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Chapter Thirty Five.
The Rescue – Homeward Bound – All’s Well that Ends Well
I never have been able to learn with a sufficient degree of exactitude whether it was the Polar Star that first sighted the Arrandoon, or whether the Arrandoon was the first to catch a glimpse of the Polar Star. And with such conflicting evidence before me, I do not see very well how I could.
What evidence have I before me, do you ask? Why the logs of the two ships, written by their two captains respectively. I give below a portion of two extracts, both relating to the joyful event. Extract first from the log of the good yacht Polar Star: – “June 21st, 18 – . At seven bells in the forenoon watch – ice heavy and wind about a south-south-west – caught sight of the Arrandoon’s topmasts bearing about a north and by east. Praise God for all His goodness.” Extract second, from the log of the Arrandoon: – “June 21st, 18 – . Seven bells in the forenoon watch – a hail from the crow’s-nest, ‘A schooner among the ice to the south’ard and west of us, can just raise her topmasts, think she is bearing this way.’ Heaven be praised, we are saved.”
Yes, dear reader, the Arrandoon was saved. The news that a vessel was in sight spread through the ship like wildfire; those that were hale and well rushed on deck, the sick tottered up, and all was bustle and excitement, and the cheer that arose from stem to stern reminded McBain of the good old times, a year ago, when every man Jack of his crew was alive and well.
It had been a very narrow escape for them, for, although not far from the open water where the Polar Star lay with foreyard aback, they were unable to reach it, being once more frozen in, and had not good Silas appeared at the time he did, probably in a few weeks at most there would not have been a single human being living on board the lordly Arrandoon.
No sooner had Silas satisfied himself with his own eyes that it was the Arrandoon that lay ice-bound to the nor’ard of him, than he called away the boats and gave orders to load them with the best of everything, and to follow his whaler.
His whaler took the ice just as eight bells were struck on the Polar Star, and next moment, guided by the fan in the crow’s-nest of the yacht, he was hastening over the rough ice towards the Arrandoon.
McBain and his boys, and the doctor as well, were all on deck, when who should heave round the corner of an iceberg but Captain Silas Grig himself, looking as rosy and ten times more happy than they had last seen him.
He was still about fifty yards away, and for a moment or two he stood undecided; it seemed, indeed, that he wished not to walk but to jump or fly the remaining fifty intervening yards. Then he took off his cap, and – Scotch fashion – tossed it as high into the air as he possibly could.
“Arrandoon, ahoy!” he shouted. “Arrandoon, ahoy! Hurrah!”
There was not a soul on board that did not run aft to meet Silas as he sprang up the side. Even Freezing Powders, with Cockie on his shoulder, came wondering up, and Peter must needs get out his bagpipes and strike into The Campbells are coming.
And when Silas found himself once more among his boys, and shaking hands with them all round; when he noticed the pale faces of Allan and Rory, and the pinched visage of the once strong and powerful McBain, and read in their weak and tottering gait the tale of all their sufferings, then it must be confessed that the bluff old mariner had to turn hastily about and address himself to others in order to hide a tear.
“Indeed, gentlemen all,” said Silas, many, many months after this, “when I saw you all looking so peaky and pale, as I first jumped down on to your quarter-deck, I never felt so near making an old ass o’ myself in all my born days!”
For three weeks longer the Arrandoon lay among the ice before she got fairly clear, and, consorted by the Polar Star, bore up for home. Three weeks – but they were not badly spent – three weeks, and all that time was needed to restore our invalids to robust health. And that only shows how near to death’s door they must have been, because to make them well they had the best medicine this world can supply, and Silas Grig was the physician.
“Silas Grig! Silas Grig!” cried Rory, one morning at breakfast, about a fortnight after the reunion, “sure you’re the best doctor that ever stepped in shoe-leather! No wonder we are all getting fat and rosy again! First you gave us a dose of hope – we got that before you jumped on board; then you gave us joy – a shake of your own honest hand, the sound of your own honest voice, and letters from home. What care I that my tenantry – ‘the foinest pisintry in the world’ – haven’t paid up? I’ve had letters from Arrandoon. What, Ray boy! more salmon and another egg? Just look at the effects of your physic, Dr Silas Grig!”
Silas laughed. “But,” he said, “there is one thing you haven’t mentioned.”
“Tell us,” said Rory: “troth, it’s a treat to hear ye talking?”
“The drop o’ green ginger,” said Silas.
Nor were these three weeks spent in idleness, for during that time the whole ship, from stem to stern, was redecorated; and when at last she was once more clear of the ice, once more out in the blue, she looked as bran new and as span new as on the day when she steamed down the wide, romantic Clyde.
I do not know any greater pleasure in life than that of being homeward bound after a long, long cruise at sea, —
“Good news from home, good news for me,
Has come across the deep blue sea.”
