In the Land of the Great Snow Bear Part 6

When Claude got there, the first person to greet him when announced was the learned professor himself, and a very bustling, dignified little man he was.

"Ha! ha!" he laughed, as he shook Claude warmly by the hand. "I couldn't have believed it. Really, it is strange!"

"Believe what?" said Claude, bluntly.

"Why, that you were so young a man. Should have thought from your writings you must be forty if a day."

It was Claude's turn to laugh.

"But there, never mind. Authors are always taken to be older men than they are. No, I don't think that youth will be an insuperable objection. Besides, youth has courage, youth has fire and health, to say nothing of a recuperative power of rising again even after being floored by a thousand misfortunes."

"Difficulties, I dare say," said Claude, "were made to be overcome."

"To be sure. Well, then, having heard and read a good deal about your doings up North, we thought we would send for you, and instead of having a learned day discussion round a green baize-covered table, to invite you to join us at dinner--quite a quiet affair--and just to chat matters over."

It must be confessed that poor Claude did not feel altogether at home among those extremely learned men.

The conversation was all about previous voyages of scientific discovery.

Had those gentlemen been more practical and less theoretical, Claude would have been all with them; but it was evident from the way they spoke that not one of them had ever been on blue water, much less on the stormy seas of the Far North.

When, by way of encouraging him to talk more, in the course of the evening they asked Claude's advice concerning the practicability of the plans they had in view, then young Claude spoke out like a man of business and a sailor.

Cool and collected to a degree, boldly banishing all theories, he hung on to facts. He did not ignore dangers and difficulties; he did not despise them, but professed himself willing to meet them, without for a moment holding out any promise of ultimate success in the adventurous undertaking. How dared he, he said, expect to do more than abler and better and braver men who had gone on the same track before him? If he did presume to hope to even a little more, it was because he should have all their bygone experiences to help him. If they entrusted the command of an exploring ship to him, there was but one thing he could boldly promise, and that was to do his best. He said much more to the same effect, and even enlarged upon the necessary equipment, victualling, and armament of a ship of the kind they proposed sending out, and when he at length concluded--

"Spoken like a man and a sailor," said the professor, and a murmur of a.s.sent pa.s.sed round the table:

The _savants_ retired to another room to consult. When they came back, Professor Hodson advanced and shook hands with Claude.

"We are unanimous in thinking, Lord Alwyn," he said, "that you are just the man we want. The vessel you are to command already lies in Southampton waters. There are doubtless a thousand alterations to be made: these you, with your experience, will be able to see to. Do not spare expense. Draw upon us. We want you to feel that it will be no fault of ours if the expedition be not crowned with success; and I have the support of my colleagues in adding that we sincerely believe it will be no fault of yours. Other details," added the bold professor, "can be gone into whenever you please."

It was a quiet little hotel that Claude occupied that night, but one which he meant to make his home while in London. And why? Smile if you like, reader, but the reason is this: the landlord did not object to the presence of n.o.ble Fingal in his house.

Claude sat long in his sitting-room before retiring. The state of his feelings may be more easily imagined than described. His mind was by turns here, there, everywhere--back in his boyhood's home, afloat on the sea, with his mother at Dunallan Towers, then away in the Far North with Meta. His mind reverted to the past, and went forward again to the future. He was sad and hopeful by turns. But he had crossed the Rubicon; he could not now draw back from anything he had done or promised to do.

Before he retired, he knelt and asked guidance from Him in whose hands are all our ways, and he slept more soundly that night than he had done for weeks.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

A PLEASURE SAIL.

"Oh, mamma, I do hope the weather will be fine!" said pretty Miss Hodson.

"Well, my dear Clara, isn't it fine? Why, a more delightful day could not well be imagined."

"Yes, now, mamma; but I mean all along on this adventuresome voyage that we are about to take."

"Don't you bother your little head, my mouse," said her father, fondling one of her little hands in his. "I know enough about the weather to give a forecast a week beforehand, and a good deal about the sea, too, though I confess I've never been on it much. Ahem!"

The speakers were seated in a cab that was rattling along the quay of Aberdeen on a lovely morning in April. There were monster boxes on top, another cab filled with luggage only came up behind, and still another containing three gentlemen.

Very distinguished men these were, indeed, though oddly ill-matched in appearance. Number 1, let me call him, was a true type of a middle-aged John Bull--tall, whiskered, stout, strong, yet calm and thoughtful withal. Number 2 might have been a Boston editor or an Edinburgh genius of the old school. He was medium in height, lanky rather, high in cheek-bone, deep in eye. He wore no beard, but had a bushy moustache and very long grey hair. Number 3 was evidently a fat Frenchman, rotund to a degree, black as to hair, which was cropped as short as a convict's, and moustache, but _so_ fat! You could best describe his outline by letters, thus--take a big O and a little o and two letters l.

Now stick the little o on the top of the big O and you have his head and body. Then clap on the two l's to represent his legs, and you have his lines complete. He was so stout that when he stuck out his little white hands, with their palms upwards, as Frenchmen have a habit of doing in argument, the finger-tips did not project an inch beyond him in front. But Number 1 was no less an individual than Sir Thomas Merino; Number 2 was the Baron de Bamber; and Number 3, Count Koskowiskey himself.

The little boys in Aberdeen had never before seen such a strange procession of cabs, nor such a strange crew inside, so that they felt constrained to run alongside and wave their ragged bonnets and shout themselves hoa.r.s.e.

The _savants_, for such they were, thought to purchase peace with a shower of coppers. This only increased the crowd, and no beggars in Cairo ever yelled for backsheesh as did those boys for "bawbees."

