“And now, sir,” continued Mitchell, “I come to tell you that quite a wall of mist is rolling down upon us from the nor’-east. It is as close and black as factory smoke, and it is now close aboard of us.”
“Any wind?”
“Not much, sir, but what little there is is coming down along with the mist.”
“Then fill the foreyard, Mr Mitchell. Set every stitch she’ll bear, studding-sails if you like, so long as it isn’t too dark and close, and the bergs are anything like visible. I’ll be on deck myself presently.”
“Well, Rory,” said Captain McBain, entering the snuggery that same night, rubbing his hands and beaming with smiles, “so we have borne up at last; how do you like the idea of returning to your native land after all your long journeyings and wild adventures?”
“Indeed, I like it immensely,” replied Rory, “barring the difference that it isn’t my native land I’ll be going to after all, but the land o’ the mountain and the flood. Oh! won’t I be happy to meet Allan’s dear mother and sister again! And even Janet, the dear old soul!”
“Well,” said McBain, taking up Rory’s fiddle and thoughtfully bringing some very discordant notes out of it, “I sincerely hope they will be all alive to meet us: if the meeting be all right I don’t fear for the greeting.” Then brightening up and putting down the instrument, he continued, “I’ve been leaning over the bows for the last hour, and thinking, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we haven’t done so badly by our cruise after all.”
“We haven’t filled up with ivory from the mammoth caves though,” said Ralph, with a sigh.
“Why that plaintive sigh, poor soul?” asked Rory.
“Ah! because, you know,” replied Ralph, pinching Rory’s ear, “we haven’t made wealth untold, and I’ll have to marry my grandmother after all.”