The World of Ice Page 2

  CHAPTER TWO.

  DEPARTURE OF THE POLE STAR FOR THE FROZEN SEAS--SAGE REFLECTIONS OF MRS.BRIGHT, AND SAGACIOUS REMARKS OF BUZZBY--ANXIETIES, FEARS, SURMISES, ANDRESOLUTIONS--ISOBEL--A SEARCH PROPOSED--DEPARTURE OF THE DOLPHIN FOR THEFAR NORTH.

  Digressions are bad at the best, and we feel some regret that we shouldhave been compelled to begin our book with one; but they are necessaryevils, sometimes, so we must ask our reader's forgiveness, and beg him,or her, to remember that we are still at the commencement of our story,standing at the end of the pier, and watching the departure of the _PoleStar_ whale-ship, which is now a scarcely distinguishable speck on thehorizon.

  As it disappeared Buzzby gave a grunt, Fred and Isobel uttered a sigh inunison, and Mrs Bright resumed the fit of weeping which for some timeshe had unconsciously suspended.

  "I fear we shall never see him again," sobbed Mrs Bright, as she tookIsobel by the hand and sauntered slowly home, accompanied by Fred andBuzzby, the latter of whom seemed to regard himself in the light of ashaggy Newfoundland or mastiff, who had been left to protect the family."We are always hearing of whale-ships being lost, and, somehow orother, we _never_ hear of the crews being saved, as one reads of whenships are wrecked in the usual way on the sea-shore."

  Isobel squeezed her mother's hand, and looked up in her face with anexpression that said plainly: "Don't cry so, Mamma, I'm _sure_ he willcome back," but she could not find words to express herself, so sheglanced towards the mastiff for help.

  Buzzby felt that it devolved upon him to afford consolation under thecircumstances, but Mrs Bright's mind was of that peculiar stamp whichrepels advances in the way of consolation unconsciously, and Buzzby waspuzzled. He screwed up first the right eye and then the left, and smotehis thigh repeatedly; and assuredly, if contorting his visage could havecomforted Mrs Bright, she would have returned home a happy woman, forhe made faces at her violently for full five minutes; but it did her nogood, perhaps because she didn't see him, her eyes being suffused withtears.

  "Ah! yes," resumed Mrs Bright, with another burst, "I _know_ they willnever come back, and your silence shows that you think so too; and tothink of their taking two years' provisions with them _in case ofaccidents_!--doesn't that prove that there are _going_ to be accidents?and didn't I hear one of the sailors say that she was a crack ship, anumber one? I don't know what he meant by a number one; but if she's acracked ship I _know_ she will never come back; and although I told mydear brother of it, and advised him not to go, he only laughed at me,which was very unkind, I'm sure--"

  Here Mrs Bright's feelings overcame her again.

  "Why, Aunt," said Fred, scarce able to restrain a laugh, despite thesadness that lay at his heart, "when the sailor said it was a crackship, he meant that it was a _good_ one, a first-rate one."

  "Then why did he not say what he meant? But you are talking nonsense,boy; do you think that I will believe a man means to say a thing is goodwhen he calls it cracked? and I'm sure nobody would say a crackedtea-pot was as good as a whole one; but tell me, Buzzby, do you thinkthey ever _will_ come back?"

  "Why, ma'am, in coorse I do," replied Buzzby vehemently; "for why? ifthey don't, they're the first that ever went out o' this port in my dayas didn't. They've a good ship and lots o' grub, and it's like to be agood season; and Captain Ellice has, for the most part, good luck; andthey've started with a fair wind, and kep' clear of a Friday, and whatmore could ye wish? I only wish as I was aboard along with them, that'sall."

  Buzzby delivered himself of this oration with the left eye shut andscrewed up, and the right one open. Having concluded, he shut andscrewed up the right eye, and opened the left--he reversed the engine,so to speak, as if he wished to back out from the scene of his triumph,and leave the course clear for others to speak. But his words werethrown away on Mrs Bright, who was emphatically a weak-minded woman,and never exercised her reason at all, except in a spasmodic, galvanicsort of way, when she sought to defend or to advocate some unreasonableconclusion of some sort, at which her own weak mind had arrived somehow.So she shook her head, and sobbed good-bye to Buzzby, as she ascendedthe sloping avenue that led to her pretty cottage, on the green hillthat overlooked the harbour and the sea beyond.

  As for John Buzzby, having been absent from home full half an hourbeyond his usual dinner-hour, he felt that, for a man who had lashed hishelm amidships, he was yawing alarmingly out of his course, so he spreadall the canvas he could carry, and steered, right before the wind,towards the village, where, in a little, whitewashed, low-roofed,one-doored and two-little-windowed cottage, his spouse (and dinner)awaited him.

