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 looked up in her face with an expression that said plainly, "Don't cry so, mamma; I'm _sure_ he will come back," but she could not find words to express herself, so she glanced towards the mastiff for help.
Buzzby felt that it devolved upon him to afford consolation under the circumstances; but Mrs.Bright's mind was of that peculiar stamp which repels advances in the way of consolation unconsciously, and Buzzby was puzzled.

He screwed up first the right eye and then the left, and smote his thigh repeatedly; and assuredly, if contorting his visage could have comforted Mrs.Bright, she would have returned home a happy woman, for he made faces at her violently for full five minutes.

But it did her no good, perhaps because she didn't see him, her eyes being suffused with tears.
"Ah! yes," resumed Mrs.Bright, with another burst, "I _know_ they will never come back, and your silence shows that you think so too.

And to think of their taking two years' provisions with them _in case of accidents!_--doesn't that prove that there are going _to be_ accidents?
And didn't I hear one of the sailors say that she was a crack ship, a number one?
I don't know what he meant by A number one, but if she's a cracked ship I _know_ she will never come back; and although I told my dear brother of it, and advised him not to go, he only laughed at me, which was very unkind, I'm sure." Here Mrs.Bright's feelings overcame her again.
"Why, aunt," said Fred, scarce able to restrain a laugh, despite the sadness that lay at his heart, "when the sailor said it was a crack ship, he meant that it was a good one, a first-rate one." "Then why did he not say what he meant?
But you are talking nonsense, boy.

Do you think that I will believe a man means to say a thing is good when he calls it cracked?
and I'm sure nobody would say a cracked tea-pot was as good as a whole one.