Hudson Bay | Page 6

amid a good deal of blushing and hesitation,
were hoisted on board in a chair. Tea was served on deck; and after half
an hour's laughing and chatting, during which time our violin-player
was endeavouring to coax his first string to the proper pitch without
breaking, the ball 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