Red Rooney: The Last of the Crew

“Remember!” he repeated in a loud voice, which attracted all eyes, and produced a sudden silence; “of course I remember. The difficulty with me is to forget—and I would that I could forget—for the adventure was ho–r–r–r–ible!”

A low murmur of curiosity, hope, and joyful expectation, amounting to what we might style applause, broke from the company as the wizard dwelt on the last word.

You see, Eskimos love excitement fully as much as other people, and as they have no spirituous drinks wherewith to render their festivities unnaturally hilarious, they are obliged to have recourse to exciting tales, comic songs, games, and other reasonable modes of creating that rapid flow of blood, which is sometimes styled the “feast of reason and the flow of soul.” Simek’s soul flowed chiefly from his eyes and from his smiling lips in the form of hearty laughter and encouragement to others—for in truth he was an unselfish man, preferring rather to draw out his friends than to be drawn out by them.

“Tell us all about it, then, Ujarak,” he cried. “Come, we are ready. Our ears are open—yes; they are very wide open!”

There was a slight titter at this sly reference to the magnitude of the lies that would have to be taken in, but Ujarak’s vanity rendered him invulnerable to such light shafts. After glaring round with impressive solemnity, so as to deepen the silence and intensify the expectation, he began:—

“It was about the time when the ravens lay their eggs and the small birds appear. My torngak had told me to go out on the ice, far over the sea in a certain direction where I should find a great berg with many white peaks mounting up to the very sky. There, he said, I should find what I was to do. It was blowing hard at the time; also snowing and freezing. I did not wish to go, but an angekok must go forward and fear nothing when his torngak points the way. Therefore I went.”

“Took no food? no sleigh? no dogs?” asked Okiok in surprise.

“No. When it is a man’s duty to obey, he must not think of small things. It is the business of a wise man to do or to die.”

There was such an air of stern grandeur about Ujarak as he gave utterance to this high-flown sentiment, that a murmur of approval burst from his believers, who formed decidedly the greater part of the revellers, and Okiok hid his diminished head in the breast of his coat to conceal his laughter.

“I had no food with me—only my walrus spear and line,” continued the wizard. “Many times I was swept off my feet by the violence of the gale, and once I was carried with such force towards a mass of upheaved ice that I expected to be dashed against it and killed, but just as this was about to happen the—”

“Torngak helped—eh?” interrupted Okiok, with a simple look.

“No; torngaks never help while we are above ground. They only advise, and leave it to the angekok’s wisdom and courage to do the rest,” retorted the wizard, who, although roused to wrath by these interruptions of Okiok, felt that his character would be damaged if he allowed the slightest appearance of it to escape him.

“When, as I said, I was about to be hurled against the berg of ice, the wind seemed to bear me up. No doubt it was a long hollow at the foot of the ice that sent the wind upwards, but my mind was quick. Instead of resisting the impulse, I made a bound, and went up into the air and over the berg. It was a very low one,” added the wizard, as a reply to some exclamations of extreme surprise—not unmingled with doubt—from some of his audience.

“After that,” continued Ujarak, “the air cleared a little, and I could see a short way around me, as I scudded on. Small bergs were on every side of me. There were many white foxes crouching in the lee of these for shelter. Among them I noticed some white bears. Becoming tired of thus scudding before the wind, I made a dash to one side, to get under the shelter of a small berg and take rest. Through the driving snow I could see the figure of a man crouching there before me. I ran to him, and grasped his coat to check my speed. He stood up—oh, so high! It was not a man,” (the wizard deepened his voice, and slowed here)—“it—was—a—white—bear!”

Huks and groans burst at this point from the audience, who were covered with the perspiration of anxiety, which would have been cold if the place had not been so warm.

