Hudson Bay | Page 6

opened with a Scotch reel. Every one knows what Scotch reels are, but every one does not know how the belles of the Western Isles can dance them.
"Just look at that slip of thread-paper," said the doctor to the captain, pointing to a thin, flat young lady, still in her teens. "I've watched her from the first. She's been up at six successive rounds, flinging her shanks about worse than a teething baby; and she's up again for another, just as cool and serene as a night in the latter end of October. I wonder what she's made of?"
"Leather, p'r'aps, or gutta-percha," suggested the captain, who had himself been "flinging his legs" about pretty violently during the previous half-hour. "I wish that she had been my partner instead of the heavy fair one that you see over there leaning against the mizzen belaying-pins."
"Which?" inquired the doctor. "The old lady with the stu'n-sails set on her shoulders?"
"No, no," replied the captain--"the young lady; fat--very fat--fair, and twenty, with the big blue eyes like signal-lamps on a locomotive. She twisted me round just as if I'd been a fathom of pump-water, shouting and laughing all the time in my face, like a sou'-west gale, and never looking a bit where she was going till she pitched head-foremost into the union-jack, carrying it and me along with her off the quarter-deck and half-way down the companion. It's a blessing she fell undermost, else I should have been spread all over the deck like a capsized pail of slops."
"Hallo!" exclaimed the doctor; "what's wrong with the old lady over there? She's making very uncommon faces."
"She's sea-sick, I do believe," cried the captain, rushing across the deck towards her.
And, without doubt, the old lady in question was showing symptoms of that terrible malady, although the bay was as smooth as a mill-pond, and the Prince Rupert reposed on its quiet bosom without the slightest perceptible motion. With impressive nautical politeness the captain handed her below, and in the sudden sympathy of his heart proposed as a remedy a stiff glass of brandy and water.
"Or a pipe of cavendish," suggested the second mate, who met them on the ladder as they descended, and could not refrain from a facetious remark, even although he knew it would, as it did, call forth a thundering command from his superior to go on deck and mind his own business.
"Isn't it jolly," said a young Stornowite, coming up to Wiseacre, with a face blazing with glee--"isn't it jolly, Mr Wiseacre?"
"Oh, very!" replied Wiseacre, in a voice of such dismal melancholy that the young Stornowite's countenance instantly went out, and he wheeled suddenly round to light it again at the visage of some more sympathising companion.
Just at this point of the revelry the fiddler's first string, which had endured with a dogged tenacity that was wonderful even for catgut, gave way with a loud bang, causing an abrupt termination to the uproar, and producing a dead silence. A few minutes, however, soon rectified this mischance. The discordant tones of the violin, as the new string was tortured into tune, once more opened the safety-valve, and the ball began de novo.
Great was the fun, and numerous were the ludicrous incidents that happened during that eventful night; and loud were the noise and merriment of the dancers as they went with vigorous energy through the bewildering evolutions of country-dance and reel. Immense was the delight of the company when the funniest old gentleman there volunteered a song; and ecstatic the joy when he followed it up by a speech upon every subject that an ordinary mind could possibly embrace in a quarter of an hour. But who can describe the scene that ensued when supper was reported ready in the cabin!--a cabin that was very small indeed, with a stair leading down to it so steep that those who were pretty high up could have easily stepped upon the shoulders of those who were near the foot; and the unpleasant idea was painfully suggested that if any one of the heavy ladies (there were several of them) was to slip her foot on commencing the descent, she would infallibly sweep them all down in a mass, and cram them into the cook's pantry, the door of which stood wickedly open at the foot of the stair, as if it anticipated some such catastrophe. Such pushing, squeezing, laughing, shrieking, and joking, in the vain attempt made to get upwards of thirty people crammed into a room of twelve feet by ten! Such droll and cutting remarks as were made when they were at last requested to sup in detachments! All this, however, was nothing to what ensued after supper, when the fiddler became more energetic, and the dancers more vigorous than ever. But enough.