the same as a suit of clothes. Yes, gentlemen; put a fellow in a tub for a minute or two of a mornin', and you may do almost anything you please with him all day a'terwards. One pail of water is as good as a pee-jacket. And above all things, keep the stoves clear. The cooks should be told not to drive their fires so hard; and we can do without the stove in the sleeping-room a great deal better now than most on us think. It will help to save much wood, if we begin at once to caulk and thicken our siding, and make the house warmer. Was the hut in a good state, we might do without any other fire than that in the camboose for two months yet."
Such was the general character of Stephen's counsel, and very good advice it was. Not only did Roswell adopt the scrubbing process, which enabled him to throw aside a great many clothes in the course of a week, but he kept aloof from the fires, to harden, as Stimson had called it That which was thus enforced by example was additionally enjoined by precept. Several large, hulking, idle fellows, who greatly loved the fire, were driven away from it by shame; and the heat was allowed to diffuse itself more equally through the building.
Any one who has ever had occasion to be a witness of the effect of the water-cure process in enabling even, delicate women to resist cold and damp, may form some notion of the great improvement that was made among our sealers, by adopting and rigidly adhering to Stimson's cold water and no-fire system. Those who had shivered at the very thoughts of ice-water, soon dabbled in it like young ducks; and there was scarcely an hour in the day when the half-hogshead, that was used as a bath, had not its tenant. This tub was placed on the ice of the cove, with a tent over it; and a well was made through which the water was drawn. Of course, the axe was in great request, a new hole being required each morning, and sometimes two or three times in the course of the day. The effect of these ablutions was very soon apparent. The men began to throw aside their pee-jackets, and worked in their ordinary clothing, which was warm and suited to a high latitude, with a spirit and vigour at which they were themselves surprised. The fire in the camboose sufficed as yet; and, at evening, the pee-jacket, with the shelter of the building, the crowded rooms, and the warm meals, for a long time enabled them to get on without consuming anything in the largest stove. Stimson's plans for the protection of the hut, moreover, soon began to tell. The skins, sails, and much of the rigging, were brought over from the wreck; by means of the carts, so long as there was no snow, and by means of sledges when the snow fell and rendered wheeling difficult. Luckily, the position of the road along the rocks caused the upper snow to melt a little at noon-day, while it froze again, firmer and firmer, each night. The crust soon bore, and it was found that the sledges furnished even better means of transportation than the wheels.
There was a little controversy about the use of the skins, Daggett continuing to regard them as cargo. Necessity and numbers prevailed in the end, and the whole building was lined with them, four or five deep, by placing them inside of beckets made of the smaller rigging. By stuffing these skins compactly, within ropes so placed as to keep all snug, a very material defence against the entrance of cold was interposed. But this was not all. Inside of the skins Stimson got up hangings of canvass, using the sails of the wreck for that purpose. It was not necessary to cut these sails--Daggett would not have suffered it--but they were suspended, and crammed into openings, and otherwise so arranged as completely to conceal and shelter every side, as well as the ceilings of both rooms. Portions were fitted with such address as to fall before the windows, to which they formed very warm if not very ornamental curtains. Stephen, however, induced Roswell to order outside shutters to be made and hung; maintaining that one such shutter would soon count as a dozen cords of wood.
Much of the wood, too, was brought over from the wreck; and that which had been carelessly abandoned on the rocks was all collected and piled carefully and conveniently near the outer door of the hut; which door, by the way, looked inward, or towards the rocks in the rear of the building, where it opened on a sort of yard, that Roswell hoped to be able to keep clear of ice and snow throughout the winter. He might as well have expected to melt the glaciers of Grindewald by lighting a fire on the meadows at their base!
Stephen had another project to protect the house, and to give facilities for moving outside, when the winter should be at the hardest. In his experience at Orange Harbour, he had found that great inconvenience was sustained in consequence of the snow's melting around the building he inhabited, which came from the warmth of the fire within. To avoid this, a very serious evil, he had spare sails of heavy canvass laid across the roof of the warehouse, a building of no great height, and secured them to the rocks below by means of anchors, kedges, and various other devices; in some instances, by lashings to projections in the cliffs. Spare spars, leaning from the roof, supported this tent-like covering, and props beneath sustained the spars. This arrangement was made on only two sides of the building, one end, and the side which looked to the north; materials failing before the whole place was surrounded. The necessity for admitting light, too, admonished the sealers of the inexpediency of thus shrouding all their windows. The bottom of this tent was only ten feet from the side of the house, which gave it greater security than if it had been more horizontal, while it made a species of verandah in which exercise could be taken with greater freedom than in the rooms. Everything was done to strengthen the building in all its parts that the ingenuity of seamen could suggest; and particularly to prevent the tent-verandah from caving in.
Stephen intimated that their situation possessed one great advantage, as well as disadvantage. In consequence of standing on a shelf with a lower terrace so close as to be within the cast of a shovel, the snow might be thrown below, and the hut relieved. The melted snow, too, would be apt to take the same direction, under the law that governs the course of all fluids. The disadvantage was in the barrier of rock behind the hut, which, while it served admirably to break the piercing south winds, would very naturally tend to make high snow-banks in drifting storms.