“Very, Row, but ‘pastures green’ and ‘quiet waters’ aren’t much in my way. Repeat me to sleep, Rory boy, and I promise you I won’t pull your ears again for a month.”
“Well, I’ll try,” says Row. “Are your eyes shut?”
“To be sure. A likely thing I’d have them open, isn’t it?”
“Then we’re both going to a ball in old England.”
“Glorious,” says Ray. “I’m there already.”
Then in slow, monotonous, but pleasing tones, Row goes on. He describes the brilliant festive scene, the warmth, the light, the beauty and the music, and the dances, and last but not least the supper table. It is at this point that our Saxon hero gives sundry nasal indications that this strange species of mesmerism had taken due effect, so Row leaves him at the supper table, and goes back to his “pastures green” and “quiet waters,” and soon they both are sound enough. Let us leave them there; no need to watch them. Remember what Lover says in his beautiful song,—
“O! watch ye well by daylight,
For angels watch at night.”
Poor McBain! Worn out with watching, he had sunk at last to sleep in his chair.
And day broke slowly on the sea of ice. The snow-clad crater’s peak was the first to welcome glorious aurora with a rosy blush, which stole gradually downwards till it settled on the jagged mountain tips. Then bears began to yawn and stretch themselves, the sly Arctic foxes crept forth from snow-banks, and birds in their thousands—brightest of all the snowbird—came wheeling around the Arrandoon to snatch an early breakfast ere they wended their way westward to fields of blood and phocal carnage.