The World of Ice | Page 2

we're all ready, and if he don't
make haste he'll lose the tide, so he will, and that'll make us have to
start on a Friday, it will, an' that'll not do for me no how, it won't; so
make sail and look sharp about it, do--won't you?"
"What a tongue he's got," remarked Buzzby. "Before I'd go to sea with
a first mate who jawed like that I'd be a landsman. Don't ever you git to
talk too much, Master Fred, wotever ye do. My maxim is--and it has

served me through life, uncommon,--`Keep your weather-eye open and
your tongue housed 'xcept when you've got occasion to use it.' If that
fellow'd use his eyes more and his tongue less he'd see your father
comin' down the road there, right before the wind; with his old sister in
tow."
"How I wish he would have let me go with him!" muttered Fred to
himself sorrowfully.
"No chance now, I'm a-feared," remarked his companion. "The
gov'nor's as stiff as a nor'wester. Nothin' in the world can turn him once
he's made up his mind, but a regular sou'easter. Now, if you had been
my son, and yonder tight craft my ship, I would have said, come, at
once. But your father knows best, lad, and you're a wise son to obey
orders cheerfully, without question. That's another o' my maxims:
`Obey orders an' ax no questions.'"
Frederick Ellice, senior, who now approached, whispering words of
consolation into the ear of his weeping sister, might, perhaps, have just
numbered fifty years. He was a fine, big, bold, hearty Englishman, with
a bald head, grizzled locks, a loud but not harsh voice, a rather quick
temper, and a kind, earnest, enthusiastic heart. Like Buzzby, he had
spent nearly all his life at sea, and had become so thoroughly
accustomed to walking on an unstable foundation, that he felt quite
uncomfortable on solid ground, and never remained more than a few
months at a time on shore. He was a man of good education and
gentlemanly manners, and had worked his way up in the merchant
service, step by step, until he obtained the command of a West India
trader.
A few years previous to the period in which our tale opens, an event
occurred which altered the course of Captain Ellice's life, and for a long
period plunged him into the deepest affliction. This was the loss of his
wife at sea, under peculiarly distressing circumstances.
At the age of thirty Captain Ellice had married a pretty blue-eyed girl,
who resolutely refused to become a sailor's bride, unless she should be
permitted to accompany her husband to sea. This was without much

difficulty agreed to, and forthwith Alice Bremner became Mrs Ellice,
and went to sea. It was during her third voyage to the West Indies that
our hero, Fred, was born, and it was during this, and succeeding
voyages, that Buzzby became "all but a wet-nurse" to him.
Mrs Ellice was a loving, gentle, seriously-minded woman. She devoted
herself, heart and soul, to the training of her boy, and spent many a
pleasant hour in that little unsteady cabin, in endeavouring to instil into
his infant mind the blessed truths of Christianity, and in making the
name of Jesus familiar to his ear. As Fred grew older, his mother
encouraged him to hold occasional intercourse with the sailors, for her
husband's example taught her the value of a bold, manly spirit, and she
knew that it was impossible for her to instil that into him, but she was
careful to guard him from the evil that he might chance to learn from
the men, by committing him to the tender care of Buzzby. To do the
men justice, however, this was almost unnecessary, for they felt that a
mother's watchful eye was on the child, and no unguarded word fell
from their lips while he was romping about the forecastle.
When it was time for Fred to go to school, Mrs Ellice gave up her
roving life, and settled in her native town of Grayton, where she resided
with her widowed sister, Amelia Bright, and her niece Isobel. Here
Fred received the rudiments of an excellent education at a private
academy. At the age of twelve, however, Master Fred became restive,
and, during one of his father's periodical visits home, begged to be
taken to sea. Captain Ellice agreed; Mrs Ellice insisted on
accompanying them, and in a few weeks they were once again on their
old home, the ocean, and Fred was enjoying his native air in company
with his friend Buzzby, who stuck to the old ship like one of her own
stout timbers.
But this was destined to be a disastrous voyage. One evening, after
crossing the line, they descried