Chapter Five.
Summer Life in Norland Seas.
“To the ocean now I fly
And those Norland climes that lie
Where Day never shuts his eye.”
“And nought around, howe’er so bright,
Could win his stay, or stop his flight
From where he saw the pole-star’s light
Shine o’er the north.”
It was no wonder that, with the snow lying deep around our dwelling, and the storm-wind rattling our windows of a night, and howling and “howthering” around the chimnies, both Frank’s thoughts and my own should be carried away to the wild regions of the Pole, where both of us had spent some years of our lives; or that I should have been asked one night to relate some of my experiences of Greenland seas and their strange animal inhabitants, seals and bears among the rest.
I related, among other things—
How Seals are Caught in Greenland.
“That sealing trip,” I said, “I shall never forget. My particular friend the Scotch doctor, myself, and Brick the dog, were nearly always hungry; many a midnight supper we went in for, cooked and eaten under the rose and forecastle.”
Friday night was sea-pie night, by the universal custom of the service. The memory of that delicious sea-pie makes my month water even now, when I think of it.
The captain came down one morning from the crow’s-nest—a barrel placed up by the main truck, the highest position in the ship from which to take observations—and entered the saloon, having apparently just taken leave of his senses. He was “daft” with excitement; his face was wreathed in smiles, and the tears of joy were standing in his eyes.
“On deck, my boys, on deck with you, and see the seals!”
The scene we witnessed on running aloft into the rigging was peculiarly Greenlandish. The sun had all the bright blue sky to himself—not the great dazzling orb that you are accustomed to in warmer countries, but a shining disc of molten silver hue, that you can look into and count the spots with naked eye. About a quarter of a mile to windward was the main icepack, along the edge of which we were sailing under a gentle topsail breeze. Between and around us lay the sea, as black as a basin of ink. But everywhere about, as far as the eye could see from the quarter-deck, the surface of the water was covered with large beautiful heads, with brilliant earnest eyes, and noses all turned in one direction—that in which our vessel was steering, about south-west and by south. Nay, but I must not forget to mention one peculiar feature in the scene, without which no seascape in Greenland would be complete. Away on our lee-bow, under easy canvas, was the Green Dutchman. This isn’t a phantom ship, you must know, but the most successful of all ships that ever sailed the Northern Ocean. Her captain—and owner—has been over twenty years in the came trade, and well deserves the fortune that he has made by his own skill and industry.
If other proof were wanting that we were among the main body of seals, the presence of that Green Dutchman afforded it; besides, yonder on the ice were several bears strolling up and down, great yellow monsters, with the ease and self-possession of gentlemen waiting for the sound of the last dinner gong or bugle. Skippers of ships might err in their judgment, the great Green Dutchman himself might be at fault, but the knowledge and the instinct of Bruin is infallible.
We were now in the latitude of Jan Mayen; the tall mountain cone of that strange island we could distinctly see, raised like an immense shining sugar-loaf against the sky’s blue. To this lonely spot come every year, through storm and tempest, in vessels but little bigger or better than herring-boats, hardy Norsemen, to hunt the walrus for its skin and ivory, but by other human feet it is seldom trodden. It is the throne of King Winter, and the abode of desolation, save for the great bear that finds shelter in its icy caves, or the monster seals and strange sea-birds that rest on its snow-clad rocks. At this latitude the sealer endeavours to fall in with the seals, coming in their thousands from the more rigorous north, and seeking the southern ice, on which to bring forth their young. They here find a climate which is slightly more mild, and never fail to choose ice which is low and flat, and usually protected from the south-east swell by a barrier of larger bergs. The breeding takes place as soon as the seals take the ice, the males in the meantime removing in a body to some distant spot, where they remain for three weeks or so, looking very foolish—just, in truth, as human gentlemen would under like circumstances—until joined by the ladies. The seal-mothers are, I need hardly say, exceedingly fond of their young. At all other times timid in the extreme, they will at this season defend them with all the ferocity of bears. The food of the seals in nursing season consists, I believe, of the small shrimps with which the sea is sometimes stained for miles, like the muddy waters of the Bristol Channel, and also, no doubt, of the numerous small fishes to be found burrowing, like bees in a honeycomb, on the under surface of the pieces of ice. The wise sealer “dodges” outside, or lies aback, watching and wary, for a fortnight at least, until the young seals are lumpy and fat, then the work of death begins. I fear I am digressing, but these remarks may be new to some readers.
“The Green Dutchman has filled her fore-yard, sir, and is making for the ice;” thus said the first mate to the captain one morning.
“Let the watch make sail,” was the order, “and take the ice to windward of her.”
The ship is being “rove” in through the icebergs, as far and fast as sail will take her. Meanwhile, fore and aft, everybody is busy on board, and the general bustle is very exciting. The steward is serving out the rum, the cook’s coppers are filled with hams, the hands not on deck are busy cleaning their guns, sharpening their knives, getting out their “lowrie tows” (dragging-ropes), and trying the strength of their seal-club shafts by attempts to break them over their hardy knees. The doctor’s medical preparations are soon finished; he merely pockets a calico bandage and dossel of lint, and straps a tourniquet around his waist, then devotes his attention exclusively to his accoutrements. Having thus arranged everything to his entire satisfaction, he fills a sandwich-case, then a brandy-flask and baccy-pouch, and afterwards eats and drinks as long as he can—to pass the time, he says—then, when he can’t eat a morsel more, he sits and waits and listens impatiently, beating the devil’s tattoo with his boot on the fender. Presently it is “Clew up,” and soon after, “All hands over the side.”
The day was clear and bright and frosty, and the snow crisp and hard. There was no sinking up to the knees in it. You might have walked on it with wooden legs. Besides, there was but little swell on, so the movement of the bergs was slow, and leaping easy.
Our march to the sealing-ground was enlivened by a little logomachy, or wordy war, between the first mate and the doctor. The latter began it:
“Harpooneers and clubmen,” he cried, “close up behind me, here; I’m gaun to mak’ a speech; but keep movin’ a’ the time—that’s richt. Well, first and foremost, I tell ye, I’m captain and commander on the ice; d’ye hear?”
“You commander!” exclaimed the mate; “I’ll let ye ken, my lad, that I’m first officer o’ the ship.”
