Wild Adventures round the Pole Part 50

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 fas.h.i.+on--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 c.o.c.kie 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 a.s.s 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+p _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 la.s.sie 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 s.h.i.+p 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 ma.s.se_ 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 c.o.c.kie 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 c.o.c.kie 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, c.o.c.kie," said Freezing Powders, "you is overdoin' it.

Try to 'llay your feelin's, c.o.c.kie--try to 'llay your feelin's. As sure as nuffin' at all, c.o.c.kie, you'll have a drefful headache in de mornin'."

But c.o.c.kie 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 c.o.c.kie in when Captain McBain first met him on the Broomielaw--and in this he rolled c.o.c.kie as in the days of yore; but even then all the way to the castle c.o.c.kie 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, c.o.c.kie 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 s.h.i.+nes--shone as if it had been paid to s.h.i.+ne 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 n.o.body 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 pa.s.sed 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!