“I turned and ran,” continued the angekok; “the bear followed. We came to a small hummock of ice. I doubled round it. The bear went past—like one of Arbalik’s arrows—sitting on its haunches, and trying to stop itself in vain, for the wind carried it on like an oomiak with the sail spread. When the bear stopped, it turned back, and soon came up with me, for I had doubled, and was by that time running nearly against the wind. Then my courage rose! I resolved to face the monster with my walrus spear. It was a desperate venture, but it was my duty. Just then the snow partly ceased, and I could see a berg with sloping sides. ‘Perhaps I may find a point of vantage there that I have not on the flat ice,’ I thought, and away I ran for the sloping berg. It was rugged and broken. Among its masses I managed to dodge the bear till I got to the top. Here I resolved to stand and meet my foe, but as I stood I saw that the other side of the berg had been partly melted by the sun. It was a clear steep slope from the top to the bottom. The bear was scrambling up, foaming in its fury, with its eyes glaring like living lamps, and its red mouth a-gape. Another thought came to me—I have been quick of thought from my birth! Just as the bear was rising to the attack, I sat down on the slope, and flew rather than slid to the bottom. It was an awful plunge! I almost shut my eyes in horror—but—but—kept them open. At the bottom there was a curve like a frozen wave. I left the top of this curve and finished the descent in the air. The crash at the end was awful, but I survived it. There was no time for thought. I looked back. The bear, as I expected, had watched me in amazement, and was preparing to follow—for bears, you know, fear nothing. It sat down at the top of the slope, and stuck its claws well into the ice in front of it. I ran back to the foot of the slope to meet it. Its claws lost hold, and it came down thundering, like a huge round stone from a mountain side. I stood, and, measuring exactly its line of descent, stuck the butt of my spear into the ice with the point sloping upwards. Then I retired to see the end, for I did not dare to stand near to it. It happened as I had wished: the bear came straight on my spear. The point went in at the breast-bone, and came out at the small of the back; but the bear was not checked. It went on, taking the spear along with it, and sending out streams of blood like the spouts of a dying whale. When at last it ceased to roll, it lay stretched out upon the ice—dead!”

The wizard paused, and looked round. There was a deep-drawn sigh, as if the audience had been relieved from a severe strain of attention. And so they had; and the wizard accepted that involuntary sigh as an evidence of the success of his effort to amuse.

“How big was that bear?” asked Ippegoo, gazing on his master with a look of envious admiration.

“How big?” repeated Ujarak; “oh, as big—far bigger than—than—the—biggest bear I have ever seen.”

“Oh, then it was an invisible bear, was it?” asked Okiok in surprise.

“How? What do you mean?” demanded the wizard, with an air of what was meant for grave contempt.

“If it was bigger than the biggest bear you have ever seen,” replied Okiok, with a stupid look; “then you could not have seen it, because, you know, it could not well be bigger than itself.”

“Huk! that’s true,” exclaimed one, while others laughed heartily, for Eskimos dearly love a little banter.

“Boh! ba! boo!” exclaimed Simek, after a sudden guffaw; “that’s not equal to what I did to the walrus. Did I ever tell it you, friends?—but never mind whether I did or not. I’ll tell it to our guest the Kablunet now.”

The jovial hunter was moved to this voluntary and abrupt offer of a story by his desire to prevent anything like angry feeling arising between Okiok and the wizard. Of course the company, as well as Rooney, greeted the proposal with pleasure, for although Simek did not often tell of his own exploits, and made no pretension to be a graphic story-teller, they all knew that whatever he undertook he did passably well, while his irrepressible good-humour and hilarity threw a sort of halo round all that he said.

“Well, my friends, it was a terrible business!”

Simek paused, and looked round on the company with a solemn stare, which produced a smothered laugh—in some cases a little shriek of delight—for every one, except the wizard himself, recognised in the look and manner an imitation of Ujarak.

“A dreadful business,” continued Simek; “but I got over it, as you shall hear. I too have a torngak. You need not laugh, my friends. It is true. He is only a little one, however—about so high, (holding up his thumb), and he never visits me except at night. One night he came to me, as I was lying on my back, gazing through a hole in the roof at our departed friends dancing in the sky.2 He sat down on the bridge of my nose, and looked at me. I looked at him. Then he changed his position, sat down on my chin, and looked at me over my nose. Then he spoke.

“‘Do you know White-bear Bay?’ he asked.

“‘Know it?’ said I—‘do I know my own mother?’

“‘What answer is that?’ he said in surprise.

“Then I remembered that torngaks—especially little ones—don’t understand jokes, nothing but simple speech; so I laughed.

