Wild Adventures in Wild Places

“It is, indeed,” added Chisholm, “there is an air of refinement everywhere, and, if you will excuse me for saying so, captain, the English spoken by Mrs and Miss Varde, with the exception of a slight foreign accent, which, in my opinion, adds a charm to it, is as perfect as any you will hear in London.”

“We have travelled a good deal, even in your country,” said the Danish captain, with a smile.

“Yes, but,” said Fred, “you would travel a very long way in England without meeting with a family who could talk the Russian language. As linguists, the people of this country undoubtedly beat us. Now, my idea of a Russian peasant, or small farmer, was somewhat as follows – shall I offend you if I describe my beau-ideal rustic Russian?”

“Certainly not; though my wife and child are Russians by birth, I myself am a Dane.”

“Well, then,” said Fred, “the rustic Russian that I had on the brain, and whose prototype I look for here in vain, was indeed a sorry lout – a short, stout, rough, and unkempt fellow, with less appearance of good breeding about him than a Nottingham cowherd, and less manners than a Newcastle navvy, with a good deal of reverence about him for the aristocracy, and an extraordinary relish for rum. He was guiltless of anything resembling ablution; dressed in sheep’s skins, with the hairy side next the skin; slept in this same jacket, and never changed it from one year’s end to another, except for the purpose of taking a bath, which operation he performed by getting inside the stove and raking the hot ashes all about him; his principal diet was the blackest of bread, and the greatest treat you could give him a basin of train-oil and a horn spoon.”

Captain Varde laughed. “Anyhow,” he said, “I am glad you have already found yourselves undeceived, and I do not doubt but that, in your intercourse with the people of this country, you will find many of them brave, generous, and gentlemanly fellows, and quite worthy of being reckoned among the number of your friends.”

And Captain Varde was right.

The first two or three months of their life at the house of their newly-found friend was quite idyllic in its simplicity. Much of their time was spent in fishing and shooting, or in climbing the hills to obtain a view of the wild but beautiful country around them; but in whatever way the day had been passed, the afternoon always found them gathered around the hospitable board of their worthy host. Then the evening would be spent in pleasant conversation, with music and story-telling, the stories nearly all coming from the captain himself. He had spent a great deal of his life at sea, and had come through innumerable adventures both on the ocean and on land.

“Old sailors,” said Varde, once, “are sometimes accused of spinning yarns, with less of facts about them than there might be; but, for my own part, I think that a man who has knocked about the world for about twenty years has little occasion to draw upon his imagination.”

“I fought a bear one time,” he continued, “single-handed, face to face – ay, and I may say breast to breast.”

“No easy task that, I should say,” remarked Chisholm, “if he were of any size.”

“He was a monster,” said Varde, “of Herculean strength; yonder is his skin on the couch. You may be sure though that I did not court the struggle, nor am I ever likely to forget it, for two reasons – the first is that in my right leg I still carry the marks of the brute’s talons; the other reason is a far dearer one.”

Captain Varde paused, and took his wife’s hand in his, gazing at her with a look of inexpressible tenderness.

“But for that bear adventure I never should have met with my wife. How my Adeline’s father came to settle down for life in the wild unpeopled district where I first made his acquaintance and hers, I can hardly tell. In his youth he had been a merchant and a dweller in cities; in his old age he built himself a house many many versts even from a village of any pretensions, on the confines of a great gloomy forest, and close by a lake that people say is far deeper than the great hills around it are high. Here he lived the life of a recluse and a bookworm.

“In the summer of 1845, myself and a few friends had encamped in the neighbourhood of this lake, chiefly to enjoy the excellent fishing there to be obtained. Not that we did not find work for our guns as well, for there was abundance of both fur and feather; but my chief delight lay in the gentler art. One of my friends, Satiesky by name, could do enough gunning for the whole camp, so I at least was content, and the time was spent most pleasantly until it set in for settled wet weather.

