nd
leaving the Point of Ayr on the northwest, she ran towards the North
Channel.

[Illustration: "Towards evening the brig doubled the Calf of Man."]

Johnson was right; once at sea the sailors readily adapted themselves
instinctively to the situation. They saw the excellence of their
vessel and forgot the strangeness of their situation. The ship's
routine was soon regularly established.

The doctor inhaled with pleasure the sea-air; he paced up and down the
deck in spite of the fresh wind, and showed that for a student he had
very good sea-legs.

[Illustration]

"The sea is a fine thing," he said to Johnson, as he went upon the
bridge after breakfast; "I am a little late in making its
acquaintance, but I shall make up for my delay."

"You are right, Dr. Clawbonny; I would give all the land in the world
for a bit of ocean. People say that sailors soon get tired of their
business; but I've been sailing for forty years, and I like it as well
as I did the first day."

"What a pleasure it is to feel a stanch ship under one's feet! and, if
I'm not mistaken, the _Forward_ is a capital sea-boat."

"You are right, Doctor," answered Shandon, who had joined the two
speakers; "she's a good ship, and I must say that there was never a
ship so well equipped for a voyage in the polar regions. That reminds
me that, thirty years ago, Captain James Ross, going to seek the
Northwest Passage--"

"Commanded the _Victory_," said the doctor, quickly, "a brig of about
the tonnage of this one, and also carrying machinery."

"What! did you know that?"

"Say for yourself," retorted the doctor. "Steamers were then new
inventions, and the machinery of the _Victory_ was continually
delaying him. Captain Ross, after in vain trying to patch up every
piece, at last took it all out and left it at the first place he
wintered at."

"The deuce!" said Shandon. "You know all about it, I see."

"More or less," answered the doctor. "In my reading I have come across
the works of Parry, Ross, Franklin; the reports of MacClure, Kennedy,
Kane, MacClintock; and some of it has stuck in my memory. I might add
that MacClintock, on board of the _Fox_, a propeller like ours,
succeeded in making his way more easily and more directly than all his
successors."

"That's perfectly true," answered Shandon; "that MacClintock is a good
sailor; I have seen him at sea. You might also say that we shall be,
like him, in Davis Strait in the month of April; and if