“‘Don’t laugh,’ he said, ‘your breath is strong.’ And that was true; besides, I had a bad cold at the time, so I advised him to get off my chin, for if I happened to cough he might fall in and be swallowed before I could prevent it.

“‘Tell me,’ said he, with a frown, ‘do you know White-bear Bay?’

“‘Yes!’ said I, in a shout that made him stagger.

“‘Go there,’ said he, ‘and you shall see a great walrus, as big as one of the boats of the women. Kill it.’

“The cold getting bad at that moment, I gave a tremendous sneeze, which blew my torngak away—”

A shriek of delight, especially from the children, interrupted Simek at this point. Little Tumbler, who still sat on Rooney’s knee, was the last to recover gravity, and little Pussi, who still nestled beside Nunaga, nearly rolled on the floor from sympathy.

Before the story could be resumed, one of the women announced that a favourite dish which had been for some time preparing was ready. The desire for that dish proving stronger than the desire for the story, the company, including Simek, set to work on it with as much gusto as if they had eaten nothing for hours past!

Chapter Twelve.

Combines Story-Telling (in both Senses) with Fasting, Fun, and more Serious Matters

The favourite dish having been disposed of, Simek continued his story.

“Well,” said he, “after my little torngak had been blown away, I waited a short time, hoping that he would come back, but he did not; so I got up, took a spear in my hand, and went off to White-bear Bay, determined to see if the little spirit had spoken the truth. Sure enough, when I got to the bay, there was the walrus sitting beside its hole, and looking about in all directions as if it were expecting me. It was a giant walrus,” said Simek, lowering his remarkably deep voice to a sort of thunderous grumble that filled the hearts of his auditors with awe in spite of themselves, “a—most—awful walrus! It was bigger,”—here he looked pointedly at Okiok—“than—than the very biggest walrus I have ever seen! I have not much courage, friends, but I went forward, and threw my spear at it.” (The listeners gasped.) “It missed!” (They groaned.) “Then I turned, and, being filled with fear, I ran. Did you ever see me run?”

“Yes, yes,” from the eager company.

“No, my friends, you never saw me run! Anything you ever saw me do was mere walking—creeping—standing still, compared with what I did then on that occasion. You know I run fast?” (“Yes, yes.”) “But that big walrus ran faster. It overtook me; it overturned me; it swallowed me!”

Here Simek paused, as if to observe how many of them swallowed that. And, after all, the appeal to their credulity was not as much overstrained as the civilised reader may fancy, for in their superstitious beliefs Eskimos held that there was one point in the training of a superior class of angekoks which necessitated the swallowing of the neophyte by a bear and his returning to his friends alive and well after the operation! Besides, Simek had such an honest, truthful expression of countenance and tone of voice, that he could almost make people believe anything he chose to assert. Some there were among his hearers who understood the man well, and guessed what was coming; others there were who, having begun by thinking him in jest, now grew serious, under the impression that he was in earnest; but by far the greater number believed every word he said. All, however, remained in expectant silence while he gravely went on:—

“My friends, you will not doubt me when I say that it was very hot inside of that walrus. I stripped myself, but was still too hot. Then I sat down on one of his ribs to think. Suddenly it occurred to me to draw my knife and cut myself out. To my dismay, I found that my knife had been lost in the struggle when I was swallowed. I was in despair, for you all know, my friends, how impossible it is to cut up a walrus, either from out or inside, without a knife. In my agony I seized the monster’s heart, and tried to tear it; but it was too hard-hearted for that. The effort only made the creature tremble and jump, which I found inconvenient. I also knew from the curious muffled sound outside that it was roaring. I sat down again on a rib to consider. If I had been a real angekok, my torngak no doubt would have helped me at that time—but he did not.”

“How could you have a torngak at all if you are not a real angekok?” demanded the wizard, in a tone that savoured of contempt.

“You shall hear. Patience!” returned Simek quietly, and then went on:—

“I had not sat long when I knew by the motions of the beast that he was travelling over the ice—no doubt making for his water-hole. ‘If he gets into the sea,’ I thought, ‘it will be the end of me.’ I knew, of course, that he could not breathe under water, and that he could hold his breath so long that before he came up again for fresh air I should be suffocated. My feelings became dreadful. I hope, my friends, that you will never be in a situation like it. In my despair I rushed about from the head to the tail. I must have hurt him dreadfully in doing so—at least I thought so, from the way he jumped about. Once or twice I was tossed from side to side as if he was rolling over. You know I am a man of tender heart. My wife says that, so it must be true; but my heart was hardened by that time; I cared not. I cared for nothing!

