“You’d hardly know it, would you, since I’ve fixed it up, and made it ship-shape like?” said the Captain. “I’ve done it nearly all myself too. And now what do you think I’ve called it?”
The children said they could never guess,—to save their lives, they never could.
“I call it ‘Mariner’s Rest,’” said the Captain.
“O, how beautiful! and so appropriate!” exclaimed William; and Fred and Alice chimed in and said the same.
“And now,” went on the Captain, “You must steer your course for the ‘Mariner’s Rest’ again,—right soon, too, and the old man will be glad to see you.”
“Thank you, Captain Hardy,” answered William, with a bow. “If we get our parents’ leave, we’ll come to-morrow, if that will not too much trouble you.”
“It will not trouble me at all,” replied the Captain. “Let it be four o’clock, then,—come at four o’clock. That will suit me perfectly; and it may be that I’ll have,” continued he, “a bit of a story or two to tell you. Besides, I think I promised something of the kind before to William, when I came home this time twelvemonth ago. Do you remember it, my lad?”
William said he remembered it well, and his eyes opened wide with pleasure and surprise.
“Now what is it?” inquired the Captain, thoughtfully. “Was it a story about the hot regions, or the cold regions? for you see things don’t stick in my memory now as they used to.”
“It was about the cold regions, that I’m sure of,” replied William; “for you said you would tell me the story you told Bob Benton and Dick Savery,—something, you know, about your being ‘cast away in the cold,’ as Dick Savery said you called it.”