They pitied poor Peggy sincerely, however, and endeavoured to comfort her a little by raising the hope that her husband might have merely lost himself in the woods of the island, and would yet, perhaps, be found alive and well. But, although their intentions were kindly, they could comfort neither Peggy nor themselves with such a hope; for their experience convinced them that the woods, although thick and tangled, were not extensive enough for any one to be permanently lost in them, and it seemed quite certain that if the lost man had not met with some fatal accident, he would certainly have made his way to the coast, by following which he could have easily found the camp.
“It is very sad to give over our search for poor Mitford,” said Dr Hayward one morning, while seated on a ledge of rock near the beach, taking counsel with his male companions as to the order of procedure for the day, “but we cannot afford to delay our operations longer. This poor fare of mussel soup, with such a small allowance of pork, is beginning to injure the health of our women, not to mention ourselves; besides, the pork won’t last long, even though we put ourselves on the shortest possible allowance; so I think that to-day we must go on an expedition after the seals we saw the last time we went to the southern end of the island. What say you, comrades?”
“All right, cap’n,” answered Massey. “You’ve only got to say the word. But who’s to stop at home to mind the camp-fire and the women?”
“I’m afraid,” returned Hayward, with a deprecatory smile, “that it’s your own turn, Bob. I would say that I’m sorry for you, were it not ungallant to pity a man for being condemned for a day to female society.”
The way in which the coxswain received this showed that he did not repine at his fate. He did not even object to O’Connor’s remark that, “Faix, he might consider himself the luckiest man o’ the lot!”
Accordingly, Massey remained at the camp while the doctor, Slag, O’Connor, Tomlin, and Jarring set out on a hunting expedition with two days’ cooked provisions in their wallets. The doctor and Tomlin armed themselves with spears, but Jarring and Slag preferred clubs.
“You see,” said the latter, “I’ve heard—though I can’t rightly say I’ve seed it done myself—that the seal-hunters o’ the north do their work wi’ clubs; so, if one man can kill a seal wi’ such a thing, I don’t see why another shouldn’t.”
And, truly, there was some reason for this covert boast; for Joe, besides possessing arms of prodigious power, had cut and shaped for himself a knotted club which might have suited the hand of Hercules himself.
It turned out that Bob Massey’s satisfaction at being left behind that day was not altogether the result of regard for female society. While he was sauntering back to the camp, after his comrades had left, he congratulated himself aloud on having at last a chance of making his experiment without being laughed at during the trial. “That is—if Nellie has got enough of line made.”
At that moment Nell was busy with the line in question, and at the same time doing her best to comfort Mrs Mitford—Mrs Hayward being engaged in preparing dinner; by no means a difficult duty, which the women undertook day about.