“At last after several days’ rain it was evident the weather was broken, and the summer gone; so, very reluctantly, we prepared to pack our horses and trudge back again to the distant city. Packing did not take us long, and, having packed, we started. A march of six or eight versts brought us to the little village or hamlet of Odstok. We had just reached its first house – a small outlying farm built on a wooded eminence. It was well for us we had, for in less than ten minutes the low land that we had just passed was completely covered with water. What had been fields before was now an inland sea. Swollen by the mountain torrents, the river had burst its bounds and swept down the valley with terrible force, carrying before it fences and trees, and even the scattered houses which stood in its way, and drowning oxen, horses, sheep, and alas! human beings as well.

“For three whole weeks we were in a state of siege. Not that we wanted food, however; Jerikoff the farmer’s larder was well stored, and he was very good to us indeed. He found his old boat, in which he used to paddle about in a little canal before the floods, very handy now. I shouldn’t have cared to risk my life in the ricketty tub; but Jerikoff did, and used to make voyages to a distant shop, and return laden with many a little Russian dainty. Once he brought in a haul of hares and rabbits from the flood. They had doubtless taken refuge on a tree as an extemporised island; but when that island itself became flooded, down the stream, nolens volens, they had to float. It is an ill wind that blows nobody good, and Jerikoff set out in great glee to reap this rich harvest of living fur. His face was a study while so engaged. ‘Oh! my pretty dears,’ he said, addressing his victims; ‘I couldn’t think of seeing you drown before my very face. Come into my boat; there is room for you all.’ But when the old man, before landing, began to knock them on the head, I daresay the little mariners thought they had got out of the frying pan into the fire.

“But about my bear, gentlemen. Well, I am coming to that.”

Chapter Eight

The Captain’s tale continued – Winter brings the Bears from the Mountains – The Tragedy in the Forest – Bears at Bay – Breast to breast with Bruin – Fred Freeman falls in love!

“Kind and all as our host Jerikoff was,” continued the captain, “none of us were sorry when the floods began to abate and finally disappeared. But hardly had they gone when yet another change came over the landscape; for hard frost set in, then small powdery snow began to fall, followed shortly by great flakes, and before twenty-four hours were over our heads the whole country was locked in the embrace of an early winter. We weren’t altogether sorry for this, for we could now prolong our stay with prospects of good duck and wild-goose shooting, for both these and many other kinds of game would visit the running streams. We would also have an opportunity of doing old Jerikoff a favour by filling his larder for him. Your Russian rustic, Mr Freeman, is oftentimes as proud as a prince. Jerikoff was, at all events; and we dared not insult him by the offer of a single rouble.

“Our host used to do a little shooting himself. One day he met a young peasant leading his horse from the forest, where he had been for wood. The little lad’s eyes were as round and apparently as big as saucers —he had seen a bear. Jerikoff made haste home to tell us, and we determined to go in search of Mr Bruin. Hardly had we made up our minds and got ready our guns when another report, and that a very singular one indeed – although we had no reason to doubt the truth of it – reached us.

“A farmer’s sledge drawn by three horses, and on its way to the very hamlet in which we now dwelt, had been attacked by a bear of monstrous size and terrible ferocity. It was not the horses, however, but human flesh on which this brute made up his mind to regale himself. He had sprung from an ambush, alighting in the very centre of the sledge. The poor kyoorshik’s struggles I trust were brief, but very dreadful nevertheless; his screams were heard by more than one individual – powerless, however, to render aught of assistance – as the terrified horses plunged madly through the forest, a tragedy being acted behind them which it makes one’s blood run cold even to think of. The poor beasts pulled up at last with the shattered remains of the sledge, and the mutilated body of the unhappy driver, at the very door of the little village inn; but of the bear there were no signs save the ghastly work he had accomplished.

“News like this only served to stimulate our desire for revenge on this bold and ferocious bear, and we set out in all haste to seek him in the forest. There were four of us, all told, with two moudjiks in two sledges drawn by six horses. We were all armed to the teeth, but this did not prevent us from taking proper precautions to avoid a sudden surprise. Farther than the confines of the great forest it was impractical to take our sledges; but the horses were unlimbered, and accompanied us until we came upon the trail of our first bear. They were then fastened to trees, and left in the charge of the moudjiks.

“‘Now,’ said Satiesky, one of my friends, ‘these tracks are very recent. Mr Bruin cannot therefore be very far away, and as it will be unsafe to go a long distance from our horses, let us try the effects of a little ruse. I have come all prepared to carry it out.’

