“Faix, but ye must be fond of the cowld, to lie there all night when ye’ve got a palace on Store Island.”
“Fond of society, rather,” observed Captain Guy, who came on deck at the moment, “the poor creatures cannot bear to be left alone. It is a strange quality in dogs which I have often observed before.”
“Have ye, Capting? Sure I thought it was all owin’ to the bad manners o’ that baste Dumps, which is for iver leadin’ the other dogs into mischief.”
“Supper’s ready, sir,” said Mivins, coming up the hatchway and touching his cap.
“Look here, Mivins,” said O’Riley, as the captain went below, “can ye point out the mornin’ star to me, lad?”
“The morning star?” said Mivins slowly, as he thrust his hands into the breast of his jumper, and gazed upwards into the dark sky, where the starry host blazed in Arctic majesty. “No, of course I can’t. Why, don’t you know that there hain’t no morning star when it’s night all round?”
“Faix ye’re right. I niver thought o’ that.”
Mivins was evidently a little puffed up with a feeling of satisfaction at the clever way in which he had got out of the difficulty without displaying his ignorance of astronomy, and was even venturing, in the pride of his heart, to make some speculative and startling assertions in regard to the “’eavenly bodies” generally, when Buzzby put his head up the hatchway.
“Hallo! messmates, wot’s ado now? Here’s the supper awaitin’, and the tea bilin’ like blazes!”
Mivins instantly dived down below, as the sailors express it; and we may remark, in passing, that the expression, in this particular case, was not inappropriate, for Mivins, as we have elsewhere said, was remarkably agile and supple, and gave beholders a sort of impression that he went head-foremost at everything. O’Riley followed at a more reasonable rate, and in a few minutes the crew of the Dolphin were seated at supper in the cabin, eating with as much zest, and laughing and chatting as blithely as if they were floating calmly on their ocean home in temperate climes. Sailors are proverbially lighthearted, and in their moments of comfort and social enjoyment they easily forget their troubles. The depression of spirits that followed the first disappearance of the sun soon wore off, and they went about their various avocations cheerfully by the light of the Aurora Borealis and the stars.