So runs the song. Good news from home is certainly one of the rover’s joys, but how much more joyous it is to be “rolling home, rolling home” to get that good news, eye to eye and lip to lip!
Once fairly under way, the weather seemed to get warmer every day. They reached Jan Mayen in a week; they found the rude village deserted, and Captain Cobb they would never be likely to meet again. So they left the island, and on the wings of a favouring breeze bore away for Iceland. Here Sandy McFlail, Doctor of Medicine of the University of Aberdeen, and surgeon of the good ship Arrandoon, begged to be left. Ah! poor Sandy was sadly in love with that blue-eyed, fair-haired Danish maiden. He fairly confessed to Rory, who had previously promised not to laugh at him, “that he had never seen a Scotch lassie to equal her, and that if she weren’t a ‘doctor’s leddy’ before six months were over it would not be his, Sandy McFlail’s, fault.”
“You are quite right, Sandy,” said Rory in reply – “quite right; and do you know what it will be, Sandy?”
“What?” asked Sandy.
“A vera judeecious arrangement,” cried Rory, running off before Sandy had a chance of catching him by the ear and making him “whustle.”
But right fervent were the wishes for the doctor’s welfare when he bade his friends adieu. And, —
“You’ll be sure to send us a piece o’ the bride-cake,” said Ralph.
“I’m no vera sure,” said Sandy, “if it will ever come the length o’ bride-cake. But,” he added, bravely, “a body can only just try.”
“Bravo!” cried Allan; “whatever a true man honestly dares he can do.”
“And it’s sure to come right in the end,” said Rory.
So away went Sandy’s boat, and away went the Arrandoon, firing the farewell guns, and as gaily bedecked in flags as if it had been Sandy’s wedding morning.
The Arrandoon sailed nearly all the way home, for a favouring breeze was blowing, and with stunsails set, low and aloft, she looked like some gigantic sea-bird; and bravely, too, the little Polar Star kept her in sight. As for Silas, he did not live on board his own ship at all, but on board the Arrandoon. There was so much to be said and to say that they could not spare him.
The inhabitants of Glentruim turned out en masse to welcome the wanderers home. It was a day long to be remembered in that part of the Highlands of Scotland. The young chief, Allan McGregor, was not allowed to walk across one inch of his own grounds towards his castle of Arrandoon – no, nor to ride nor to drive; he must even be carried shoulder high, while slogans rent the air, and blue bonnets darkened it, and claymores were drawn and waved aloft, and the dogs all went daft, and danced about, barking at everybody, plainly showing that they had taken leave of their senses for one day, and weren’t a bit ashamed of having done so.
Behind the procession marched Freezing Powders, with Cockie on his shoulder. The poor bird did not know what to make of all this Highland din, all this wild rejoicing. But he evidently enjoyed it.
“Keep it up, keep it up, keep it up?” he cried; “here’s a pretty, pretty, pretty to-do! Go on, go on! Come on, come on – ha! ha! ha! ha! Lal de dal de dal lei al!”
And off went Cockie into the maddest dance that ever legs of bird performed. And Freezing Powders got frightened at last, and tried to lecture the bird into a quieter state of mind.
“I ’ssure you, Cockie,” said Freezing Powders, “you is overdoin’ it. Try to ’llay your feelin’s, Cockie – try to ’llay your feelin’s. As sure as nuffin’ at all, Cockie, you’ll have a drefful headache in de mornin’.”
But Cockie only bowed and becked and danced and laughed the more, till at last Freezing Powders, looking upon the case as one of desperation, extracted from his pocket a red cotton handkerchief – the same he carried Cockie in when Captain McBain first met him on the Broomielaw – and in this he rolled Cockie as in the days of yore; but even then all the way to the castle Cockie was constantly finding corners to pop his head through, and let every one within hearing know that, though captured, he was as far from being subdued as ever.
Poor old Janet was beside herself with joy. She had been preparing pastry and getting ready puddings for days and days. She was fain to wipe her eyes with very joy when she shook hands once more with Ralph and Allan, and her old favourite, Rory. She was a little subdued when she looked at old Seth; she was just a trifle afraid of him, I believe. But she soon became herself again, and finished off by catching up Freezing Powders, Cockie and all, and bearing them off in triumph to the cosiest corner of the kitchen.
That same night fires were lit on every hill around Glentruim, and the reflection of them was seen southwards over all the wilds of Badenoch, and northward to the borders of Ross.
A few weeks after the return home Rory paid his promised visit to Silas at his little cottage by the sea, his cottage on the cliff-tops. Silas’s flag fluttered right gaily in the wind that day, the summer flowers were all in bloom in the garden, and the green paling looked brighter, probably, than ever it had done, for the sun shone as it seldom shines – shone as if it had been paid to shine for the occasion, and the clouds lay low on the horizon, as if they had been paid to keep out of the way for once. The flag fluttered gaily, and the two little blue-jackets on the top of the pole ever and anon made such terrible onslaughts upon each other, that the only wonder was there was a bit of them left, that they did not demolish each other entirely, like the traditional cats of Kilkenny.
