Wild Adventures round the Pole

Chapter Three.

Retrospection – Ralph’s Home in England – A Hearty if not Poetic Welcome

Many of my readers have met with the heroes of this tale before (in the “Cruise of the Snowbird,” by the same Author and Publishers), but doubtless some have not; and as it is always well to know at least a little of the dramatis personae of a story beforehand, the many must in the present instance give place to the few. They must either, therefore, listen politely to a little epitomised repetition, or sit quietly aside with their fingers in their ears for the space of five minutes. But, levity apart, I shall be as brief as brevity itself.

Which of our heroes shall we start with first? Allan? Yes, simply because his initial letter stands first on the alphabetic list.

Allan McGregor is a worthy Scot.

We met him for the first time several years prior to the date of this tale; met him in the company of his foster-father, met him in a wildly picturesque Highland glen, called Glentruim, at the castle of Arrandoon. It was midwinter; the young man’s southern friends, Ralph Leigh and Rory Elphinston, were coming to see him and live with him for a time, and right welcomely were they received, all the more in that they had narrowly escaped losing their lives in the snow.

Allan was – and so remains – the chieftain of his clan, his father having died years before, sword in hand, on a bloodstained redoubt in India, leaving to his only son’s care an encumbered estate, a mother and one daughter, Edith, or Helen Edith.

The young chief was poor and proud, but he dearly loved his widowed mother, his beautiful sister, the romantic old castle, and the glen that had reared him from his boyhood; and how he wished and longed to be able to better the position of the former and the condition of the latter, none but he could tell or say. Allan was brave – his clan is proverbially so; his soul was deeply imbued with the spirit of religion, and, it must be added, just slightly tinged with superstition – a superstition born of the mountain mists and the stern, romantic scenery, where he had lived for the greater part of his lifetime.

Ralph Leigh was the son of a once wealthy baronet, and had just finished his education.

Rory Elphinston was an orphan, who owned estates in the west of Ireland, from which property, however, he seldom realised the rents. Like Ralph, Rory was fond of adventure, and ready and willing to do anything honest and worthy to earn that needful dross called gold; and when, one evening, McBain hinted at the wealth that lay ungathered in the inhospitable lands around the Pole, and of the many wild adventures to be met with in those regions, the relation fired the youthful blood of the trio. The boys clubbed together, as most boys might, and bought a small yacht. Small as she was, however, in her, under the able tuition of McBain, they were taught seamanship and discipline, and they became enamoured of the sea and longed to possess a larger ship, in which they might go in quest of adventures in far-off foreign lands.

Now Ralph’s father, poor though he was, was very fond – and perhaps even a little proud – of his son; he would, therefore, not refuse him anything in reason he could afford. He rejoiced to see him happy. The good yacht Snowbird was therefore bought, and in it our brave boys sailed away to the far north. The narrative of their adventures by sea and land is duly recorded in “The Cruise of the Snowbird.” You may seek for them there if you wish to read of them; if not, there is little harm done.

The Snowbird returned at last, if not really rich, yet with what sailors call an excellent general cargo, quite sufficient for each of them to realise a tolerably large sum of money from. Every shilling of his share Allan had expended in improving the glen, with its cottages and sheep farms, and the dear old castle itself. But, meanwhile, Ralph had fallen into a large fortune, and found himself possessed of rich estates, and a splendid old mansion in – shire, England. He might have married now, and settled quietly down for life as a country squire, enjoying to the full all the pleasures and luxuries that health combined with wealth are capable of bringing to their possessors. Ah! but then the spirit of the rover had entered into him; he had learned to love adventure for the sake of itself, and to love a life on the ocean wave.

Loving a life on the ocean wave, he might, had he so chosen, have had a very pleasant cruise with his friends, had he gone with them in their run round Africa, alluded to in the last chapter of this tale; but, as would be gleaned from the conversation recorded therein, he did not so choose. He and McBain had their little secret, which they kept well. They were determined to turn explorers, so Ralph built a ship, built a noble ship – built it without acquainting any one what service it was intended for, and even his dear friends Ralph and Rory were to know nothing about her until they, returned from their cruise in the tropics. Ralph meant it all as a kindly and a glad surprise to them, for well did he know how their hearts would bound with joy at the very thoughts of sailing once more in quest of adventures. Nor, as the sequel will show, was he in one whit disappointed.

In character, disposition, and appearance my four principal heroes may be thus summed up – I have already told you about Allan’s: —

McBain – Captain McBain – was a hardy, fear-nothing, daring man, his mind imbued with a sense of duty and with piety, both of which he had learned at the maternal knee.

Ralph was a young Englishman in every sense of the word – tall, broad, shapely, somewhat slow in action, with difficulty aroused, but a very lion when he did march out of his den intent on a purpose.