“To build a fire, camp-fashion, was with Satiesky the work of but a few minutes. He piled it in an open space or glade in the forest, so that the heat should not bring down the snow from the pines over it. Having got it well alight, he hung from the tripod above a three-pound piece of ham, which was soon frizzling away in fine style, and making us all hungry with its fragrance.

“‘Let us get under cover, now,’ said Satiesky; ‘if a bear is any where within six versts, you’ll soon see him prowl round, licking his chops, and looking for dinner, which pray Providence we will serve up to him hot.’

“We took up a position, as he spoke, as well screened as possible by the snow-laden branches, and waited. Half-an-hour went wearily past, and after that every minute seemed interminable. We were rewarded at last, though, but in a way we little expected. Some of us know, to our cost, the terrible bull-like bellow which a bear emits from his stentorian lungs, when he is suddenly disturbed and means mischief. This is intended, no doubt, to startle and paralyse the victim on which he means to spring. Be this as it may, such was now the sound we heard, yet not anywhere near the fire, but close in the rear of our position. It was an immense bear, probably the very same that had attacked and killed the poor sledge-driver; for, as Satiesky afterwards said, having once tasted human flesh, he would prefer it to the best bit of bacon that ever was frizzled.

“He gave us little time now for consideration. But Satiesky was quick; he discharged his rifle almost point-blank at the charging beast. Down rolled Bruin, not dead, but so dreadfully wounded that it was an easy enough matter for us to dispatch him with our pikes.

“Hardly had he ceased to writhe, when down the wind came the sharp ring of another rifle.

“‘Hark!’ cried Satiesky, springing out into the open; ‘that sound comes not from the direction where we left our horses. There is another party in the forest as well as ourselves.’

“Satiesky’s surmise was right, as he knew a moment afterwards to his sorrow. The strange hunting party had wounded a bear, and were following him up, and, in his desperation, he charged our companion. He had no power or time for defence, and next moment we saw him laid senseless on the snow; while over him stood his terrible antagonist, his eyes flashing fire, his jaws dripping blood.

“I will not attempt to describe to you, gentlemen, the wild melée that followed. Bar a shot at close quarters with a revolver, there was no time for using fire-arms. With pikes and axes and rifles clubbed, we fought the giant beast until strength succumbed to skill, and he lay dead beside Satiesky. With the exception of a few scratches, nobody was any the worse, and we found, to our delight, that our fallen companion was merely stunned.

“You should have seen the spread that Jerikoff placed before us that evening, on our return. Jerikoff excelled himself for once; and it needed but little wine-drinking, I can tell you, to make the feast pass merrily by.

“Jerikoff would have bear hams all the winter. That was the reason he was so pleased; that was the reason he invited a pair of inseparable companions, in the shape of an old fiddler and a dancing bear, to minister to our amusement after dinner was over.

“Next day we bagged three more bears. We had, however, no adventure to speak of; they succumbed to their fate with a kind of sleepy dignity, after they had been pitted by some peasants hired for the occasion.

“On this particular day I had wandered some distance away from my companions. I had got clear out of the forest, and had climbed an eminence, where I could see well about me, accompanied by an armed servant; but certainly apprehending no danger, for the coast all around seemed well clear. I had reckoned without my host, however. My host on this occasion was an enormous bear, who had probably been asleep in the sun behind a boulder, and a very disagreeable entertainment he had provided for me.”

“He wasn’t very hospitable, then?” said Chisholm, smiling.

“Rather much so, I might say,” said the captain; “indeed, he received me with open arms. He was too affectionate altogether, and even now I think I hear the roar of delight he gave vent to as he commenced the fearful hug. I tried to prick him under the ribs with my knife. It broke on a bone, which caused the brute to increase rather than diminish the pressure. I could feel my bones crack, and my breath was squeezed out of me. Why at this awful moment my scared moudjik should hand me his knife, instead of using it himself, I never could tell; but God gave me strength to handle it, gentlemen. I had one hand free, and with that I plunged the weapon into the animal’s chest, and we both rolled down together.

