to on this subject, and compare himself to a
Dutch galliot that made more leeway than headway, even with a wind on
the quarter. "Once," he would remark, "I was clipper-built, and could
sail right in the wind's eye; but ever since I tuck this craft in tow,
I've gone to leeward like a tub. In fact, I find there's only one way of
going ahead with my Poll, and that is right before the wind! I used to
yaw about a good deal at first, but she tuck that out o' me in a day or
two. If I put the helm only so much as one stroke to starboard, she guv'
a tug at the tow-rope that brought the wind dead aft again; so I've gi'n
it up, and lashed the tiller right amid-ships."

So Buzzby did not accompany his old commander; he did not even so much
as suggest the possibility of it; but he shook his head with great
solemnity, as he stood with Fred, and Mrs. Bright, and Isobel, at the
end of the pier, gazing at the brig, with one eye very much screwed up,
and a wistful expression in the other, while the graceful craft spread
out her canvas and bent over to the breeze.

CHAPTER II.

_Departure of the "Pole Star" for the Frozen Seas--Sage reflections of
Mrs. Bright, and sagacious remarks of Buzzby--Anxieties, fears,
surmises, and resolutions--Isabel--A search proposed--Departure of the
"Dolphin" for the Far North_.

Digressions are bad at the best, and we feel some regret that we should
have been compelled to begin our book with one; but they are necessary
evils sometimes, so we must ask our reader's forgiveness, and beg him,
or her, to remember that we are still at the commencement of our story,
standing at the end of the pier, and watching the departure of the _Pole
Star_ whale-ship, which is now a scarcely distinguishable speck on the
horizon.

As it disappeared Buzzby gave a grunt, Fred and Isobel uttered a sigh in
unison, and Mrs. Bright resumed the fit of weeping which for some time
she had unconsciously suspended.

"I fear we shall never see him again," sobbed Mrs. Bright, as she took
Isobel by the hand and sauntered slowly home, accompanied by Fred and
Buzzby, the latter of whom seemed to regard himself in the light of a
shaggy Newfoundland or mastiff, who had been left to protect the family.
"We are always hearing of whale-ships being lost, and, somehow or
other, we _never_ hear of the crews being saved, as one reads of when
ships are wrecked in the usual way on the seashore."

Isobel squeezed her mother's hand, and look