The Big Otter, R. M. Ballantyne [best free e book reader TXT] 📗

song and laugh and story the echoes of Bachelors’ Hall—at no time very restful echoes, save perhaps in the dead hours of early morning; and even then they were more or less disturbed by snoring. For our sociable Highlander, besides having roused our spirits by his mere presence to the effervescing point, was himself much elated by the mighty change from prolonged solitude to joyous companionship.

“My spirit feels inclined,” he remarked one day, “to jump clean out of my body.”

“You’d better not let it then,” said Lumley, “for you know it might catch cold or freeze.”

“Not in this weather, surely,” retorted Macnab, “and if I did feel coldish in the circumstances, couldn’t I borrow Spooner’s blanket-capote? it might fit me then, for I’d probably be a few sizes smaller.”

“Come, Mac,” said I, “give us a song. You know I’m wildly fond of music; and, most unfortunately, not one of us three can sing a note.”

Our visitor was quite willing, and began at once to sing a wild ditty, in the wilder language of his native land.

He had a sweet, tuneful, sympathetic voice, which was at the same time powerful, so that we listened to him, sometimes with enthusiasm swelling our hearts, at other times with tears dimming our eyes. No one, save he who has been banished to a wilderness and long bereft of music, can understand the nature of our feelings—of mine, at least.

One evening, after our wounded man had charmed us with several songs, and we all of us had done what we could, despite our incapacity, to pay him back in kind, he pulled a sheet of crumpled paper out of his pocket.

“Come,” said he, unfolding it, “I’ve got a poet among the men of Muskrat House, who has produced a song, which, if not marked by sublimity, is at least distinguished by much truth. He said he composed it at the rate of about one line a week during the winter, and his comrades said that it was quite a picture to see him agonising over the rhymes. Before they found out what was the matter with him they thought he was becoming subject to fits of some sort. Now, then, let’s have a good chorus. It’s to the tune of ‘The British Grenadiers.’”

The World of Ice and Snow.

Come listen all good people who dwell at home at ease,

I’ll tell you of the sorrows of them that cross the seas

And penetrate the wilderness,

Where arctic tempests blow—

    Where your toes are froze,

    An’ the pint o’ your nose,

        In the world of Ice and Snow.

 

You’ve eight long months of winter an’ solitude profound,

The snow at your feet is ten feet deep and frozen hard the ground.

And all the lakes are solid cakes,

And the rivers all cease to flow—

    Where your toes are froze,

    An’ the pint o’ your nose,

        In the world of Ice and Snow.

 

No comrade to enliven; no friendly foe to fight;

No female near to love or cheer with pure domestic light;

No books to read; no cause to plead;

No music, fun, nor go—

    Ne’er a shillin’, nor a stiver,

    Nor nothin’ whatsomediver,

        In the world of Ice and Snow.

 

Your feelin’s take to freezin’, so likewise takes your brain;

You go about grump-and-wheezin’, like a wretched dog in pain;

You long for wings, or some such things,

But they’re not to be had—oh! no—

    For there you are,

    Like a fixéd star,

        In the world of Ice and Snow.

 

If you wished you could—you would not, for the very wish

    would die.

If you thought you would—you could not, for you wouldn’t

    have heart to try.

Confusion worse confounded,

Would aggravate you so—

    That you’d tumble down

    On the frozen ground

        In the world of Ice and Snow.

 

But “never-give-in” our part is—let British pluck have sway

And “never-say-die,” my hearties—it’s that what wins the day.

To face our fate in every state,

Is what we’ve got to do,

    An’ laugh at our trouble

    Till we’re all bent double—

        In the world of Ice and Snow.

 

Now all ye sympathisers, and all ye tender souls;

Ye kind philanthropisers, who dwell between the poles,

Embrace in your affections

Those merry merry men who go—

    Where your toes are froze,

    An’ the pint o’ your nose,

        In the world of Ice and Snow.

It almost seemed as though the world of ice and snow itself had taken umbrage at Macnab’s song, for, while we were yet in the act of enthusiastically prolonging the last “sno–o–ow,” there sounded in our ears a loud report, as if of heavy artillery close at hand.

We all leaped up in excitement, as if an enemy were at our doors.

“There it goes at last!” cried Lumley, rushing out of the house followed by Spooner.

I was about to follow when Macnab stopped me.

“Don’t get excited, Max, there’s no hurry!”

“It’s the river going to break up,” said I, looking back impatiently.

“Yes, I know that, but it won’t break up to-night, depend on it.”

I was too eager to wait for more, but ran to the banks of the river, which at that place was fully a mile wide. The moon was bright, and we could see the familiar sheet of ice as still and cold as we had seen it every day for many months past.

“Macnab’s right,” said I, “there will be no breakup to-night.”

“Not so sure of that,” returned Lumley; “the weather has been very warm of late; melting snow has been gushing into it in thousands of streams, and the strain on the ice—six feet thick though it is—must be tremendous.”

He was checked by another crashing report; but again silence ensued, and we heard no more till next morning. Of course we were all up and away to the river bank long before breakfast, but it was not till after that meal that the final burst-up occurred. It was preceded by many reports—towards the end by what seemed quite a smart artillery fire. The whole sheet of ice on the great river seemed to be rising bodily upwards from the tremendous hydraulic pressure underneath. But though the thaws of spring had converted much snow into floods of water, they had not greatly affected the surface of the ice, which still lay hard and solid in all its wintry strength.

A greater Power, however, was present. If the ice had been made of cast-iron six feet in thickness, it must have succumbed sooner or later.

At last, as Macnab said, “She went!” but who shall describe how she went? It seemed as if the mighty cake had been suddenly struck from below and shattered. Then the turmoil that ensued was grand and terrible beyond conception. It was but an insignificant portion of God’s waters at which we gazed, but how overwhelming it seemed to us! Mass rose upon mass of ice, the cold grey water bursting through and over all, hurling morsels as large as the side of a house violently on each other, till a mighty pile was raised which next moment fell with a crash into the boiling foam. Then, in one direction there was a rush which seemed about to carry all before it, but instead of being piled upwards, some of the masses were driven below, were thrust deep into the mud, and a jam took place. In a few minutes the ice burst upwards again, and the masses were swept on to join the battalions that were already on their way towards the distant lake amid noise and crash and devastation. It seemed as if ice and snow and water had combined to revive the picture if not the reality of ancient chaos!

Thus the drapery of winter was rudely swept away, and next morning we had the joy of seeing our river sweeping grandly on in all the liquid beauty of early and welcome spring.