“Of course I won’t forget you, you silly old Fingal, because Alba has come. I have room in my heart for both.”
Towards sunset that day the weather cleared, the wind having gone round to the nor’-east-and-by-east. The sea too went down with the sun, though it still ran high; a morsel of canvas was got up to steady her, and leaning over to it away she went, cutting merrily through the water as if she had been a veritable living thing. The stars shone that night so brilliantly; it was as though you could have stretched out your hand and touched them, so large, lustrous, and near-like were they. A broad white gleam of auroral light was in the north, above it the sky was of a strange sea-green hue. But a whisper had gone around the ship that a spirit had come on board, and an anxious group was seated round the galley fire to discuss the situation.
“If it’s a spirit,” said Tom Scott at last, “it’s a good one. It has brought us good weather. Hurrah, lads! give us a song somebody.”
The good ship Icebear had no more adventures for nearly a fortnight, by which time she had rounded Cape Farewell and reached the north-eastern ice.
“And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold,
And ice, mast-high, came floating by
As green as emerald.”
Note 1. Sea-birds are usually unable to fly after they alight. A Cape pigeon, for example, gets giddy and frightened at once when put on deck.
Note 2. The author could adduce very many instances in proof of the good surgeon’s statement.