doubt whatever that poor Fred was in earnest, and had made up his mind
to die in the search rather than not find him. He little knew the
terrible nature of the country in which for a time his lot was to be
cast, and the hopelessness of such an undertaking as he meditated. With
boyish inconsiderateness he thought not of how his object was to be
accomplished; he cared not what impossibilities lay in the way; but,
with manly determination, he made up his mind to quit the ship and
search for his father through the length and breadth of the land. Let
not the reader smile at what he may perhaps style a childish piece of
enthusiasm. Many a youth at his age has dreamed of attempting as great
if not greater impossibilities. All honour, we say, to the boy who
_dreams_ impossibilities, and greater honour to him who, like Fred,
_resolves to attempt them!_ James Watt stared at an iron tea-kettle till
his eyes were dim, and meditated the monstrous impossibility of making
that kettle work like a horse; and men might (perhaps did) smile at
James Watt _then_, but do men smile at James Watt _now?_--now that
thousands of iron kettles are dashing like dreadful comets over the
length and breadth of the land, not to mention the sea, with long tails
of men and women and children behind them!

"That's 'ow it is, sir," Mivins used to say, when spoken to by Fred on
the subject; "I've never bin in cold countries myself, sir, but I've bin
in 'ot, and I knows that with a stout pair o' legs and a will to work, a
man can work 'is way hanywhere. Of course there's not much of a
pop'lation in them parts, I've heerd; but there's Heskimos, and where
one man can live so can another, and what one man can do so can
another--that's bin my hexperience, and I'm not ashamed to hown it, I'm
not, though I _do_ say it as shouldn't, and I honour you, sir, for your
filleral detarmination to find your father, sir, and--"