“Look here, mate,” said the doctor, “I’ll no lose my temper wi’ ye, but if ye interrupt me again, by ma sang, ye’ll ha’ to fecht me, and ye ken ye havena the biceps o’ a daddy-lang-legs, nor the courage o’ a cockney weaver, so keep a calm sough.—Now, men,” he continued, “I, your lawfully constituted commander, tell ye this: there is to be nae cruelty, this day, to the innocent lambs we’re here to kill. Mind ye, God made and cares for a’ His creatures. But I’m neither going to preach or pray, but I’ll put it to ye in this fashion. If I see one man Jack of ye put a knife in a seal that he hasna previously clubbed and killed, I’ll simply ca’ that man’s harns oot (dash his brains out) to begin wi’, and if he does it again, I’ll stop his ’bacca for the entire voyage, and his grog besides.”
Probably the last threat was more awful to a sailor than actual braining. At all events, it had the desired effect, for during the whole of that day I saw nothing among our men but slaughter as humane as slaughter could be made. Even then, however, there was much to harrow the feelings of any one at all sensitive. For the young Greenland seal is such an innocent little thing, so beautiful, so tender-eyed, and so altogether like a baby in a blanket, that killing it is revolting to human nature. Besides, they are so extremely confiding. Raise one in your arms—it will give a little petted grumble, like a Newfoundland puppy, and suck your fingers; not finding its natural sustenance in that performance, it will open its mouth, and give vent to a plaintive scream for its ma, which will never fail in bringing that lady from the depths beneath, eager-eyed and thirsting for your life.
Towards the middle of the day I strolled among the crew of the P—e. The men were wildly excited, half-drunk with rum, and wholly with spilling blood, singing and shouting and blaspheming, striking home each blow with a terrible oath, flinching before the blood had ceased to flow, and sometimes, horrible to say, flinching the unhappy innocents alive. All sorts of shocking cruelties were perpetrated, in order to make puppies scream, and thus entice the mother to the surface to be shot or clubbed. I saw one fellow— Pah! I can’t go on.
Blood shows to advantage on ice. Here there were oceans of it. The snow was pure and white and dazzling in the morning—I leave it to the imagination of the sentimental to guess its appearance at eventide. The stout Shetlandmen, with their lowrie tows, dragged the skins to the ship. There were no regular meals any day during sealing. The crew fed and drank alike, when they could and what they could. There was but little sport in all this—a certain wild excitement, to be sure, quite natural under the circumstances, for were we not engaged in one of the lawful pursuits of commerce and making money? The bears were having fine times of it, for there was but little inclination on our part to pursue them, while there were seals to slay; and Bruin seemed to know this, and was correspondingly bold and impertinent, although never decidedly aggressive; for compared to seals men are merely skin and bone, and Bruin has a penchant for adiposity.
In ten days there was not a seal left, for ships had collected from all quarters—like war-horses scenting the battle from afar, or like sea-gulls on “making-off” days—to assist in the slaughter. By-the-by, what peculiar instinct or what sense is it that enables those sea-gulls to determine the presence of carrion in the water at almost incredible distances? On making-off days—that is, idle days at sea—when, there being nothing else to do, the hands are employed in separating the blubber from the skins, putting them in different tanks and casting the offal overboard, there shall not be a single gull in sight from the crow’s-nest, even within ken of the telescope; but when, twenty minutes afterwards, the work is well begun, the sea shall be white with those gulls, singly or in clusters fighting for the dainty morsels of flesh and blubber.
We got frozen in after this, and in a fortnight’s time we found ourselves forsaken by the bears, and even by the birds, both of which always follow the seals.
What a lonely time we had of it for the next month, in the centre of that silent, solitary icepack! But for the ships that lay here and there, frozen in like ourselves, it might have been mistaken for some snow-clad moorland in the dead of winter. And all the time there never was a cloud in the blue sky, even as big as a man’s hand; the sun shone there day and night but gave no heat, and the silence was like the silence of space—we could have heard a snow-flake fall.
Once a week, at least, a gale of wind might be blowing, hundreds of miles away from where we were—it was always calm in the pack—then the great waves would come rolling in beneath the ice, though of course we could not see them, lifting up the giant bergs, packing and pitching the light bay-ice over the heavy, and grinding one against the other or against our seemingly doomed ship with a shrieking, deafening noise, that is quite indescribable. We thus lived in a constant state of suspense, with our traps always packed and ready to leave the vessel if she were “nipped.” One ship had gone down before our very eyes, and another lay on the top of the ice on her beam ends, with the keel exposed.
But clouds and thaw came at last, and we managed, by the aid of ice-saws and gunpowder, to cut a canal and so get free and away into the blue water once more.
“Were you not glad?” said Maggie May.
“Yes, glad we all were, yet I do not regret my experience, for in that solitary ice-field we were indeed alone with Nature. And, Maggie May, being alone with Nature is being alone with God.”
“Ah! Frank,” I added, “it is amid such scenes as these, and while surrounded with danger, that one learns to pray.”
“True, lad, true,” said Uncle Frank solemnly, “and strange and many are the wonders seen by those who go down to the sea in ships.”
Chapter Six.
Face to Face with Ice-Bears.
“Why, ye tenants of the lake,
For me your wat’ry haunts forsake?
Tell me, fellow-creatures, why
At my presence thus you fly?
Conscious, blushing for our race,
Soon, too soon, your fears I trace;
Man, your proud usurping foe,
Would be lord of all below,
Plumes himself in Freedom’s pride,
Tyrant stern to all beside.”
Burns.
“If ever a true lover of Nature lived,” said Frank one winter’s evening, as we all sat round the fire as usual, “it was your Scottish bard, the immortal Burns.”
“Yes,” I said, “no one was ever more sensible than he that a great gulf is fixed between our lower fellow-creatures and us—a gulf formed and deepened by ages of cruelty towards them. We fain—some of us at least—would cross that gulf and make friends with the denizens of field and forest, but ah! Frank, they will not trust us. I can fancy the gentle Burns walking through the woods, silently, on tiptoe almost, lest he should disturb any portion of the life and love he saw all about him, or cause distress to any one of God’s little birds or beasts. See the wounded hare limp past him!—poor wee wanderer of the wood and field—look at the tears streaming over the ploughman’s cheeks as he says:
“‘Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest—
No more of rest, but now thy dying bed!
The sheltering rushes whistling o’er thy head,
The cold earth with thy bleeding body prest.’”
“And what,” said Frank, “can equal the pitiful pathos and simplicity of his address to the mouse whose nest in autumn has been turned up by the ploughshare?
“‘Thy wee bit housie too in ruin,
It’s silly wa’s, the winds are strewin’,
An’ naething, now to big a new ane
O’ foggage green,
An bleak December’s winds ensuin’,
Both snell and keen.’”
(Big means build; snell means keen.)
“Yes, Frank, and he says in that same sweet and tender poem:
“‘I’m truly sorry man’s dominion,
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill-opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!’”
