Part 50 (1/2)
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.”