Somewhat more youthful was Rory, smaller as to person, poetic as to temperament, fond of the beautiful, an artist and a musician. And if you were to ask me, “Was he, too, brave?” I should answer, “Are not poets and Irishmen always brave? Does not Sir Walter Scott tell us that they laugh in their ranks as they go forward to battle – that they —

“Move to death with military glee?”

Sir Walter, I may also remind those who live in the land o’ cakes, says in the same poem:

“But ne’er in battlefield throbbed heart more brave

Than that which beats beneath the Scottish plaid.”

So now we are back again at the place where we left off in the last chapter, with the yacht being towed slowly past good Ralph’s ship on the stocks, and lusty cheers being exchanged from one vessel to the other.

Rory and Allan exchanged glances. The faces of each were at that moment a study for a physiognomist, but the uppermost feeling visible in either was one of astonishment – not blank astonishment, mind you, for there was something in the eyes of each, and in the smile that flickered round their lips, that would have told you in a moment that Ralph’s nicely-kept secret was a secret no more. Rory, as usual with natives of green Erin, was the first to break the silence.

“Depend upon it,” he said, nodding his head mirthfully, “it is all some mighty fine joke of Ralph’s, and he means giving us a pleasant surprise.”

“The same thought struck me,” replied Allan, “as soon as I clapped eyes on the word ‘Arrandoon.’”

“Oh?” chimed in Helen Edith, with her sweet, musical voice; “that is the reason your friend would not come with us on our delightful voyage.”

“That was the reason,” said Allan, emphatically, “because he was building a ship of his own, the sly dog.”

“But wherever do you think he means cruising to at all, at all?” added Rory, with puzzled face.

“That’s what I should like to know,” said Allan.

And this thought occupied their minds all the way up to Glasgow; but once there, and the ladies seen safely to their hotels, Rory and Allan sped off without delay to visit this big, mysterious yacht; and they had not been half an hour on board ere, as Rory expressed it, in language more forcible than elegant.

“The secret was out entirely, the cat flew out of the bag, and every drop of milk got out of the cocoa-nut.”

Poor Ralph was delighted at the return of his friends from their long cruise; and now that he had their company he had no longer any wish or desire to remain in the vicinity of the Arrandoon; so giving up his pretty Highland cottage, bidding a kindly adieu to the widow, kissing wee weeping Jeannie, and promising to be sure to return some day, the trio hurried them southwards, to spend most of their time at Ralph’s pleasant home, until the ship should be ready to launch.

Leigh Hall was a lordly mansion, possessing no very great pretensions to architectural splendour, but beautifully situated among its woods and parks on a high braeland that overlooked one of England’s fairest lakes. For miles you approached the house from behind by a road which, with many a devious turning, wound through a rich but rolling country. Past many a rural hamlet; past many a picturesque cottage, their gables and fronts charmingly painted and tinted by the hands of the magic artist Time; past stately farms, where sleek cattle seemed to low kindly welcome to our heroes as their carriage came rolling onwards, with here a wood and there a field, and yonder a great stretch of common where cows waded shoulder deep in ferns and furze, daintily cropping the green and tender tops of the trailing bramble; and here a broad, rushy moor, on which flocks of snowy geese wandered.

Alluding to the latter, says Rory, “Don’t these geese come out prettily against the patches of green grass, and how soft and easy it must be for the feet of them!”

“They’re preparing for Christmas,” said Ralph. Poet Rory gave him a look – one of Rory’s looks. “There’s never a bit of poetry nor romance in the soul of you,” he said.

“Except the romance and poetry of a well-spread table,” said Allan, laughing.

“And, ’deed, indeed,” replied Rory, “there is little to choose betwixt the pair of you; so what can I do but be sorry for you both?”

It was on a beautiful autumn afternoon that the three young men were now approaching the manor of Leigh. The trees that had been once of a tender green, whose leaves in the gentle breath of spring had rustled with a kind of silken frou-frou, were green now only when the sun shone upon them; all the rest was black by contrast. Feathery seedlings floated here and there on the breeze that blew from the north. This breeze went rushing through the woods with a sound that made Rory, at all events, think of waves breaking in mid-ocean, and even the fields of ripe and waving grain had, to his mind, a strange resemblance to the sea. The rooks that floated high in air seemed to glory in the wind, for they screamed with delight, baffled though at times they were – taken aback you might say, and hurled yards out of their course.

It was only a plain farmer’s autumn wind after all, but it made these youthful sailors think of something else than baffled, rooks and fields of ripening grain.

