“You must be fond of wind, Captain,” observed Grant with a laugh.
“Oo ay, I’ve no objection to wund.”
The Captain said this, as he said everything else, more than half through his nose, and very slowly.
“But do you not think that more wind would be apt to carry away our top-masts, or split the sails?” said Temple.
“It’s not unlikely,” was the Captain’s cool reply.
“Then why wish for it?” inquired the other in surprise.
“Because we’re only thirty miles from the coast of Norway, and if the wund holds on as it’s doin’, we’ll not make the land till dark. But if it blows harder we’ll get under the shelter of the Islands in daylight.”
“Dark!” exclaimed poor Sam Sorrel, who, being a bad sailor, was very sick, and clung to the lee bulwarks with a look of helpless misery; “I thought there was no dark in Nor—.”
The unhappy painter stopped abruptly in consequence of a sensation in the pit of his stomach.
“There’s not much darkness in Norway in summer,” answered McNab, “but at the south end of it here there’s a little—specially when the weather is thick. Ay, I see it’s comin’.”