“Well,” replied Frank, “I’m very much of Burns’s way of thinking; I would like to be friends with all my fellow-mortals, and have reason to believe it is really man’s cruelty that has broken the spell that should bind us.
“Why, away up in the north, the biggest beast in the sea is the simplest and the best-natured. I mean the whale. The birds are so tame you can almost catch them alive, and even bears will pass you by if you do not seek to molest them.”
“Tell us some bear stories, Frank.”
Frank accordingly cleared his throat.
“What I tell you, then, about Polar bears,” he said, “you may believe. My facts are true facts, not ordinary facts, and I gained my experience myself, and neither from books nor from imagination. But talking about books,” he continued, pulling one down from the shelf and spreading it open before him, “here is one on natural history, and as there are pictures in it, it will be sure to please you. The book is not an old one, and is a reputed authority. Well, look at that. That is supposed to be a Polar bear just come out of a cave, and having a sniff round. It is more the shape of a dormouse that has lost its tail in a trap.
“Here again is the picture of a dismantled barque, apparently stranded on the top of Mount Ararat, and in the foreground a lot of very ordinary looking men with billycock hats and very ordinary looking axes and spades, making an ice-canal to the water, at the edge of which another bear or dormouse is standing up quietly to be shot.
“One more illustration. Glance at this! three bears close under the bows of a ship among the ice; one lies dead beside a spit-kid; another is sitting thinking; and a third is walking on his hind-legs towards a group of men, who are evidently poised to receive cavalry, with duck-guns and old-fashioned battle-axes.
“The text is quite on a keeping with the illustrations—that is, hardly in accordance with Nature.
“We read in travellers’ tales wonderful accounts of the size, strength, cunning, and extreme ferocity of the Polar bear. I used to believe all I read, even Jack the Giant-Killer. But nevertheless, as to ferocity and strength, there is no doubt that our Arctic friend is king of the ursine race. It took me a whole year to settle in my own mind whether this bear was actually a bold, brave beast or the reverse. From all I have seen and heard he undoubtedly possesses bravery, but it is tempered with a deal of discretion. He is not like the old Norse kings; he does not kill men for the mere sake of making a record. He fights for food and not for glory. If a man and seal were both lying asleep on the ice, I believe a hungry bear would prefer his customary diet, and leave the man in peaceful possession of his dreams. But if the man awoke while the bear was having his mouthful or two—he does not eat much of a seal—then I guess the consequences would be rather serious for one of the party. Yet I came upon a bear once behind a hummock of ice that, I am sure, had been fast asleep till I fired my rifle at something else quite close to him. He might have killed me then easily, but I assure you he did not. He emitted a sound as if he had swallowed about three yards of trombone and was trying to cough it up again. Then he ran away.
“But another day I ran away. I was two miles from my ship and burst my gun. I wasn’t going to stop and fight that bear with the butt-end—not likely; but he followed me nearly halfway. Our spectioneer, dear old man, saw the race from the crow’s-nest, and sent men out to meet us. He said at dinner that he had saved my life; but according to him, he saved my life more than once and in more ways than one. He must have been always saving my life, I suppose; but then I was young and headstrong. That spectioneer of ours, although he must have been nearly fifty years of age, was a kind of Donald Dinnie in strength. He fought an Arctic bear once single-handed and with no other weapon save a seal-club. The man is still alive; the bear isn’t.
“The spectioneer did not force the fighting, remember. He rounded the corner of a large hummock of ice, and came upon the foe quite unexpectedly. One lucky but fearful blow pierced the upper part of the brute’s neck close behind the ear, and he fell dead. A seal-club is a terrible weapon in the hands of a strong man. It is in shape somewhat like a pole-axe, only the iron or steel portion is sharp, and not blunt. Our spectioneer was one of the best and bravest seamen ever I sailed with, and one of the most modest of men. I remember laughing once when he told me that he would as soon fight a bear with a seal-club as a bladder-nosed seal. I did not know much about this species of seal then. I believe there is some Irish blood in the brute, for at any time, whether in the water or out of it, he will as soon fight as not, and woe be to you when he cocks his crest if you have only a club, and no rifle wherewith to defend yourself!
“Ever hear tell of the mad surgeon who fought the Polar bear? I’ll tell you the story, then, as it was told to me, and I have no reason to doubt its accuracy in the main details.
“Dr C— was a young medical man, just newly passed. He was to have been married very shortly after the capping and gowning ceremony, but had a few hasty words with his affianced, bade her an angry farewell, and took steamer to Lerwick some weeks before the arrival of the Greenland fleet at that ancient place, in the hopes of finding a ship that was in want of a surgeon. He was not disappointed; one of the doctors wished to go back; the voyage from Hull to Lerwick had been quite enough for him, so Dr C— took his place.
“Now Dr C— was reckless; he confessed that he cared very little what he did, or what became of him; he had loved the girl that he had meant to make his wife very dearly, and now that he had lost her he didn’t mind, he said, although a whale swallowed him, and he thought he could sleep as comfortably, and far more soundly, in Davy Jones’s locker than anywhere else.
“He showed he was reckless even before he left Lerwick. It was usual in those days for the youthful surgeons of the fleet to assemble for the purpose of eating, drinking, and carousing at the only respectable hotel in the town, and having well primed themselves, to march in a body through the narrow streets. This used to lead to cruel fights, in which the medicos were very often worsted. But on this particular year Dr C— went in for organisation, as he called it. He armed and drilled the fleet surgeons, and in person he used to lead them out to fight, and in consequence the riots lasted often long into the night, despite the efforts of the police and military—five men and a sergeant—to quell them.
“After his ship sailed, Dr C— took to vinous imbibition—in plain English, he drank rum to excess. The ship got frozen in about a week after arrival ‘in the country,’ and by this time the surgeon was so ill that he was confined to bed. Literally speaking, confined to bed, for he had to be strapped to it. One day he heard the captain and first mate talking about the large number of bears that were about, and so quiet did he become after this that restraint was thought no longer necessary. It was early in the season, and the sun still set, and the night, or rather dusk, was of about two hours’ duration. When a ship is beset in the ice the commander naturally enough is anxious in mind, and spends a good deal of his time in the crow’s-nest with his eye at the glass. The commander of Dr C—’s ship was in the crow’s-nest very early one morning, and, somewhat to his surprise, saw what he took to be a seal lying on a hummock about half a mile off. It lay very still and motionless, and was very black. It was not long before he noticed something else—an immense bear coming stalking down towards the dark object on the ice.
“So intently was he watching the movements of the bear that he did not notice the trap-door of the nest move. It was the steward that had run up to tell him that the doctor was not to be found anywhere in the ship.