But things do not last for ever, and at length the cabs drew up, one by one, at a gangway that stretched from the sh.o.r.e to the quarter-deck of the good ship _Icebear_. The gangway was covered with scarlet cloth, a neatly dressed sailor stood at each side of the sh.o.r.e end to steady it, and Captain Claude Alwyn stood at the other ready to receive his guests.

He looked very handsome did our Claude, in his peaked cap, reefing-jacket of simple blue, and gilt b.u.t.tons.

He doffed his cap as he handed the ladies on board, and was rewarded by a smile from Mrs Hodson, and a blushet--let me coin a word--from Clara, her daughter.

Now, it was evident that Professor Hodson was the head of the party; for no sooner had every one of them taken a good look round the gallant ship than he remarked, "Now, gentlemen, what do you say--shall we have an early dinner and then sail, or sail first and have a more comfortable one out at sea! I propose the latter plan."

"Professor," said his wife, sternly, "I propose the former; and ladies, I think, should carry the sway."

"They generally do," sighed the professor, who looked subdued and henpecked, as distinguished _savants_ are apt to be.

"Your proposal is best, madam," put in Claude, smiling. "It is best to have it over. You can sup afterwards; that is," he added mysteriously, "if any of you will care to."

"Oh, we shall all sup," said the professor. "The ocean always gives me an appet.i.te." (N.B.--He had been three times from London to Ramsgate by steamer.)

"Most sartainlee, capitaine," said the French _savant_.

To have seen the way the gentlemen, and--pardon me, my lady readers--the ladies also, enjoyed that excellent dinner, one would have said there would be little need for supper.

The saloon was long and comfortable, though there was nothing of the boudoir about it. Claude himself had seen to everything personally. It was a very brilliant and select little party that a.s.sembled on deck about an hour afterwards. The _elite_, or rather the literary _elite_, of the city had come to wish the _Icebear_ "G.o.d-speed?"

"What am I to do with all these flowers, sir?" the steward asked that same afternoon, when he got a word with the captain.

"Keep the choicest for the saloon," was the reply, "and distribute the rest impartially for'ard."

The _Icebear_ was a lovely vessel, both fore and aft. She had been originally intended for a man-of-war to add to the navy of a far-off foreign potentate; but as the potentate in question did not, or could not, pay at the right moment, after waiting a goodly time the builder very properly put her in the market, and she was knocked down at a reasonable figure to our _savant_ friends. About 1500 tons burden she was, low in bulwarks, flush in deck, with no great breadth of beam, though with more than the coffin-ships they often send poor Jack to sea in--things with no breadth at all to speak of, and that go over and down in a breeze, and in sea-way that a Peterhead herring-boat would laugh at. The _Icebear_ was st.u.r.dy and strong all over, had good engines, good shaft and screw--she carried a spare one. Forward, the bows were of triple strength, moderately sharp, and shod with iron, to aid in boring through the ice.

She had three respectable masts, not heavy enough to weigh her over on her beam-ends if a squall struck her broadside, nor light enough to snap like pea-sticks if a puff came. When under sail the screw could be hoisted up into a kind of covered well, and the advantage of this will be found when the ship gets farther north.

Not a yard of canvas, not a fathom of cordage, that had not been examined and tested by Claude himself.

So much for the exterior. "Downstairs," as landsmen would say, she was fitted up with a view to the utmost comfort. The men's sleeping-berths forward and amidships were bunks and hammocks. The crew all told was ninety men, or would be when the vessel lay in at Kirkwall to ship additional hands.

Remember, there was no lumber of any kind on the upper deck. No unsightly cabins or rooms, only forward was the winch and then the steerage cabin, the capstan, the midship companion; and aft the saloon and cabin skylights and companions, the wheel-house and binnacle. I hope I am not talking Greek to my readers, who are probably not all nautical; but I wish it to be understood that the _Icebear's_ decks were most roomy, nothing at all unnecessary being built or even lying thereon--a deck on which you could waltz with delight, or fight without discomfort. The captain's quarters, or rather his private room, occupied the after-part of the ship under the wheel-house, and was charmingly furnished, with a splendid stove, warm, soft carpets, a lounge, easy-chairs, a swing-cot, a library of choice books, and two ports that looked out over the sea. There, then I what more would you have in a private room afloat? and, mind you, it was the whole width of the ship. It had a private staircase. But the wardroom, or princ.i.p.al saloon, which lay under the quarter-deck, had cabins off it for the officers of the expedition, whose acquaintance we will make in good time.

It may be asked what were two ladies and four learned landsmen doing on board a ship bound for the icy North? It was a proposal of Mrs Hodson, to which her husband knew he dared not say nay, that the party we now see on board should accompany the vessel as far as Kirkwall, for what she called "the pleasure of a sail."

Well, the pleasure of the sail really commenced before they were beyond the pier-head of Aberdeen. The long granite breakwater, which they were steaming past, was crowded with people, and, greatly to Mrs Hodson's delight, a l.u.s.ty sh.o.r.e-porter sprang up to the top of a parapet and, commanding silence by a wave of his arm, proposed "Three cheers for the two gallant ladies, who were sailing away to the North Pole never to return."

And the cheers were given too--not three, but three times three; and when Mrs Hodson smilingly bowed her acknowledgments, and pretty Clara waved a handkerchief, which the crowd firmly believed to be wet with tears, then the cheering was redoubled, and kept up till the ship was over the bar. Next, guns were fired from the fort; and when this salute was returned from the _Icebear_, and the flag dipped and hoisted again, the voyage had commenced in earnest.