off in good season to get clear of the ice,"
returned Roswell. "Our luck has been surprising, all things considered."

"You call it luck, Captain Gar'ner; but, in my creed, there is a truer and
a better word for it, sir."

"Ay, I know well enough what you mean, Stephen; though I cannot fancy that
Providence cares much whether we shall take a hundred seals to-day, or
none at all."

"Such is not my idee, sir; and I'm not ashamed to own it. In my humble way
of thinking, Captain Gar'ner, the finger of Divine Providence is in all
that comes to pass; if not straight ahead like, as a body would receive a
fall, still, by sartain laws that bring about everything that is to
happen, just as it does happen. I believe now, sir, that Providence does
not intend we shall take any seals at all to-day, sir"

"Why not, Stimson? It is the very finest day we have had since we have
been on the island!"

"That's true enough; and it is this glorious sunny day, glorious and sunny
for sich a high latitude, that makes me feel and think that this day was
not intended for work. You probably forget it is the Sabbath, Captain
Gar'ner."

"Sure enough; I had forgotten that, Stephen; but we sealers seldom lie by
for such a reason."

"So much the worse for us sealers, then, sir. This is my seventeenth
v'y'ge into these seas, sir, and I will say that more of them have been
made with officers and crews that did _not_ keep the Sabbath, than with
officers and crews that did. Still, I have obsarved one thing, sir, that
the man who takes his rest one day in seven, and freshens his mind, as it
might be, with thinking of other matters than his every-day consarns,
comes to his task with so much better will, when he _does_ set about it,
as to turn off greater profit than if he worked night and day, Sundays and
all."

Roswell Gardiner had no great reverence for the Christian Sabbath, and
this more because it was so _called_, than for any sufficient reason in
itself. Pride of reason rendered him jealous of everything like a
concession to the faith of those who believed in the Son of God; and he
was very apt to dissent from all admission that had even the most remote
bearing on its truth. Still, as a kind-hearted commander, as well as a
judicious reasoner on the economy of his fellow-creatures, he fully felt
the policy of granting relaxation to labour. Nor was he indisposed to
believe in the care of a Divine Providence, or in its justice, though less
believ