“In a moment the truth flashed upon the captain’s mind. He hailed the deck below, and in less than a minute a party of ten men, rifle-armed, were over the side and away to the surgeon’s assistance.
“There was nothing further for the captain to do but watch proceedings through the glass. I was not there, of course, so can only imagine what an exciting scene it must have been, for the captain in his crow’s-nest to witness that man and bear fight.
“The doctor it seems was neither tall nor strong—a thin wiry little fellow, more fit to contend with a badger than a bear. He had armed himself with his longest amputating knife, which he had tied to his wrist and hand, in such a way that it could neither slip nor be dropped. The captain saw the bear spring upon the man and rise with him, and fall again and roll with him, and he saw the doctor plunge the knife again and again into the brute’s body; then both fell and both lay still. When the men arrived it was to find Bruin dead enough, and the surgeon just breathing. He was fearfully lacerated in the back and legs, but, strange to say, he survived, and before the ship returned to Lerwick he was clothed and in his right mind.
“I have a great respect for my friend the Arctic bear; I cannot help admiring his immensity, his power of endurance, his wonderful swimming capabilities, and his great sagacity, which latter he shows in a hundred different ways, known only to those who have thoroughly studied the tricks and the manners of the monster.
“A Polar bear has all the cunning of a fox, all the agility of an otter, and more than the strength of the largest lion.
“The she-bear is remarkably fond of her young, but not more so, I think, than the seal is of her offspring. A seal, indeed, is at most times one of the most timid and wary animals in creation, but she will, and often does, lay down her life for her young ones. If young seals are on a piece of ice with their dams, the latter will naturally take to the water on the approach of men on the ice or in boats; but if a young one cries, or is made to cry on purpose, the mother will appear again, and, defying all danger, make towards it, paying the penalty of death for this exhibition of her maternal instinct.
“I do not think that bears actually hibernate in a dormant state; but in very bad weather they no doubt take long spells of sleep in holes under the snow, and a capital way of passing the time it must be; if mankind could only do the same, then sleep would be the poor man’s best friend. But your Arctic bear is fond of a good nap in the sunshine, even in summer; I was beset for nearly two months once, some little way south and west of the island of Jan Mayen. One day, with Dana’s ‘Two Years Before the Mast’ in my hand, and my binocular slung across my shoulder, I wandered away from the ship. I had neither rifle nor club, not expecting to need either. I found myself at last by the foot of a very tall hummock, composed, I daresay, of bay-ice squeezed up at some time or other and finally snowed over. I like to get on tops of eminences, and this hummock looked like a small tower of Babel in the midst of the flat and wide expanse of snow-clad ice; so up I went, and sat down to read. On looking around me presently, I noticed a yellow mark or spot on the snow some hundred or hundred and fifty yards off. On bringing my glasses to bear on it, I found it was a bear; and he was moving or wriggling. He evidently had not seen me yet, nor scented me. I had no more heart to read Dana just then. I thought the best thing I could do would be to sit still, and keep semaphoring with my right arm and Dana towards the brute; the mate was in the crow’s-nest, I thought, and would be sure to notice me soon, and know something was wrong. But the mate did not notice me. The truth is the steward had taken him some coffee, with a dose of rum in it, a drink of which he was inordinately fond, and he was smacking his lips over that. I semaphored with my right hand until it was temporarily paralysed; then I turned quietly round and semaphored with my left. This change of position necessitated my looking over my shoulder to the ship. On again turning round I was horrified to find that Bruin was up, and evidently wondering who or what I was, and what I meant. He came closer, and stood again to look, for bears are inquisitive. I kept up my motions—there was nothing else to be done, and my heart felt as big as a bullock’s. Presently the bear commenced gyrating his great head and neck, the better to scent me, I suppose; only it looked as if he was mimicking my actions. So there the pair of us kept it up for what seemed to me about five hours, though it might not have been a minute. Then Bruin quietly turned stern and shambled off.
“An old authority describes the pace of a Polar bear as equal to that of the sharp gallop of a horse. I believe a bear can spring as far as a horse can jump, or nearly, but his pace is not even half as fast, nor anything like it.
“I have eaten a great many strange things in my time, but I should be sorry indeed to have to dine off Arctic bear in the seal season. Everybody is not so particular, however, and the Norwegians make many a hearty meal off bear-beef. I was in the cabin of a Norwegian once when they had bear for dinner. There was the captain and first and second mate at table. In the centre stood a dish with an immense hunk of boiled bear on it; by the side of it was placed a large plate of potatoes, cooked in their skins. Nobody used a fork, only the knife; so on the whole it was a pretty sight to see them. I was asked to partake. I begged to be excused, and to escape from the odour of the fishy-fleshy steam, I ran on deck, and lit a cigar.”
Chapter Seven.
“Spring is Coming:—The Storm.—The Fairy Forest: A Tale.”
“The brown buds thicken on the trees,
Unbound the free streams sing,
As March leads forth across the leas
The wild and windy Spring.
“When in the fields the melted snow
Leaves hollows warm and wet,
Ere many days will sweetly blow
The first blue violet.”
“I have all my life possessed such a love for nomadic adventure, that I often wondered if I have any real gipsy blood in me.”
This was a remark I made an evening or two after Frank had told us all about his friends the Arctic bears. I was looking at the fire as I spoke, as one does who is in deep thought.
“What do you see in the fire?” asked Frank.
“I see,” I replied, without removing my eyes from the crackling logs and melting sea-coal, “I see a beautifully fitted caravan, drawn by two nice horses, jogging merrily along a lovely road, among green trees, rose-clad hedgerows and trailing wild flowers. It is a beautiful evening, the clouds in the west are all aglow with the sunset-rays. I see figures on the broad coupé—female figures, one, two, three; and I can almost hear the jingle of the silver bells on the horses’ harness.”
“Who are the ladies—can you distinguish them?” asked Frank.
“Not quite.”
“O! I know, it’s me and ma and Maggie May.” This from little Ida.
“Ida,” I said, “your language is alliterative, but hardly grammatical.”
“Never mind about the grammar,” said Frank, laughing. “You’ve got an idea of some sort in your head, so just let us have it.”
“I have it already,” cried Maggie May, springing towards me with a joy-look in her eyes, and a glad flush on her cheek. “I dreamt it,” she added. “The caravan is already built, and you are going to take us all gipsying when summer comes.”
I am not good at equivocation, so I confessed at once that Maggie May was right, and from the amount of pleasurable excitement the announcement gave her, I augured well. Indeed, we all felt sure that from our romantic trip, Maggie May would return home as well as ever she had been in all her little life.
