“When spring returned, with many a blessing following us, we steamed away south, and in due time reached dear old England once again; but no one who was on board the saucy Skua is likely to forget that Christmas we spent in the Arctic Sea.”
“So now good-night, Maggie May, and good-night all,” said Uncle Frank, getting up and laying his fiddle as carefully aside as if it had been a living, breathing thing.
“I’ll sleep soundly to-night,” he added.
“The wind in the trees won’t keep you awake,” I said, laughing.
“Quite the reverse, lad,” replied Frank; “I shall take it for the sound of the waves, and dream I am far away at sea.”
And after he had gone aloft, as he called it, we could hear that deep manly voice of his, trolling forth a verse of that grand old hymn:
“Rocked in the cradle of the deep,
I lay me down in peace to sleep;
Secure I rest upon the wave,
For Thou, O Lord! hast power to save.”