“I know what you’ve come to say, Paddy,” said Claude: “the Eskimos have taken the sledges and deserted us.”
“True for you, sorr,” said Paddy. “It’s all up wid us now, sorr. Sure I could tear me hair and cry; and it isn’t for meself either, sorr, I’d be after crying, but for me poor mother and Biddy.”
“This is, indeed, terrible news, doctor,” said Claude.
The doctor whistled a few bars of an operatic air thoughtfully before he made reply.
“It may be all for the best, you know. Hope, sir, hope, hope, hope.
“‘Hope is a better companion than fear;
Providence, ever benignant and kind,
Gives with a smile what you take with a tear.
All will be right; Let us look to the light.
Morning is ever the daughter of night.
Cheerily, cheerily, then, cheer up!’”
Note 1. The Scymnus Borealis. Some of these monsters obtain a length of nearly twenty feet, and at certain seasons of the year the sea in some places swarms with them. They are gregarious, and never fail to appear when men are drowning or seals being killed. They are terribly fierce and voracious.