There is nothing to be compared to the joy of anticipating pleasure to come. And from the very day our beautiful caravan rolled into the yard and was drawn up on the lawn, everybody set about doing what he or she could towards the completion of the fittings, of the already luxuriously furnished saloon of the house upon wheels. (Note 1.)
This was indeed a labour of love. There were so many little things to be thought about, to say nothing of decorations, neat and pretty curtains, a lovely little library of tiny but nicely bound books, mirrors, flower vases, etc.
The cooking department had its head centre in the after-cabin; here, however, no bulky open and dusty stove burned, but a pretty little oil range, and the kitchen fittings and pantry fixings would have compared favourably even with those of Lady Brassey’s yacht, the Sunbeam.
Frank and I, being both old campaigners, saw to everything else.
We had a good coachman, two splendid horses, besides an extra smaller covered cart in which Frank himself, who was to be both valet and cook, could sleep at night.
To make sure of not being robbed on the road we had good revolvers, and, better than all, our noble Newfoundland, Hurricane Bob.
When everything was complete and ready for the road, we had nothing to do but sit down and long for spring to come.
“I really believe,” said honest Frank to me one bright beautiful morning in March, “that the child is better already with the thoughts of going on this romantic tour of yours.”
And so indeed it seemed, and that forenoon, when my friend and I prepared to go out for a ramble, Maggie May was by our side, fully equipped and in marching order.
“It really does seem,” she said joyfully, “that spring is coming.”
Spring is Coming.
The birds and the buds were saying it, and the winds were whispering the glad news to the almost leafless trees. The early primroses that snuggled in under the laurels, and the modest blue violets half hidden among their round leaves, were saying “Spring is coming.” And the bonnie bell-like snowdrops nodded their heads to the passing breeze and murmured “Spring is coming.”
Cock-robin, who sang to us and at us now whenever we came into the garden, told the tale to the thrush, and the thrush told it to the blackbird, and the blackbird hurried away to build his nest in the thick yew hedge; he would not sing, he said, until his work was finished. But the mad merry thrush sang enough for ten, and mocked every sound he heard.
The lark, who pretended that he had already built his nest among the tender-leaved wheat, just beginning to shimmer green over the brown earth, sang high in air. You could just see him fluttering against a white cloud, and looking no bigger than the head of a carpet tack. He sang of nothing but spring—such a long song, such a strong song, such a wild melodious ringing lilt, that you could not have helped envying him, nor even sharing some of his joy.
“Oh, skylark! for thy wing!
Thou bird of joy and light,
That I might soar and sing,
At heaven’s empyreal height!
With the heathery hills beneath me,
Whence the streams in glory spring,
And the pearly clouds to wreathe me,
Oh, skylark! on thy wing!”
“Spring is coming:” every rippling rill, every sparkling brook, were singing or saying it.
The hedgerows put forth tiny white-green budlets, the elders and the honeysuckles expanded early leaves, those on the former looking like birds’ claws, those on the latter like wee olive-green hands.
We saw to-day, in the woods, early butterflies and early bees, and many a little insect friend creeping gaily over the green moss.
And high aloft, among some gigantic elms, the rooks were cawing lustily, as they swang on the branches near their nests. We heard a mole rustling beneath dead leaves, and to our joy we saw a squirrel run up a branch and sit to bask in a a little streak of sunshine.
“Yes,” said Frank, “sure enough spring is coming.”
The Storm.
March 15.—Why, it is only two days since that delightful ramble of ours. Two days, but what a change! The snow has been falling all night long. It was falling still when these lines were penned, falling thick and fast. Not in those great lazy butterfly-like flakes, that look so strange and beautiful when you gaze skywards, nor in the little millet-seed snow-grains that precede the bigger flakes, but in a mingled mist of snow-stars, that falls O! so fast and looks so cold.
The whole world is robed in its winding-sheet. The earth looks dead. To-day is but the ghost of yesterday. The leafless elms, the lindens and the oaks are trees of coral, the larches and pines mere shapes of snow shadowed out with a faint green hue beneath.
And the birds! Well, the thrush still sings. What a world of hope the bird must carry in his heart! But the blackbird flies now and then through the snow-clad shrubbery with sudden bickering screams that startle even the sparrows. The lark is silent again, and shivering robin comes once more to the study-window to beg for crumbs and comfort.
And this snow continues to fall, and fall till it lies six good inches deep on roof and road and hedgerow. And it is sad to think of the buried snowdrops, of the crocuses, yellow and blue, and the sweet-scented primroses.
March 17.—The pines are borne groundwards, at least their branches droop with the weight of snow; they are very weird-like, very lovely. The snow has melted on the roofs, but the dripping water has frozen into a network of crystal on the rose-bushes that cling around the verandah. It has mostly melted off the tall lindens also, only leaving pieces here and there that look for all the world like a flock of strange big birds.
Everything is beautiful—but all is silent, all is sad.
The sun goes down in a purple haze, looking like a big blood orange; and an hour afterwards, when the stars come out, there is all along the horizon a long broad band of rose tint, shading upwards into yellow, and so into the blue of the night.
I close my study-windows, and go into the next room; how bright the fire looks, how cheerful the faces round it! Hurricane Bob is snoring on the hearth, Ida is asleep beside him, Maggie May has got hold of a picture and wants me to weave a story to it.
Note that she says “‘Weave’ a story.”
“I would have put it plainer,” says Frank, laughing, “and said ‘Spin a yarn.’”
At another time, I might have been inclined to attach some semi-comical signification to the picture Maggie May held coaxingly out to me.
It represented a wide unbroken field of dazzling snow, with the outlines of a pine-wood in the far distance. There were two dark and ugly figures in the centre of the snow-field—an ugly fierce-like boar and a gaunt and hungry, howling wolf. You could see he was howling.
But with the rising wind beginning to moan drearily round our house, and the icicle-laden rose-twigs rattling every now and again against the glass, I could see nothing amusing in Maggie May’s little picture.
The Fairy Forest.
“Had you been walking across that wild wintry waste, Maggie May,” I began, “you would have seen at some distance before you a great pine-wood, half buried in drifting snow, the tall trees bending before the icy blast and tossing their branches weirdly in the wind.”
“Don’t you want slow music to that?” said Frank, pretending to reach for his fiddle.
