did not return, and no news of her could be got from the various
whale-ships that visited the port of Grayton. Towards the end of the
second year Buzzby began to shake his head despondingly; and as the
third drew to a close, the expression of gloom never left his honest,
weather-beaten face. Mrs. Bright, too, whose anxiety at first was only
half genuine, now became seriously alarmed, and the fate of the missing
brig began to be the talk of the neighbourhood. Meanwhile, Fred Ellice
and Isobel grew and improved in mind and body; but anxiety as to his
father's fate rendered the former quite unable to pursue his studies,
and he determined at last to procure a passage in a whale-ship, and go
out in search of the brig.

It happened that the principal merchant and shipowner in the town, Mr.
Singleton by name, was an intimate friend and old school-fellow of
Captain Ellice, so Fred went boldly to him and proposed that a vessel
should be fitted out immediately, and sent off to search for his
father's brig. Mr. Singleton smiled at the request, and pointed out the
utter impossibility of his agreeing to it; but he revived Fred's sinking
hopes by saying that he was about to send out a whaler to the Northern
Seas at any rate, and that he would give orders to the captain to devote
a _portion_ of his time to the search, and, moreover, agreed to let Fred
go as a passenger in company with his own son Tom.

Now, Tom Singleton had been Fred's bosom friend and companion during his
first year at school; but during the last two years he had been sent to
the Edinburgh University to prosecute his medical studies, and the two
friends had only met at rare intervals. It was with unbounded delight,
therefore, that he found his old companion, now a youth of twenty, was
to go out as surgeon of the ship, and he could scarce contain himself as
he ran down to Buzzby's cottage to tell him the good news, and ask him