In the Misty Seas: A Story of the Sealers of Behring Strait

Harold Bindloss

Harold Bindloss

In the Misty Seas: A Story of the Sealers of Behring Strait

CHAPTER I

JIMMY'S DUCK

"The sea!" said Bluey, the Nova Scotian, sitting up on his pillow. "Oh, yes. It's kind of pretty, but the only use I've got for it is for bathing in."

There was laughter and a growl of disapproval from two beds in a corner of the dormitory, for nobody could go to sleep at nine o'clock, especially on the last night of the term, though retiring at that hour was compulsory at Sandycombe School. Pearson, the assistant master, had not, however, come round as yet to turn the lights out, and the gas-jet blinked fitfully in the big wire cage which apparently protected it from unlawful experiments. It did not, however, do so in reality, because Niven had discovered that the cage could be unscrewed, and it was not difficult to curtail the hour of preparation in the morning and evening by blowing strenuously down the pipe in turn. There were, of course, risks attached to this, but Niven had pointed out that anybody caught at the operation would suffer in a good cause, and it provided work for the Sandycombe plumber, who was voted a good fellow because he would smuggle in forbidden dainties for a consideration.

"The sea," said Appleby, "is everything that's fine. What do you know about it, Bluey?"

"Well," said the Nova Scotian in his slowest drawl, "I do know quite a little. You see, ours is a kind of hard country, and most of our folks go in sea now and then when they can't do better. Sometimes it's fishing way out on the Grand Banks where you got lost in a fog in the dory boats and starve before the schooner finds you, and if you don't it's quite likely a liner steaming twenty knots runs bang over you. Or it's carrying dried cod south in little schooners in winter time, with your long boots stuffed with straw to keep your feet from freezing, while you run for it under a trysail that's stiff with ice, with a full-size blizzard screaming behind you. No, sir. Going to sea isn't any kind of picnic, and that's why I'm sorry for Niven. The fellows who wrote those books 'bout cutting out pirates and catching slavers are dead, and it's 'bout time they were."

"Bluey's not going to stop to-night. Throw a pillow at him, somebody," said Niven, and there was a thud as the Nova Scotian's slipper, which was quicker than the pillow, alighted within an inch of the speaker's head.

Niven, however, took it good-naturedly, and he would have resented a better shot less than the remarks which had preceded it. He was going to sea, and had been describing his apprentice's uniform, and the life he fancied he was to lead on board a sailing ship, to an appreciative audience. His contentment had only one alloy, and that was the fact that Appleby, who had read Marryat and others with him under a gorse bush on sunny afternoons when he was presumed to be playing cricket, was not coming with him too. Nobody, however, was apparently willing to pay Appleby's premium, and Niven pinned his last hope on the possibility of his comrade being able to ship on the same vessel as ordinary seaman. Appleby, whom Niven privately considered somewhat slow and over-cautious, did not appear very enthusiastic about the scheme.

"To your kennels!" said somebody, and there was a footfall on the stairway, while two cots rattled as a couple of scantily-attired forms alighted upon them with a flying leap. They had been lying prone upon the floor giving a realistic representation of Niven swimming ashore with the captain in his teeth, though the lad who played the part of skipper protested vigorously that there was no necessity for his being grievously bitten.

"That was fine," said somebody. "When Pearson's gone we'll have it again. You could pour some water on to him first to make it more real."

"Then," said the skipper, "you'll get somebody else in the place of me. It was a good deal nicer the last time I was nibbled by a ferret, and I'm not going home with hy