“Hush, Frank! When you looked again, Maggie May, lo! what a change! The fairy forest has been transformed into a city. There is a blue uncertain mist all over it, but you can plainly distinguish streets and terraces, steeples, towers, ramparts, and ruins; and instead of the mournful sighing of the wind that previously fell on your ear, you can now listen to the music of bells and the pleasant murmur of the every-day life of a great town. Towards this town then, one day, a big wolf was journeying. It was summer then, the sun shone bright, clouds were fleecy, and the sky was blue, and the plain all round him was bright with the greenery of grass and dotted with wild flowers. But neither the beauty of the day, nor the loveliness of the scenery, had any effect on the gaunt and ugly wolf. Not being good himself, he could see no goodness in Nature.
“‘I’m far too soon,’ he grumbled to himself, ‘I must curl up till nightfall; I wish the sun wasn’t shining, and I wish the birds wouldn’t sing so. Moonlight and the owls would suit me far better. I wonder what makes that skylark so happy? Well, I was happy once,’ he continued as he lay down behind a bush, ‘yes I was, but, dear me, it is long ago. When I was young and innocent, ha! ha! I wouldn’t have stolen a tame rabbit or a chicken for all the world; I was content with the food I found in the wild woods, and now I’m lying here waiting for night, that I may fall upon and slay a dozen at least of those pretty lambkins I see gambolling down on yonder lea. I wouldn’t mind being young again though, I think I might lead a better life, I think—’
“He did not think any more just then, for he had fallen sound asleep.
“The hours flew by. The sun went round and down, and a big moon rose slowly up in the east and smiled upon the landscape.
“The time flew by, as time only flies in a fairy forest.
“The wolf moaned in his sleep, then he shivered, and shivering awoke. No wonder he shivers: he had lain down to sleep with the soft balmy summer winds playing around him; now all is cold snow.
“No wonder he shivers, for yonder in front of him, and not two yards away, stands one of the most terrible-looking apparitions ever his eyes beheld. A great grizzly boar!
“‘O! dear me,’ cried the wolf, ‘what a fright you gave me! Who are you at all?’
“‘I’m Remorse,’ was the stern reply; ‘you used to call me Conscience once.’
“‘O! well,’ said the wolf, ‘do go away, you have no idea how dreadful you look. I’ll—hoo—oo—oo!’
“And the wolf laid back his ears, lifted up his head and voice, and howled till the welkin rang, just as you see him in the picture.
“‘I didn’t always look dreadful,’ said the boar; ‘when I was young I was tender, but you seared me and hardened me, and tried to bury me. Do you remember the days when I used to beseech you to do unto others as you would that others would do unto you? Now I’m come to do unto you as you have done to others. Aha!’
“‘Hoo—oo—oo!’ howled the wolf. ‘O! pray go away. Hoo—oo—oo!’
“‘Nay, nay,’ said Remorse, ‘I’ll never leave you more.’
“‘You must be joking,’ cried the wolf, ‘you must be mad. Hoo—oo—oo!’
“‘Must I?’ said Remorse; ‘you’ve led a life of discontent. Your evil deeds are more in number than the bristles on my back.’
“‘Pray don’t mention them,’ exclaimed the wolf, shivering all over.
“‘You’ve led a cruel, selfish, useless life. Do you feel any the better for it now? You don’t look any better.’
“‘O! no, no, no.’
“‘Now look at me.’
“‘I daren’t. Hoo—oo—oo!’
“‘Well, listen.’
“‘I must.’
“‘Yes, you cannot shut your ears, though you may close your eyes. Before you tried to crush and kill me, I was your best friend, the still small voice within you guiding you on to good. What am I now? Your foe, your tormentor—Remorse!’
“‘Mercy, mercy!’ cried the wolf. ‘O! give me back my innocence. Be my Conscience once again.’
“‘Too late!’
“And now a cloud passed over and hid the moon, and next moment, had you looked, neither wolf nor wild boar would you have seen.
“Nothing there save the distant fairy forest, with the wind bending its branches and sighing mournfully across that dreary waste of snow.”
Note 1. A complete description of this caravan is to be found in my book, “The Cruise of the Land Yacht Wanderer,” published by Messrs Hodder and Stoughton, Paternoster Row. The book is at all libraries.
Chapter Eight.
On the Road.—Neptune: A Story of Strange Meetings.
“Love, now a universal birth,
From heart to heart is stealing,
One moment now may give us more
Than fifty years of reason;
Our minds shall drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.”
Wordsworth.
It was on a lovely morning early in the month of June that—after many trial trips here and there across country—we started on our long and romantic tour, away to the distant north.
Come weal or woe, we determined never to turn our horses’ heads southwards until we had reached and crossed the Grampian mountains.
All the village turned out to see us start—the older folks shouting us a friendly farewell, the children waving their arms in the air and cheering.
But in an hour’s time we were away in the lonesome woods, and when we stopped on a piece of moorland to eat our first real gipsy lunch, there was not a sound to be heard anywhere except the bleat of sheep, and the singing of the joyous birds in the adjoining copse.
A blue June sky was above us, June butterflies floated in the soft June air, June sunshine glittered in the quivering beech-tree leaves, June wild flowers were everywhere, and the joy of June was in all our hearts. I had never seen Frank look so buoyant and young as he did now, despite those tell-tale hairs of silver in his brown beard. Some of the roses of June seemed to have settled in Maggie May’s cheeks already, my wife looked calmly happy, and wee Ida madly merry, while Hurricane Bob rolled lazily on his back and pulled up and threw to the winds great tufts of verdant moss.
Ida was Frank’s coupé companion. His caravan came behind ours, and sure enough these two gipsies had plenty to say, and they saw plenty to laugh at.
It is time to tell the reader about one little wanderer that has not been mentioned before—Mysie, the caravan cat. We really had intended leaving Miss Mysie at home in charge of the old cook, but Miss Mysie did not mean to be left. She had watched with the most motherly interest all our preparations for the tour, and at the very last moment in she jumped and took possession of a corner of the caravan sofa, commencing forthwith to sing herself to sleep.
And there she was now, while we sat on the greensward at lunch, walking round big Bob, and rubbing her shoulders against his head, as happy as a feline queen.
For believe me, dear reader, cats are very much what you make them. I have made these animals a study, and found that the old ideas about them which naturalists possessed, and the conclusions they so ungenerously jumped at, are all wrong. I do assure you—and you can easily prove it for yourself—that if you use a cat well, feed her regularly and treat her as the rational being it undoubtedly is, you will find that pussy is not a thief, that she is fonder far of persons than places, that she is true and faithful, loving and good.
As soon as luncheon was over, and we had rested a little and the horses’ mouths were washed out—they had been busy all the time with nose-bags on—we resumed our journey. We had no intention, however, of seeking for, or of sojourning even for a single night, in any large town. As our home by night and by day for months to come would be the caravans, so our bivouac must be in woods and wilds. At all events we must keep far away from the bustle and din, the trouble and turmoil, of towns.
