"'What, all by myself?' cried Johnnie, wagging his tail. 'Oh, that will be fun!'
"Johnnie's mother was very sorry to part with him, but she thought it would be all for the best. Ah! little did she think she would never see her boy any more.
"Johnnie started off in great glee at first; but when he was fairly clear of the ice, and the last white berg had disappeared behind the horizon; when as he rose on the great tumbling billows he could see nothing around him but an illimitable expanse of ocean, without a vestige of life in or over it, then he began to feel very lonely indeed, and half repented having come away at all. There was Providence, however, to guide and to guard him too, so he went steadily on and on, south, south, south, by night and by day. It was dreariest at night, when the stars were all shimmering above, and not a sound to be heard save now and then a sullen boom or plash, that told Johnnie plainly enough there were his enemies the sharks plunging about in the darkling sea not far off. Sometimes he slept and dreamt ugly dreams, and awoke with a start, to find terrible-looking ocean monsters with awful eyes staring up at him from the dark depths. He could see them because they were all covered over with a silvery, ghost-like light called phosphorescence, which is very common up in these wild northern latitudes. By day sharks often met him—the huge hammer-headed sort—and pretended to be friendly, and tried to lure him away into shallow water, where they could easily have devoured him.
"But Johnnie thanked them, and said, 'No.' He knew his way, and would stick to it.
"Johnnie had many other enemies to encounter, such as the sea unicorn, with its long spiral ivory horn—a bold beast that will scarcely go out of its way even for a ship. He tried to stab Johnnie to the heart, and if he had done so the sharks would have come to the banquet, and eaten the pair of them. But Johnnie avoided the deadly thrust, and with one blow of his tail pitched the unicorn nearly up to the moon. At least so the beast himself told the other unicorns he met soon after.
"But Johnnie escaped all his enemies, and arrived at last within sight of the Faröe Islands, where the water was delightfully mild and the sun very bright.
"Now, had Johnnie done what his mother told him, and not gone a mile further, all would have been well. But these sunny summer seas were so blue and pleasant that Johnnie went on and on. His life passed like a happy dream, the Shetland Islands hove in sight, bold black rocky isles crowned with green fields, with millions of sea birds all around them, then the lonesome Orkney, and then Scotland itself. There were strange birds in the air that cried to Johnnie, 'Go away, go away, away, away, away!' but Johnnie would not be warned and wouldn't obey his mother, and so——"
Eean was not allowed to complete his story.
"Oh!" cried Toddie gleefully, "I know what is toming, Daddy Pop."
"Well, then," said Frank, "can you complete the story?"