We have seen the steps of bears in the snow about the ship but I haven’t had a bang at one yet. I shot a fine sea elephant yesterday 11 feet long, as big as a walrus. They are formidable brutes and can give a bear more than he brings. Our young sealing is over now and has been a comparative failure, about 25 tons, but we will follow up the old seals now as they go North, and then away we go past Spitzbergen & over 80° Lat for the whaling where we hope to do better.
I have enjoyed my voyage immensely, my dear, and only hope you are as cheery. I don’t think you would have recognized me as I came into the cabin just now—I’m sure you wouldn’t. The Captain says I make the most awful looking savage he ever saw. My hair was on end, my face covered with dirt and perspiration, and my hands with blood. I had my oldest clothes on, my sea boots were shining with water and crusted with snow at the top. I had a belt round my coat with a knife in a sheath and a steel stuck in it, all clotted with blood. I had a coil of rope slung round my shoulders, & a long gory poleaxe in my hand. That’s the photograph of your little cherub, madam. I never before knew what it was to be thoroughly healthy. I just feel as if I could go anywhere or do anything. I’m sure I could go anywhere and eat anything.
Now, my dear, don’t be uneasy during the next month or two. If ever a round peg (not pig) got into a round hole it is me. Give my love to Greenhill Place also to Mrs Waller and the Doctor, also to Mrs Neilson & all in London. I would have written to London and to Greenhill Place and London but there is a ship alongside for our letters and I thought one good letter was worth three bad ones.
All kind regards to Mrs Budd and Budd himself. Don’t lose his address.
[P.S.] The Captain sends his compliments & says that I am an untidy rag; but sternly refuses to explain the meaning of this term of opprobrium. He calls me the ‘Great Northern Diver’ too in allusion to my recent exploits in the bathing way.
He did not tell his mother that he was dubbed that after nearly losing his life two days earlier. His diary for April 5th records:
I had just killed a seal on a large piece [of ice] when I fell over the side. Nobody was near and the water was deadly cold. I had hold
of the edge of the ice to prevent my sinking, but it was too smooth and slippery to climb up by, but at last I got hold of the seal’s hind flippers and managed to pull myself up by them.
A ‘nightmare tug-of-war,’ he recalled afterwards, ‘the question being whether I should pull the seal off or pull myself on.’
‘Look here,’ he continued; ‘it’s a dangerous place this, even at its best—a treacherous, dangerous place. I have known men cut off very suddenly in a land like this. A slip would do it sometimes—a single slip, and down you go through a crack, and only a bubble on the green water to show where it was that you sank.’
—‘The Captain of the Polestar’
Less than a week later, he saw for the first time a patient of his (an elderly seaman named Andrew Milne) die—‘died in my arms literally’, his diary noted: ‘Poor old man. They were kind to him forwards during his illness, and certainly I did my best for him.’
The Hope returned to Scotland on August 10th. ‘The green grass on shore looks very cool and refreshing to me after nearly 6 months never seeing it,’ his diary admitted, ‘but the houses look revolting. I hate the vulgar hum of men and would like to be back at the floes again.’ He returned to Dr Hoare’s, and began the division between medicine and writing that would characterize his life for the next dozen years.
to Mary Doyle BIRMINGHAM, NOVEMBER 16, 1880
On receipt of your letter I pulled on a decent pair of trousers, sprang into a surtout, rushed up to Broad Street and fell upon Gamgee’s neck, saying ‘Behold your long lost visitor’—at least I would have, only he was out and so was his better half, so I performed a Can-Can of delight on the doorstep and left my cards to the astonished slavey. Its his turn now, thank the Lord. Why don’t you write? You have no excuse. I have no news to give & thats my reason. We are working away night and day in our usual humdrum style, and as happy and cheerful as sandboys. I am grinding too as well as the work will permit; I think I will run down to Budd’s somewhere about March and have a good read there before I come home. He has a lot of notes and things which I can get nowhere else.
No word from London Society yet. I suppose a magazine of that calibre is above bilking one. I am much pleased by what you say of Blackwood. I always thought that was a good story.* I am going to write a case for the British Medical. I will tell you when it appears.
You are right about the suit. I can pull along nicely without but why don’t you send the collars and skates. My gloves are worn out but I can hardly afford another pair just now. I have only £3/6 in the bank. My trip to Herefordshire cost me money & I have had other expenses.
The Doctor and I are teatotal up to the 28th of this month. I don’t sleep quite so well but I am fresher in the mornings. He is as good a fellow as ever & Mrs Hoare is charming. Hoare is the only man I ever met who has no fault in his character—a plain straightforward jolly fellow without pride, affectation or anything else. A difficult man to abuse as Johnson said of Reynolds.
Yes, Horton is a real right-down good fellow. His heart is broad and kind and generous. There is nothing petty in the man. He loves to see those around him happy; and the sight of his sturdy figure and jolly red face goes far to make them so. Nature meant him to be a healer; for he brightens up a sick room as he did the Merton station when first I set eyes upon him.
—The Stark Munro Letters
to Mary Doyle BIRMINGHAM, NOVEMBER 1880
You are as bad as me for not answering questions. I want Letty’s address, also Annette’s, also Lottie’s permanent one. You never told me if James was thro’ though you once remarked that you were pleased about him, from which I infer he is. By all means keep the clothes until Easter, but send the skates as soon as you like. I am going to teach Mrs H. We will see what can be done for Xmas, my dear, I hope you may spend your old age in a house where there shall be money and to spare. We are to have fireworks tonight in Aspinal’s house out of town, and I am to be master of the revels, an office which always seems to fall to my lot, so I have to spend my leisure time punching eyes in a turnip instead of improving my mind. No word from London Society. I have another yarn on the stocks. I am going to write to Leigh Smith of the Eira today and ask him for a photo of my noble self. I was taken you know with a distinguished group on the quarterdeck.*
This mornings post brings letters from Budd and from Mrs Gray. Mrs Budd’s cousin is going to marry the brother of the Marquis of Lorne and there is going to be a great revel. Budd grumbles muchly over the price he’ll have to pay for a present. Mrs Hoare made me solemnly promise the evening I came that I wouldn’t make advances to the Governess who is rather a pretty girl, so I am very good. I am also good in the matter of the other more unsavoury subject. ; I got a telegram a few days ago from Porter to say that he was dying. I took a train and got down to Herefordshire by 9 in the evening, sat up all night by him poulticing his chest and filling him with drugs, and after seeing him turn the corner I was back in Birmingham in time to do a hard day’s work. That wasn’t bad. I enclose a letter I got from him yesterday to show how much better he is. ;
to Mary Doyle BIRMINGHAM, DECEMBER 1880