Towards evening we found ourselves drawing near to a cosy little roadside inn, and here we not only got a meadow in which to place our wooden houses, but stabling for our steeds. And while Frank put up the tent and dinner was being prepared, I busied myself looking after the horses, and seeing to their bedding and general comfort. This was to be one of my duties every evening.
The day had not been altogether devoid of adventures, for we lost our way entirely once in a labyrinth of lanes that seemed to lead nowhere, or rather everywhere, through beautiful woods on the banks of the Thames. We got clear at last, however, and soon found ourselves on a hill so steep, that it was with the greatest difficulty our powerful horses managed to drag the caravans up and over it.
But now all our troubles were forgotten; and no wonder, for such a dinner as our cook and valet Frank placed before us in the tent, surely gipsies never sat down to before.
We were all as happy, if not as merry, as larks, for everything was so new to us; and this life of perfect freedom seemed, somehow or other, precisely what each of us had been born for.
When, after the tent had been cleared, and Frank had brought in his violin and commenced to play, it appeared quite a natural thing that the figure of a handsome young man in cyclist’s uniform should come to the doorway to listen.
I beckoned him in, and presently he was squatting in the midst of us.
“Now, Gordon,” said Frank, when he had finished playing a symphony, “we’ll have your story, and then perhaps the young stranger will give us some of his experiences.”
“I’ll be delighted, I’m sure,” said the cyclist, smiling. “That is,” he added, “if I can think of anything.”
“I’ll tell you, then,” I said, “one of my service adventures.”
“Is it true?” asked Ida.
“Quite true, Ida,” I replied.
“I shall call it—
“Neptune: a Story of Strange Meetings.
“‘The world is not so very wide after all!’
“This exclamation, or one somewhat akin to it, we are constantly hearing in these times of rapid travelling. For my own part I am never in the slightest degree astonished at meeting any old friend anywhere, for nowadays there seems but little to prevent everybody from going everywhere.
“I could instance scores of cases of strange and unexpected meetings from the diary of my own life, and some of them would be amusing enough, but one or two must suffice.
“When I first left home to join the service I left Geordie M— ploughing in one of my father’s fields, with an ox and the ‘orra’ beast. I specially mention the ox and the ‘orra’ beast, by way of showing that Geordie was by no means even a first-class ploughman. (Orra, Scotice ‘of all work,’ or ‘for doing odd jobs.’) He was an orra man himself, and couldn’t be trusted with a team of the best horses. He was slow in his motions, and slow in his notions; he wore a corduroy coat, his boots weighed pounds, he never lifted his feet, but trailed them; such was Geordie.
“Just two years after this I was one day sitting forward in the sick bay examining and taking the names of a batch of marines who had come to join us from another ship. It was at Bombay, and the weather was hot, and I was drowsy, so I seldom looked twice at my man, and was not in the best of tempers; but there was one marine in the lot, and a right smart clean-footed fellow he was, who attracted my attention, because he laughed when I spoke to him. He talked in the broadest of Scotch, and the very sound of his voice recalled to my memory Highland hills clothed in blooming heather. I rubbed my eyes and looked at him again. As sure as I live it was Geordie.
“I bade good-by to a medical friend of mine once in Soho Square. He was going away to the country to get married, and settle down in a mining district among the Welsh hills. Years flew by. I was out on the eastern shores of Africa. We were hunting slavers. One rascally old dhow gave us much trouble and a long chase. We ran her at last down to shooting distance, and as she would not stop we brought our big guns to bear on her; still she flew on, and on, fair and square before the wind, till a lucky shot knocked the mainmast out of her. When we boarded her, the very first person seen on deck was the medical friend I had bidden a final adieu to—as I thought—in Soho Square. There was not much mystery about the matter after all. He had not got married. He had not settled down among the Welsh mountains. He was on his way to Zanzibar to join a mission, and had taken passage in this dhow for cheapness’ sake.
“Peter Middleton—this is not his real name—was a blacksmith’s apprentice in my parish. He was clever, too clever, for he often got into trouble for requisitioning hares, rabbits, and such small cattle of the hills. When he took at last to paying midnight visits to the farmers’ fowl-runs, the farmers waxed wroth, and Peter had to run himself, and no more was heard of him in that place. My ship was lying some time after at a town in South Australia, and I received a polite but badly spelt note from a resident medical man requesting me to come on shore for consultation on a difficult case. The house was a smart one and well-furnished, but judge of my surprise to find that the doctor himself was no other than Peter Middleton, ex-poacher and poultry-fancier. It is a strange world!
“But to my tale. I very seldom travel anywhere, by sea or land, without taking as a companion a well-trained and handsome dog. It is nearly always a pure black Newfoundland, a breed for which I have obtained some celebrity. These animals are of such extreme beauty and so prepossessing in manners, and so noble withal, that they never fail to make friends wherever they go. It may seem a strange thing to say, but it is strictly true nevertheless, that my dogs have introduced me to many of those who at the present moment I rank among my most valued acquaintances.
“About two years before the tremendous war broke out between Germany and France, happening to have earned a ‘spell of leave’ as sailors call it, I was very naturally spending it in touring through the Scottish Highlands, my only companion being as usual a noble Newfoundland, who not only performed the duties of bodyguard and sentry over my person, but also those of light porter, for he carried my portmanteau. Had I possessed any desire for exclusiveness on this journey, I should have been quite miserable, for wherever I went—on steamboat, in trains, or walking on foot—my princely companion was the subject of conversation and admiration. If I had tied a slate about my neck and pretended to be deaf and dumb, I might have been allowed to hold my tongue, but I should have had to write.
“Who that has travelled in summer among the Western Isles of Scotland, does not know the grand steamships of the country, with their splendid decks and palatial saloons. One beautiful day my dog and I were on board one of these boats on our way to Portree, the capital of Skye. Nero was looking his best and sauciest, his crimson silver-clasped collar showing off his raven-black colour to the best advantage. I seated myself in an out-of-the-way corner right abaft, with a book to read, and threw my tartan plaid over the dog. I thought we should thus escape observation, and I would not have to answer the same questions over and over again which I had been replying to for the last month. But the book was too interesting. I became absorbed in it, I lost myself, and when I found myself again, I found I had lost my dog. But yonder he was with quite a crowd about him, his beauty greatly enhanced by the rich colours of the plaid that floated from his broad back on each side of him, making him look like some gaily caparisoned elephant or embryo Jumbo. From the laughing and talking I could hear, it was evident he was amusing them by performing his various tricks, such as sneezing, making a bow, saying ‘yes,’ standing on alternate legs, etc, all of which brought him buns and tit-bits.