“That evening two sledges in particular left the forest, going in different directions. One dashed along as fast as three horses could carry it, towards the house of my dear Adeline’s father. It was the nearest house to the forest; therefore thither was I borne, all but lifeless from loss of blood. The other sledge went more slowly, of course, towards the village we had that morning left so merrily together. That sledge brought Bruin home. Gentlemen,” said the captain, concluding his narrative, and once more taking his wife’s hand, “I need not tell you how kind the old merchant was to me. Here is a proof of it.

“The house where he and Adeline used to reside is now tenanted by some relations of ours, for my father-in-law has long since crossed the bourne whence no traveller ever returns; but we often visit the dear old home by the lake, and spend a few weeks there. We hope to do so this Christmas, and if you will but prolong your stay till then and accompany us, I think I can show you some nice sport.”

What could our heroes reply to so kind an invitation, but that they would be delighted to do so? One of them, indeed, was much more delighted than either of the other two; and that was Fred Freeman. Would you know the reason why, reader? You may learn it, then, from the following fragment of a conversation which took place between the trio one evening when they were alone together: —

“Chisholm O’Grahame,” said Fred, “we used to laugh at poor Frank for being so deeply in love with his beautiful Eenie Lyell. You must laugh alone now, my boy, for I can feel for him.”

“What!” cried Chisholm, delightedly, “Are you too in for it?”

“I fear it’s a fact,” said Fred; “and so you two can leave me here to my fate, if you choose, and go on with your adventures by yourselves – that is, if Miss Varde will look kindly on me.”

“Ridiculous!” said Chisholm. “No, no, Fred, my lad, engage yourself if you like, and return some other day for this charming girl; but round the world with us you come, and, indeed, I think the sooner we start the better.”

“Heigho!” sighed Fred, and Frank felt for him if Chisholm did not.

Chapter Nine

The Russian Steppes (concluded)

Pleasant Times – A Glorious Hide – A Happy Christmas – Boar-hunting – Attacked by Wolves

Still pleasantly passed the time of our heroes away at Captain Varde’s delightful residence. He did all in his power to render them happy and comfortable; he even invited friends from a distance to visit at the house, in case they should be dull in the evenings, with no one to talk to but himself; and very pleasant people they turned out to be. As autumn wore away, and the days got shorter and colder, they were, of course, confined a good deal to the house; but, what with whist and chess, music and dancing, they never thought a day too long.

Fred’s “little love affair,” as Chisholm somewhat irreverently styled it, flourished apace. In fact he was engaged to Miss Varde, and the engagement received the sanction of her parents.

“What a pity it is,” said Captain Varde, one day, “that I cannot find a match for you, Mr O’Grahame.”

“You are very kind, I am sure, to think of me,” said Chisholm.

“Yes,” continued Varde, “for then, you know, there would be no more occasion for you to leave Russia.”

“Ah! but,” said Chisholm, “I have that young dog, Frank, to show the world to. He is in my charge and in Fred’s. After we have done the needful by him, we may return – Fred is bound to – and then there is no saying what might happen.”

One day, when our friends came out to have their usual run before breakfast, they found the ground all white with snow. This would have warned them, if nothing else had, that Christmas was on ahead; but they also found the moudjiks busy at work getting ready the sledges, and preparations going on everywhere for a long journey.

The morning arrives, and the sledges are brought round, and soon filled with as happy a party, probably, as ever set out on a long dreary mid-winter journey in the wilds of Russia. Crack go the whips; the horses toss their saucy heads and manes in the air; then, with a brave plunge, forward they flee, and, with a cheer from the servants left behind, and a shout from onlooking moudjiks, they are off. Paddy, in the song of “The Groves of Blarney,” talks about “the complatest thing in nature being a coach-and-six or a feather bed;” had he ridden in a Russian travelling-sledge, I daresay he would have considered it a sort of combination of the two. Conversation is easy, as there is no rattling of vile wheels; the air is bracing, and the scenery charming, though hills and dales, and the great still forests themselves, are robed in a garment of snow. At noon they stop for rest and refreshment, then mount and go on again; but in the evening they reach a town of some importance, and here they stop for the night. Onward again next day, and onward the next; and at noon of the fourth the country gets wilder; there is hardly a house to be seen; there are giant trees in the wide, wild forests they traverse, and giant hills on the horizon. Suddenly, at a bend of the road, a great lake – frozen hard, and partially snow-clad – makes its appearance; and not far from its banks, though almost hidden by trees, a lordly mansion, from many of the chimneys of which blue smoke is curling upwards, against the white of a hill that almost overhangs it.