“Suddenly I saw a small sinew, in the form of a loop, close to the creature’s tail. As a last hope, without knowing why, I seized it and tugged. The tail, to my surprise, came slightly inwards. I tugged again. It came further in. A new thought came to me suddenly. This was curious, for, you know, that never since I was a little child have my thoughts been quick, and very seldom new. But somehow the thought came—without the aid of my torngak too! I tugged away at that tail with all my might. It came further and further in each tug. At last I got it in as far as the stomach. I was perspiring all over. Suddenly I felt a terrific heave. I guessed what that was. The walrus was sick, and was trying to vomit his own tail! It was awful! Each heave brought me nearer to the mouth. But now the difficulty of moving the mass that I had managed to get inside had become so great that I felt the thing to be quite beyond my power, and that I must leave the rest to nature. Still, however, I continued the tugging, in order to keep up the sickness—also to keep me employed, for whenever I paused to recover breath I was forced to resume work to prevent my fainting away altogether, being so terrified at the mere thought of my situation. To be inside a walrus is bad enough, but to be inside of a sick walrus!—my friends, I cannot describe it.

“Suddenly there was a heave that almost rent the ribs of the creature apart. Like an arrow from a bow, I was shot out upon the ice, and with a clap like thunder that walrus turned inside out! And then,” said Simek, with glaring solemnity, “I awoke—for it was all a dream!”

There was a gasp and cheer of delight at this, mingled with prolonged laughter, for now the most obtuse even among the children understood that Simek had been indulging in a tale of the imagination, while those whose wits were sharper saw and enjoyed the sly hits which had been launched at Ujarak throughout. Indeed the wizard himself condescended to smile at the conclusion, for the tale being a dream, removed from it the only objectionable part in his estimation, namely, that any torngak, great or small, would condescend to have intercourse with one who was not an angekok.

“Now,” cried Okiok, starting up, “bring more meat; we are hungry again.”

“Huk! huk!” exclaimed the assenting company.

“And when we are stuffed,” continued Okiok, “we will be glad to hear what the Kablunet has to tell about his own land.”

The approval of this suggestion was so decided and hearty, that Red Rooney felt it to be his duty to gratify his hospitable friends to the utmost of his power. Accordingly he prepared himself while they were engaged with the second edition of supper. The task, however, proved to be surrounded with difficulties much greater than he had expected. Deeming it not only wise, but polite, to begin with something complimentary, he said:—

“My friends, the Innuits are a great people. They work hard; they are strong and brave, and have powerful wills.”

As these were facts which every one admitted, and Rooney uttered them with considerable emphasis and animation; the statement of them was received with nods, and huks, and other marks of approval.

“The Innuits are also hospitable,” he continued. “A Kablunet came to them starving, dying. The Great Spirit who made us all, and without whose permission nothing at all can happen, sent Okiok to help him. Okiok is kind; so is his wife; also his daughter. They took the poor Kablunet to their house. They fed—they stuffed—him. Now he is getting strong, and will soon be able to join in kick-ball, and pull-over, and he may perhaps, before long, teach your great angekok Ujarak some things that he does not yet know!”

As this was said with a motion in one eye which strongly resembled a wink, the audience burst into mingled applause and laughter. To some, the idea of their wise man being taught anything by a poor benighted Kablunet was ridiculous. To others, the hope of seeing the wizard’s pride humbled was what is slangily termed “nuts.” Ujarak himself took the remark in good part, in consequence of the word “great” having been prefixed to his title.

“But,” continued the seaman, with much earnestness, “having said that I am grateful, I will not say more about the Innuit just now. I will only tell you, in few words, some things about my own country which will interest you. I have been asked if we have big villages. Yes, my friends, we have very big villages—so big that I fear you will find it difficult to understand what I say.”