“‘Your dog’s been ’avin’ a blow out,’ a sailor said to me. ‘I see’d ’im eat the best ’alf of a turkey, besides two pork-pies, and no end of lumps of sugar, biscuits, and buns.’
“I soon stopped the performance, but did not get away until I had told the whole history of the dog, his breed and pedigree, and the points and characteristics, whims and oddities of Newfoundlands, and about fifty anecdotes of dogs in general, given a kind of canine lecture; in fact, I had become used to the rôle of public platformist by this time.
“The dog slipped down that day to dinner with the rest of us, and lay down between a young German gentleman and myself. The steward wished to turn the dog out. I said ‘certainly, by all means.’ The great good-natured dog also said ‘certainly, by all means,’ when the steward addressed him; ‘but,’ the dog added, ‘you’ll have to carry me.’
“As the Newfoundland weighed over nine stone, the steward permitted him to remain. Then the German and I got talking about the weather, the ship, the sea, my country, his country, history, poetry, music and painting. His English was very good and his accent almost faultless, and his conversational powers were great; but though he could speak well, he could also listen, and the earnest look, the smile, or the occasional hearty though well-timed laugh, showed he possessed a soul that could appreciate originality in others, in whatever form it came. Before I was an hour in this young German’s company, I had come to the conclusion that there were only two human beings on board the steamer, and that they were Hans Hegel and myself. I have reason to believe that Hegel himself was much of the same opinion.
“We stayed at the same hotel, and next morning—and a delightful morning it was—as we sat together on the pine-clad hill, with the blue waters of the Loch shimmering in the sunshine far beneath us, and on every side the marvellous rocks and wondrous hills, we agreed to travel in each other’s company for the next three weeks at least.
“When I say that those three weeks got extended to six, it will readily be believed that we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. Of all romantic scenery it has ever been my luck in life to gaze upon, that of the ‘Winged Isle’ is by far and away the most enchanting. See Skye in summer, and you will have something to think about and dream about until your dying day.
“I was somewhat proud to be able to show my newly found friend all the wild beauties of the island, the mysterious caves among its rocks, the frowning glories of its mountains, the sylvan sweetness that hovers dream-like around bonnie Armadale, and the awesome sublimities of lonely Coruishk. I know Skye so well, and there was not a glen, a hill, a bleak moorland or one mile of surf-tormented beach, on which I could not cause to reappear the heroes and heroines of a bygone age. There was no attempt at effect in anything I said; I told but what I knew, I spoke but what I felt, and if I did sometimes warm to my subject or description, the warmth welled right up from the bottom of my heart.
“Every enjoyment must come to an end at last. I got a letter one morning—a long white service envelope contained it—which demanded my presence on the other side of the world.
“We were reclining on a wild-thyme scented knoll not far from the edge of a cliff, that went down a sheer five-hundred feet to the sea below. We could hear the boulders thundering on the beach, though we could not see them. Beyond this was the Minch, flaked with foam; it was a breezy day, and far away on the horizon the blue outline of the Harris hills.
“‘No,’ he said, in answer to a question of mine. ‘We will not hamper each other with a promise to correspond. This world is full of sad partings. We must bend to the inevitable. I’ll think of you though, sometimes, and Skye, and this lovely dog.’
“‘I have one of his puppies,’ I said, ‘he shall be yours.’
“The Franco-German war was over; even the demon of civilised warfare had been exorcised at last by blood and tears, and peace smiled sadly on the soil of France once more.
“I had been for a short time attached to a corps of German dragoons, in the capacity of correspondent. But there was little more for me to do now, only I think the officers, with whom I had got very friendly, wished me to see their reception at home, and I could not resist the temptation to march along with them. I have often been ‘homeward bound,’ but never saw before such genuine happiness as I now did. How they talked of the mothers, wives, sweethearts, and little ones they were soon again to see, and often too with a sigh and a manly tear or two about the comrades they left behind them under the green sod!
“Our mess was a very jolly one. Sometimes at night the wind rose and roared, causing our tents—we had a tent then—to flap like sails in a storm at sea. Or the rain would beat against it, until the canvas first sweated inside, then dropped water, then ran water, till we were drenched. But, whether drenched or dry, we always sang, oh! such rattling choruses. The villages we passed through had all we wanted to buy, the villagers often scowled, and I think they were usually glad to see our backs. But some fawned on us like whipped hounds for the sake of the money we spent. Yet I must say in justice that the Germans took no unfair advantage, and if any allusion was made to them as conquerors, they but laughed carelessly, muttered something about the fortunes of war, and changed the subject.
“I was riding along one morning early, when I saw several of our fellows on the brow of a hill looking back with some degree of interest, but trotting on all the same.
“I should have followed their example, but the mournful howling of a dog attracted my attention, and went straight to my very heart. So I rode up and over the hill.
“I was hardly prepared for what I saw. A beautiful black Newfoundland, whining pitifully beside what appeared to be the dead body of a man.
“I dismounted, and the dog came to meet me. He jumped and fawned on me, then rushed wildly back to the side of that prostrate form. But I stood as if one transfixed. I could not mistake those eyes. It was Neptune, that I had given—a seven months’ old puppy—to Hans Hegel three years before.
“And the poor fellow who lay before me with sadly gashed face, upturned to the morning sun, was Hegel himself.
“He lay on his sword, lay as he had fallen, and the absence of the coat, the sash-bound waist, and sleeve up-rolled, told to me the history of his trouble in a way there was no mistaking. He had fallen in a duel.
“But was he dead? No. For, soon after I had raised him in my arms, and poured a little cordial down his throat, he opened his eyes, gazed bewilderedly at me for a moment, then his hand tightened on mine and he smiled. He knew me.
“I should have liked some of those strange people who do not love dogs to have been present just then, to witness the looks of gratitude in poor Neptune’s eyes as he tenderly licked my hand with his soft tongue.
“My regiment went on: I stayed at the nearest village hostelry with Hans Hegel.
“When he was well enough he told me the story of the duel. So far the affair was unromantic enough, for there was not a lady in it. The quarrel had been forced upon him by a fire-eating Frenchman, and swords were drawn on a point of national honour.
“‘I owe my life to you,’ Hegel said.
“‘You owe your life,’ I replied, ‘to Heaven and that faithful dog.’”
“And now, Sir Stranger,” I said as I concluded my story, “we look to you.”
“Well,” said the cyclist, “as you gave a name to your tale, I daresay I must follow suit. Your tale had a dog in it. Mine has a horse, and as the horse’s name was Doddie, so I call my story.”