Captain Varde hails the second sledge, and points laughingly towards this mansion, and they know they are nearing the home of his people. Half an hour afterwards, everybody is dismounting from the sledges, greetings are being exchanged, and steaming horses led away to their stables by smiling retainers.

I am not going to describe the life our heroes led at this mansion, which might well be termed a castle; nor even to tell you of the many adventures – some of them wild enough – they had among the hills and in the forests around.

One evening the sledge containing Captain Varde and Chisholm got behind the others, and they were attacked by a pack of hungry wolves in fine form. They had had a good day among the boars – our friends, I mean, not the wolves – and one was towing astern. This particular “piggie” the wolves thought would make them an excellent supper; although, for that matter, being, as they are, hippophagists, they would not have objected to a bite of horse-flesh. The sun was declining in the west, as the sledge tore along through the forest; they had still many versts to ride, and attacked in flank and rear by such a number of these unwelcome guests – for the woods seemed alive with them – the danger was one not to be made light of. Happily for them, their horses were hardy and fleet; they had good guns, and plenty of ammunition, so the slaughter was immense. Kept at bay for a time, the wolves, being reinforced, rallied and pressed the sledgemen closely. Chisholm thought of cutting the boar adrift, but Varde wouldn’t hear of it.

“Nay, my boy, nay,” he cried, “we will never strike our colours while we’ve a single cartridge left unfired.”

Chisholm laughed, and peppered away, and with such good effect, that ere the sun had quite gone down, the enemy drew off and left them, and they soon after regained their companions.

There was much more of this kind of thing; suffice it to say that they spent a Christmas of never-to-be-forgotten happiness, and left at last with the heartfelt farewells of their kind entertainers ringing in their ears, and promises that, if Providence spared them, this visit would certainly not be their last.

Chapter Ten

Part IV – The Wilds of Africa

Off to the Cape – Among the Rock Rabbits – A Wild Ride – Lost on the plains

“Isn’t it a glorious morning,” said Chisholm, coming on deck and joining his friends Frank and Fred, who were reclining in their lounge chairs, books in hand, under the awning reading, or pretending to read. And Chisholm himself looked glorious, glorious in the strength and beauty of his young manhood. He was dressed in white from top to toe, with sun hat and low cut collar, which showed his brown and shapely neck to perfection. His face was weather-beaten, that was the least that could be said of it, and loosely dressed as he was, you seemed to see the play of every muscle in his manly form, as he moved; and, when he waved his arms almost rejoicingly in the balmy but bracing breeze, that fanned the sunny sea, he looked as lithe and graceful as a young tiger.

“A glorious morning,” he said again.

“Beautiful,” said Fred, gazing languidly around him.

“You seem in fine form,” said Frank, smiling.

“Just had a salt water bath. The other fellows in my cabin had soda and brandy. I feel fresher now than they do.”

The ship was a steamer, Druid, but she was staggering along under a power of canvas and, bar accident, two more days would see them safe in Cape Town.

Fred Freeman had been very loth and sorry to leave his friends in Russia, for reasons well known to the reader. Frank, for reasons of a similar nature, had been just as anxious to get back to dear old Wales, to enjoy, so he said, six weeks’ hunting. But Chisholm had looked at him with a right merry twinkle in his blue eyes as he replied, —

“Nay, boy, nay, the next hunting you’ll do will be at the Cape. I promised your father to take you right round the world, and I told some one else that some one else wouldn’t see you again for three years at the very least. So there!”

Here is an extract from Chisholm’s diary, written three months after: —

“The Cape hills in sight at last. But I shouldn’t say at last, because our passage has been everything one could wish. Fred and Frank are both a bit low, leastways they don’t talk enough, perhaps they think. Wonder if it is their late lotus-eating life that is telling upon their constitutions, or is it merely that they’re in love. A little bit of both, perhaps. But they’ll wake up ere long without a doubt.”