“The Innuit have big understandings,” said Simek, with a bland smile, describing a great circle with his outspread arms; “do not fear to try them.”

“Well, one village we have,” resumed Rooney, “is as broad as from here to the house of Okiok under the great cliff, and it is equally long.”

The “huks” and “hois!” with which this was received proved that, big as their understandings were, the Eskimos were not prepared to take in so vast an idea.

“Moreover,” said the seaman, “because there is not enough of space, the houses are built on the top of each other—one—two—three—four—even five and six—one standing on the other.”

As each number was named, the eyes of the assembly opened wider with surprise, until they could open no further.

“Men, women, and children live in these houses; and if you were to spread them all over the ice here, away as far as you can see in every direction, you would not be able to see the ice at all for the houses.”

“What a liar!” murmured the mother of Arbalik to the mother of Ippegoo.

“Dreadful!” responded the latter.

“Moreover,” continued Rooney, “these people can put their words and thoughts down on a substance called paper and send them to each other, so that men and women who may be hundreds of miles away can talk with each other and understand what they say and think, though they cannot hear or see each other, and though their words and thoughts take days and moons to travel.”

The breathless Eskimos glanced at each other, and tried to open their eyes wider, but, having already reached the utmost limit, they failed. Unfortunately at that moment our hero was so tickled by the appearance of the faces around him, that he smiled. In a moment the eyes collapsed and the mouths opened.

“Ha! ha–a–a!” roared Simek, rubbing his hands; “the Kablunet is trying to beat my walrus.”

“And he has succeeded,” cried Angut, who felt it his duty to stand up for the credit of his guest, though he greatly wished that he had on this occasion confined himself to sober truth.

A beaming expression forthwith took the place of surprise on every face, as it suddenly dawned upon the company that Ridroonee was to be classed with the funny dogs whose chief delight it is to recount fairy tales and other exaggerated stories, with a view to make the men shout, the women laugh, and the children squeak with amusement.

“Go on,” they cried; “tell us more.”

Rooney at once perceived his mistake, and the misfortune that had befallen him. His character for veracity was shaken. He felt that it would be better to say no more, to leave what he had said to be regarded as a fairy tale, and to confine himself entirely to simple matters, such as an Eskimo might credit. He looked at his friend Angut. Angut returned the look with profound gravity, almost sorrow. Evidently his faith in the Kablunet was severely shaken. “I’ll try them once more,” thought Rooney. “It won’t do to have a vast range of subjects tabooed just because they won’t believe. Come, I’ll try again.”

Putting on a look of intense earnestness, which was meant to carry irresistible conviction, he continued—

“We have kayaks—oomiaks—in my country, which are big enough to carry three or four times as many people as you have in this village.”

Another roar of laughter greeted this statement.

“Isn’t he a good liar?” whispered Arbalik’s mother.

“And so grave about it too,” replied Kunelik.

Red Rooney stopped.

The mother of Ippegoo, fearing he had divined her thoughts, was overwhelmed, and tried to hide her blushing face behind Issek.

“They don’t believe me,” said the seaman in a low voice to Okiok.

“Of course they don’t. You might as well tell us that the world is round, when we see that it is flat!”

Rooney sighed. He felt depressed. The impossibility of his ever getting these people to understand or believe many things was forced upon him. The undisguised assurance that they looked upon him as the best liar they had ever met with was unsatisfactory.

“Besides all this, my friends,” he cried, with a feeling and air of reckless gaiety, “we have grand feasts, just as you have, and games too, and dances, and songs—”

“Songs!” shouted Simek, with an excited look; “have you songs? can you sing?”

“Well, after a fashion I can,” returned Rooney, with a modest look, “though I don’t pretend to be much of a dab at it. Are you fond o’ singin’?”

“Fond!” echoed Simek, with a gaze of enthusiasm, “I love it! I love it nearly as much as I love Pussimek; better, far, than I love blubber! Ho! sing to us, Ridroonee.”

“With all my heart,” said Rooney, starting off with all his lung-power, which was by no means slight.

“Rule Britannia,” rendered in good time, with tremendous energy, and all the additional flourishes possible, nearly drove the audience wild with delight. They had never heard anything like it before.

“That beats you, Okiok,” said Simek.