The World of Ice | Page 2

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 a suspicious-looking schooner to windward, bearing down upon them under a cloud of canvas.
"What do you think of her, Buzzby?" enquired Captain Ellice, handing his glass to