The World of Ice | Page 6

life was despaired of. During his
illness Fred nursed him with the utmost tenderness, and, in seeking to
comfort his father, found some relief to his own stricken heart.
Months passed away. Captain Ellice was conveyed to the residence of
his sister in Grayton, and, under her care, and the nursing of his little
niece, Isobel, he recovered his wonted health and strength. To the eyes
of men, Captain Ellice and his son were themselves again, but those
who judge of men's hearts by their outward appearance and expressions,
in nine cases out of ten judge very wide of the mark indeed. Both had
undergone a great change. The brilliancy and glitter of this world had
been completely and rudely dispelled, and both had been led to enquire

whether there was not something better to live for than mere present
advantage and happiness; something that would stand by them in those
hours of sickness and sorrow which must inevitably, sooner or later,
come upon all men.
But Captain Ellice could not be induced to resume the command of his
old ship, or voyage again to the West Indies. He determined to change
the scene of his future labours and sail to the frozen seas, where the
aspect of every object--even the ocean itself--would be very unlikely to
recall the circumstances of his loss.
Some time after his recovery, Captain Ellice purchased a brig, and
fitted her out as a whaler, determined to try his fortune in the northern
seas. Fred pleaded hard to be taken out, but his father felt that he had
more need to go to school than to sea; so he refused, and Fred, after
sighing very deeply once or twice, gave in with a good grace. Buzzby,
too, who stuck to his old commander like a leech, was equally anxious
to go, but Buzzby, in a sudden and unaccountable fit of tenderness, had,
just two months before, married a wife, who might be appropriately
described as "fat, fair, and forty," and Buzzby's wife absolutely forbade
him to go. Alas! Buzzby was no longer his own master. At the age of
forty-five he became--as he himself expressed it--an abject slave, and
he would as soon have tried to steer in a slipper bath, right in the teeth
of an equinoctial hurricane, as have opposed the will of his wife. He
used to sigh gruffly when spoken to on this subject, and compare
himself to a Dutch galliot that made more lee-way than head-way, even
with a wind on the quarter. "Once," he would remark, "I was
clipper-built and could sail right in the wind's eye, but ever since I tuck
this craft in tow I've gone to leeward like a tub. In fact, I find there's
only one way of going ahead with my Poll, and that is right before the
wind! I used to yaw about a good deal at first, but she tuck that out o'
me in a day or two. If I put the helm only so much as one stroke to
starboard, she guv' a tug at the tow-rope that brought the wind dead aft
again; so I've gi'n it up, and lashed the tiller right amidships."
So Buzzby did not accompany his old commander; he did not even so
much as suggest the possibility of it, but he shook his head with great

solemnity as he stood with Fred, and Mrs Bright, and Isobel, at the end
of the pier, gazing at the brig, with one eye very much screwed up, and
a wistful expression in the other, while the graceful craft spread out her
canvas and bent over to the breeze.
CHAPTER TWO.
DEPARTURE OF THE POLE STAR FOR THE FROZEN
SEAS--SAGE REFLECTIONS OF MRS. BRIGHT, AND
SAGACIOUS REMARKS OF BUZZBY--ANXIETIES, FEARS,
SURMISES, AND RESOLUTIONS--ISOBEL--A SEARCH
PROPOSED--DEPARTURE OF THE DOLPHIN FOR THE FAR
NORTH.
Digressions are bad at the best, and we feel some regret that we should
have been compelled to begin our book with one; but they are
necessary evils, 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 Pole Star whale-ship, which is now a scarcely distinguishable
speck on the horizon.
As it disappeared Buzzby gave a grunt, Fred and Isobel uttered a sigh
in unison, and Mrs Bright resumed the fit of weeping which for some
time she had unconsciously suspended.
"I fear we shall never see him again," sobbed Mrs Bright, as she took
Isobel by the hand and sauntered slowly home, accompanied by Fred
and Buzzby, the latter of whom seemed to regard himself in the light of
a shaggy Newfoundland or mastiff, who had been left