  To make a long story short, three years passed away, but the _Pole Star_did not return, and no news of her could be got from the variouswhale-ships that visited the port of Grayton. Towards the end of thesecond year Buzzby began to shake his head despondingly; and as thethird drew to a close, the expression of gloom never left his honest,weather-beaten face. Mrs Bright too, whose anxiety at first was onlyhalf genuine, now became seriously alarmed, and the fate of the missingbrig began to be the talk of the neighbourhood. Meanwhile Fred Elliceand Isobel grew and improved in mind and body, but anxiety as to hisfather's fate rendered the former quite unable to pursue his studies,and he determined at last to procure a passage in a whale-ship, and goout in search of the brig.

  It happened that the principal merchant and ship-owner in the town, MrSingleton by name, was an intimate friend and old school-fellow ofCaptain Ellice, so Fred went boldly to him and proposed that a vesselshould be fitted out immediately, and sent off to search for hisfather's brig. Mr Singleton smiled at the request, and pointed out theutter impossibility of his agreeing to it; but he revived Fred's sinkinghopes by saying that, he was about to send out a whaler to the northernseas at any rate, and that he would give orders to the captain to devotea _portion_ of his time to the search, and, moreover, agreed to let Fredgo as a passenger in company with his own son Tom.

  Now Tom Singleton had been Fred's bosom friend and companion during hisfirst year at school, but during the last two years he had been sent tothe Edinburgh University, to prosecute his medical studies, and the twofriends had only met at rare intervals. It was with unbounded delight,therefore, that he found his old companion, now a youth of twenty, wasto go out as surgeon of the ship, and he could scarce contain himself,as he ran down to Buzzby's cottage to tell him the good news, and askhim to join.

  Of course Buzzby was ready to go, and, what was of far greaterimportance in the matter, his wife threw no obstacle in the way. On thecontrary, she undid the lashings of the helm with her own hand, and toldher wondering partner, with a good-humoured (but firm) smile, to steerwhere he chose, and she would content herself with the society of thetwo young Buzzbys (both miniature facsimiles of their father), till hecame back.

  Once again a whale-ship prepared to sail from the port of Grayton, andonce again Mrs Bright and Isobel stood on the pier to see her depart.Isobel was about thirteen now, and as pretty a girl, according toBuzzby, as you could meet with in any part of Britain. Her eyes wereblue, and her hair nut-brown, and her charms of face and figure wereenhanced immeasurably by an air of modesty and earnestness that wentstraight home to your heart, and caused you to adore her at once.Buzzby doated on her as if she were his only child, and felt a secretpride in being in some undefinable way her protector. Buzzbyphilosophised about her, too, after a strange fashion. "You see," hewould say to Fred, "it's not that her figure-head is cut altogetherafter a parfect pattern; by no means, for I've seen pictur's and statuesthat wos better; but she carries her head a little down, d'ye see,Master Fred, and there's where it is; that's the way I gauges the wortho' young women, jist accordin' as they carry their chins up or down. Iftheir brows come well for'ard, and they seems to be lookin' at theground they walk on, I knows their brains is firm stuff, and in goodworkin' order; but when I sees them carryin' their noses high out o' thewater, as if they wos afeard o' catchin' sight o' their own feet, andtheir chins elewated so th
at a little boy standin' in front o' themcouldn't see their faces nohow, I make pretty sure that t'other end isfilled with a sort o' _mush_ that's fit only to think o' dress anddancing."

  On the present occasion Isobel's eyes were red and swollen, and by nomeans improved by weeping. Mrs Bright, too, although three years haddone little to alter her character, seemed to be less demonstrative, andmuch more sincere than usual, in her grief at parting from Fred.

  In a few minutes all was ready. Young Singleton and Buzzby havinghastily but earnestly bade Mrs Bright and her daughter farewell, leapedon board. Fred lingered for a moment.

  "Once more, dear Aunt," said he, "farewell! With God's blessing weshall come back soon. Write to me, darling Isobel, won't you? toUppernavik, on the coast of Greenland. If none of our ships are boundin that direction, write by way of Denmark. Old Mr Singleton will tellyou how to address your letter, and see that it be a long one."

  "Now, then, youngster, jump aboard," shouted the captain; "look sharp!"

  "Ay, ay," returned Fred, and in another moment he was on thequarter-deck, by the side of his friend Tom.

  The ship, loosed from her moorings, spread her canvas, and plungedforward on her adventurous voyage.

  But this time she does not grow smaller as she advances before thefreshening breeze, for you and I, reader, have embarked in her, and theland now fades in the distance, until it sinks from view on the distanthorizon, while nothing meets our gaze, but the vault of the bright bluesky above, and the plain of the dark blue sea below.