Silas had gone to the station to meet Rory. Silas was dressed, as he thought, like a landsman. Silas really thought that nobody could tell he was a sailor, because he wore a blue frock-coat and a tall beaver hat.
And Silas’s little wife was all bustle and nervousness; but Rory had not been in the house half an hour ere all this was gone, and she was quietly happy, with a kind of feeling at her heart that she had known Rory all his life, and had even nursed him when he was quite a little mite.
Day and dinner and all passed off right cheerily, and of course with dessert Silas nodded to his little wife, and his little wife opened a bottle of fresh green ginger, and produced the bun – the wonderful bun, which was a pudding one day and a cake the next.
Silas kept smirking and nodding so long at Rory over his first drop of green ginger, that Rory knew he was going to say something, and so, by way of encouragement, —
“Out with it, Silas,” says Rory.
“Only this,” says Silas: “Success to the wooing.”
Well, who else in all the wide world could Rory have taken advice from except from Silas, in one little matter that deeply concerned his future welfare?
“Go in and win,” had been Silas’s advice. “Go in and win, like the man you are. Faint heart never gained fair lady.”
It is pleasant for me to be able to state that Rory took his old friend’s advice to the letter. Now we know that the course of true love never did run smooth, and the course of Rory’s wooing proved no exception to the proverb, but everything came right in the end, as Rory himself was fond of observing, and all is well that ends well. Just one year after this visit to Silas, Rory led Helen Edith McGregor to the altar. What a beautiful bride she made – more modest and bonnie than the rose just newly blown, or gowans tipped with dew!
Rory and Allan were not greater friends after the wedding than they had been before – that were impossible; but they were now brothers, and Allan made a vow that Rory should make his home in Glentruim.
There is a mansion there now as well as a castle, and in it dwell Rory and his wife.
Years have passed since the days of which I have been writing; they have not made very much change in our Irish hero. He is still the painter, still the poet, only there is not one only, but two little listeners now, that gaze up round-eyed and wonderingly at their father, whenever he takes up his magical instrument, the violin! Old Ap teaches these little ones to cut boats out of scraps of wood, and to rig small yachts in the summer evenings. The glen and castle both are wonderfully improved. There is some good after all in ambition, if it is an honest one, and some truth, too, in the motto of the Camerons, “Whatever a man dares he can do.”
Every year Ralph, brave English Ralph, comes to the castle on the twelfth, and always spends a month; and every year Allan and Rory go southwards to Leigh Hall to return the visit. And they never go without taking Silas and McBain with them, so you may be sure these are very happy, very pleasant seasons.
What about Seth? Oh, merely this, Ralph offered to take him back to his own country, and to re-instal him as an Arctic Crusoe in his far northern home.
“Gentlemen,” said Seth, “I’m right sensible of all your kindness, but I guess I’m getting old, and if my young friend here wouldn’t mind, I’d prefer leaving my bones in the glen here. Civilisation has kind o’ spoiled the old trapper, and he’d feel sort o’ lonely now in his old farm. There ain’t many b’ars in the glen, I reckon; but never mind, old Seth can still draw a bead on a rabbit.”
“And so you shall,” said Allan. “I’ll make you my warren-master, and head of all my keepers.”
So Seth has settled down to end his days in peace. He dwells in one of the prettiest little Highland cottages that ever you saw. It gets snowed over in winter sometimes, it is true, and that might be looked upon as a drawback; but oh, to see it in summer, when the feathery birches nod green around it and the heather is all in bloom!
Peter played a little trick on poor old Seth, which I cannot help recording.
“It will never do, you know,” Peter told him, “for a Highland keeper on the estate of Glentruim not to wear the kilt.”
“Guess you’re a kind o’ right,” said Seth, “but, bless you, Peter, my legs ain’t o’ no consequence, they ain’t a bit thicker than old Bran the deerhound’s, and I reckon they’re just about the same shape.”
“Well,” replied Peter, “I grant you that is a kind of an objection, but then custom is everything, you know.”
So, lo and behold! one fine summer morning, who should stalk into the castle yard but old trapper Seth arrayed in full Highland costume. No wonder the dogs barked and ran away! no wonder Allan and Rory laughed till their sides ached and they could hardly hold their guns! no wonder old Janet shouted and screamed with merriment, and Cockie whistled shrill, and Freezing Powders nearly went into a fit! No, Seth’s legs were but little thicker than Bran’s. Seth arrayed in skins from head to heel was passable, but Seth in a kilt!!!
Poor Seth! it was somewhat unkind of Peter. However, the trapper never wore a kilt again.