Now up through a dark oak copse, and they come all at once to one of the old park gates. Grey is it with very age, and so is the quaintly-gabled lodge; its stones are crumbling to pieces. And well suited for such a dwelling is the bent but kindly-faced old crone who totters out on her staff to open the ponderous gates. She nods and smiles a welcome, to which bows and smiles are returned, and the carriage rolls on. A great square old house; they come to it at last, so big and square that it did not even look tall at a distance. They drove up to what really appeared the back of this mansion, with its stairs and pillars and verandahs, the door opening from which led into the hall proper, which ran straight through the manor, and opened by other doors on to broad green terraces, with ribbon gardens and fountains, and then the braelike park, with its ancient trees, and so on, downwards to the beautiful lake, with the hills beyond.

Right respectfully and loyally was Ralph greeted by his servants and retainers. All this may be imagined better than I can describe it.

While Rory was marching through the long line of servants I believe he felt just a little awed; and if, as soon as they found themselves alone, Ralph had addressed himself to his guests in some such speech as follows, he would not have been very much astonished. If Ralph had said, “Welcome, Ronald Elphinston, and you, my lord of Arrandoon, to the ancient home of the Leighs!” Rory would have thought it quite in keeping with the poetry of the place.

Ralph did nothing of the kind, however; he pitched his hat and gloves rather unceremoniously on a chair, and said, all in one breath and one tone of voice, “Now, boys, here we are at last; I’m sure you’ll make yourselves at home. We’ll have fine times for a few weeks, anyhow. Would you like to wash your hands?”

Well, if it was not a very poetic welcome, it was a very hearty one nevertheless.

Chapter Four.

Life at Leigh Hall – The Launch of the “Arrandoon” – Trial Trips – A Row and a Fight – “Freezing Powders.”

As the owner of a large house, the head of a county family, and a landed proprietor, there were many duties devolved upon Ralph Leigh when at home, from which he never for a moment thought of shrinking. Though a great part of the day was spent in shooting, rowing, or fishing, the mornings were never his own, nor the evenings either. He had a knack of giving nice dinners, and young though he was, he also possessed the happy knack of making all his guests feel perfectly at home, so that when carriages drew round, and it was time to start for their various homes, everybody was astonished at the speed with which the evening had sped away; and that was proof positive it had passed most pleasantly.

They kept early hours at Leigh Hall, and so they did at every house all over the quiet, romantic country, and no doubt they were all the better for it, and all the more healthy.

But our heroes must be forgiven, if, after the last guest had gone, after the lights were out in the banqueting hall, and the doors closed for the night, they assembled in a cosy, fire-brightened room upstairs, all by their three selves, for a quiet confab and talk, a little exchange of ideas, a little conversation about the days o’ auld lang syne, and their hopes of adventures in the far north, whither they were so soon to sail.

About once a fortnight, McBain, whom we may as well call Captain McBain now – Captain McBain, of the steam yacht Arrandoon– used to run down to Leigh Hall to report progress; the “social hour,” as Rory called it, was then doubly dear to them all, and I’m not at all sure that they did not upon these occasions steal half an hour at least from midnight. You see they were very happy; they were happy with the happiness of anticipation. They never dreamt of failure in the expedition on which they were about to embark.

“In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves

For a great manhood, there is no such word as – fail.”

True, but had they known the dangers they were to encounter, the trials they would have to come through, brave as they undoubtedly were, their hearts might have throbbed less joyfully. They had, however, the most perfect confidence in each other, just as brothers might have. The friendship, begun long ago between them, cemented, during the cruise of the Snowbird, in many an hour of difficulty and danger – for had they not come through fire and death together? – was strengthened during their residence at Leigh Hall. Indeed, it would not be too much to say that their affection for each other was brotherly to a degree. Dissimilar in character in many ways they were, but this same dissimilarity seemed but to increase their mutual regard and esteem. Faults each one of them had – who on this earth has not? – and each could see those of the other, if he did not always notice his own. Says Burns —

Probably, individually they did not forget these lines, and so the one was most careful in guarding against anything that might hurt the feelings of the others. Is not this true friendship?

But as to what is called “chaff,” they had all learned long ago to be proof against that – I’m not sure they did not even like it; Rory did, I know; he said so one day; and on Allan asking him his reason, “My reason is it?” says Rory; “sure enough, boys, chaffing metres with laughing; where you find the chaff you find the laugh, and laughing is better to a man than cod-liver oil. And that’s my reason!”

And Rory’s romantic sayings and doings were oftentimes the subject of a considerable deal of chaff and fun; so, too, was what the young Irishman was pleased to call Ralph’s English “stolidity” and Allan’s Scottish fire and intensity of patriotism; but never did the blood of one of our boys get hot, never did their lips tighten in anger or their cheeks pale with vexation.