The Cruise of the Snowbird: A Story of Arctic Adventure. Stables Gordon

then, when giving his orders, he never talked a bit louder nor quicker than there was any occasion for. He knew by experience that a command given in a sharp, loud key, was very likely to cause nervousness and slight confusion in obeying it. Woe is me for your officers on board big ships – and there are many of them too – who, while giving orders, strut about the decks, and stamp and yell at their men; they do but excite them, and cause them to give proof of the proverb, “The more hurry the less speed.” More than once have I seen a good ship’s safety jeopardised in a squall, and all through this fault in the officer carrying on duty. But you see McBain loved the crew – he loved “his boys,” as he was fond of calling them, and he was wishful to impart to them in a friendly way all the knowledge of boats that he himself possessed.

      If you had called McBain a sailor, he would have replied, —

      “No, sir, I’m not a sailor; I’m only a boatman, or a fisherman if you like it better.”

      But this was only McBain’s modesty. A sailor by profession he certainly was not, although he had, as I before told you, spent a portion of his younger life at sea; but from his infancy he was used to rough it, not only on the stormy lakes of the inlands, but in open or half-decked boats all along the western shores of romantic Scotland, and that, too, in winter as well as in summer; nor was there a loch, nor cape, nor kyle he did not know every bearing of, from Handa Isle in the north, southwards as far as the Ross of Mull. And that is saying a great deal, for on that wild, indented coast, exposed as it is to the whole force of the wide Atlantic, stormy seas are met with and sudden squalls, such as are happily but little known on the shores of Merrie England.

      “He is a good seaman, isn’t he?” Rory had said one day to old Ap, referring, of course, to McBain.

      “Is it seamanship you talk of?” old Ap replied. “Look, you see, sir; I’d rather be in a herring boat with McBain in half a gale of wind, although he was managing the sails by himself look, you see, and steering with his teeth or knees, so to speak, than I’d be in a 200-ton schooner, with a score of dandified yachtsmen; yes, yes, indeed.”

      Hearing old Ap talk thus enthusiastically about quiet, non-assuming McBain, the latter gained an ascendency in Rory’s estimation that he never after lost.

      Often, in fact as a rule, McBain smiled when he gave an order to his boys, but his was not a stereotyped smile. His smile played not only around his lips, but it danced around his eyes and lighted up all his face. It was not, however, so much the smile of mirth as that of genuine good-heartedness.

      Often, even when in a difficult position, he would allow the young men to handle the boat according to their own judgment, but at the same time his grave grey eyes would be cautiously watching their every movement, and his hand would be ready at a moment’s notice to grasp a sheet or rectify a foul, and so prevent unpleasantness. I am not sure that McBain’s method of teaching was not somewhat unique in many ways, but it was at times very effective.

      “I’m not sorry that this should have happened, my boys,” was one of McBain’s favourite expressions, after any little accident or mishap. His crew knew well that he meant that a lesson given roughly, and sent well home, was likely to be remembered.

      One day, for example, with Rory as steersman, their course led them pretty close to the passenger boat Crocodile. Perhaps they needn’t have gone near enough to have most of the wind taken out of their sails, and their way considerably lessened; perhaps, though, Rory was just a little proud of his pretty vessel, and of being looked at by the lady passengers, looked at and probably admired; be this as it may, he forgot a warning that McBain had often given him, to have an easy sheet for the sudden rush of wind that would meet them, immediately after passing to leeward of anything, and so, on this particular day, his pride had a most disagreeable fall, and he himself, with the rest of his companions, had a good wetting, for down went the Flower of Arrandoon on her beam ends as soon as they had cleared the Crocodile. But she was well ballasted, the sliding hatch was on, and when sheets were eased she righted again, though it was a considerable time before Rory righted again.

      McBain shook himself a bit, much in the same way that a Newfoundland dog does.

      “I’m not sorry that this should have happened,” he said, quietly.

      Rory was, though. Especially when Ralph laughed pointedly at, or towards him.

      Well, but another day Rory had his revenge, and the laughing was all on the other side.

      It happened thus: they were cracking on nicely with every inch of canvas spread, sailing pretty close to the wind. The light breeze was on to the land, from which they were distant about a mile and a half, and although the sea was very far from being rough, there was a bit of a swell rolling in. Now Ralph was tall, and stout, and strong; he was no feather-weight therefore, but for all that the cutter did not require him to sit upon her weather gunwale, in order to keep her from capsizing. She could have done just as well had he kept on the seat, and by so doing he would have been consulting his own safety. Many a time and oft had McBain pointed this out to him, but he seemed forgetful on this particular point, and so, on the day in question, he was lazily occupying the forbidden quarter. One would have thought that the saucy wee yacht had done it on purpose; be that as it may – when down in the trough between two seas she simply gave a kind of a swing – hardly a lurch – in the wrong direction for Ralph’s stability, and over he went, literally speaking, heels over head, into the sea, a most ungraceful and unscientific way of taking to the water.

      Both Allan and Rory knew well that their friend could swim, and the latter at all events seemed to treat the affair as a very pretty piece of entertainment.

      “Man overboard?” he shouted. “Let go the life-buoy, Allan.”

      Instinctively Allan did as he was told, and sent the big cork ring flying after Ralph, but seeing the merry twinkle in Rory’s eye, and knowing there was no necessity for it, he repented having done so next minute.

      “Lower away your dinghy,” cried McBain to Allan, as he hauled the headsails to windward and stopped the cutter’s way, “it will be a bit of practice for you.”

      Allan was pulling away astern two minutes after in the little boat, dignified by the undignified name of dinghy, for she was very tiny indeed, but Allan could have sculled a wash-tub.

      He soon met Ralph coming ploughing and spluttering along, breasting the billows, for he was a powerful young swimmer, with the life-buoy in front of him, which, however, he scorned to make use of.

      “Take your little joke on board,” he cried laughing. Allan picked up the buoy and threw Ralph a rope.

      “That’s better,” said Ralph, and in a few minutes more they were alongside and on board.

      Rory was singing “A life on the ocean wave,” and the merry twinkle had not left his eyes.

      When Ralph had changed his dripping clothes for dry ones, and reappeared looking somewhat blue, Rory had his laugh out, and all hands were fain to join.

      “I caught a crab indeed,” said poor Ralph.

      “Caught a crab is it?” cried Rory. “It wasn’t a crab but a turtle you turned. Och! it was the beautifulest sight ever I saw in the world to see the long legs of you go up. You know, Ralph, my brother tar, you couldn’t see it yourself, or it’s delighted you’d have been entirely!” and Rory laughed again till the tears came into his eyes.

      “I’m not sorry that this happened,” said McBain, “after all.”

      For her size I do not think there was a more comfortable little yacht afloat than the Flower of Arrandoon. Small though the box was they called by courtesy the saloon, it was fitted with every comfort, and there was not an inch of space from stem to stern that was not well economised for some useful purpose. One useful lesson in yacht life our heroes were not long in learning, and that was to put everything back again in its proper place as soon as it was done with; in other words, the circumstances under which they were placed taught them tidiness, so that there was no lubberliness about their little ship. And everything in and about her was the perfection of cleanliness and neatness, for they were not only the crew, but the cook and the cabin-boy