"That is a pleasant sight to a true sealer, Captain Gar'ner," observed Stimson, who as usual had kept near his officer, "and one that I can say I never before saw equalled. I've been in this business now some five-and-twenty years, and never before have I met with so safe a harbour for a craft, and so large herds that have not been stirred up and got to be skeary." "We have certainly been very fortunate thus far, Stephen, and I am now in hopes we may fill up and be 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."