"You're too heavy, Tom. You'll over-drive the boat. I'll chance all."
Even to get into that boat was a terrible undertaking, for the smack was
showing her keel, and the wall-siders made it likely that the boat would
overbalance and fall backward like a rearing horse. Six times Ferrier
had his foot on the rail ready to make his lithe, flying bound into the
cockleshell; six times she was spun away like a foambell--returning to
crash against the side as the smack hove up high. At last the doctor
fairly fell over the rail, landed astride on the boat's gunwale, and
from thence took a roll to the bottom and lay in the swashing water.
Then delicately, cautiously, the skipper and his man picked their way
with short, catchy strokes--mere dabs at the boiling foam.
"God bless you," Tom sang out, and the big fellow was touched when he
heard the weak voices of the patients below, crying "God bless you!"
with a shrillness that pierced above the hollow rattle of the wind.
"There goes the boat up, perpendicularly as it appears. Ah! that's over
her. No; it's broken aside. What a long time she is in coming up.
Here's a cross sea! Ferrier's baling. Oh! it's too much. Oh! my poor
friend! Here's a screamer! God be praised--she's topped it! Will the
smack hit her? Go under his lee if you love me. They've got the rope
now. In he goes, smash on his face! Just like him, the idiot--Lord
bless his face and him!" Thomas hung on to the rigging and muttered
thus, to his own great easement.
When Ferrier got up, he said, "Skipper, only once more of that for me.
Once more, and no more after. If a raw hand had been there we should
never have lived. Thank goodness you came! You deserve the Albert
medal, and you shall have it too, if I can do anything."
The new patient was gasping heavily, and the whites of his eyes showed.
The skipper explained: "You see, sir, he's got cold through with
snow-water, and he sleeps in his wet clothes same as most of us; but
he's not a strong chap, and it's settled him. He's as hard as a stone
all round, and sometimes he's hot and sometimes he's cold."
"Has he sweated?"
"No, sir; and he's got cramps that double him up."
"Has he spoken lately?"
"Not a word."
"Well now, give me every blanket you can rake up or steal, or get
anyhow."
When the blankets were brought, Ferrier said, "Now I'm going to make him
sweat violently, and then I shall trap him up, as some of you say, and
you must do your best to keep him warm afterwards, or else you may lose
him. When he has perspired enough you must rub him dry, with some
muslin that I'll give you, and then merely wait till he's well."
In that wretched, reeking hole Ferrier improvised a Russian bath with a
blanket or two, a low stool, and a lamp turned down moderately low. He
helped to hold up his man until the sweat came, first in beads, and then
in a copious downpour; he wrapped him up, and did not leave till the
patient professed himself able to get up and walk about. The men merely
gaped and observed the miraculous revival with faith unutterable. Then
our young man bade good-bye, merely saying, "You'll keep your berth for
a couple of days, and then signal us if you want me."
The sky was ragged and wild with the tattered banners of cloud; the sea
was inky dark, and the wind had an iron ring. The Mission vessel had
dropped to leeward of the fishing smack, and the boat had about three
hundred yards to go. But what a three hundred yards! Great black hills
filled up the space and flowed on, leaving room for others equally big
and equally black. The sides of these big hills were laced with lines
of little jumping hillocks, and over all the loud wind swept, shearing
off tearing storm-showers of spray. An ugly three hundred yards!
"Well, how is it now, skipper?"
"Neck or nothing, sir. You can stop here if you like."
"Oh, no! Mr. Lennard would have apoplexy. Let us try. It can't be
worse than it was in coming."
"Good-bye, sir. I'm sorry my comrades hadn't the risk instead of you.
I'll take good care you don't attend one of _them_."
Home, happiness, fame! The face of Marion Dearsley. Images of peace
and love.--All these things passed through Lewis Ferrier's mind as he
prepared for that black journey. A dark wave swung the boat very high.
"Will she turn turtle?" No. But she was half full. "Bale away, sir."
Whirr, went the wind; the liquid masses came whooping on. One hundred
yards more would have made all safe, though the boat three times pitched
the oars from between the thole-pins. A big curling sea struck her
starboard quarter too sharply, and for a dread half-minute she hung with
her port gunwale in the water as she dropped like a log down the side of
the wave. It was too cruel to last. Ferrier heard an exclamation; then
a deep groan from the skipper; and then to the left he saw a great
slate-coloured Thing rushing down. The crest towered over them, bent,
shattered with its own very velocity, and fell like a crumbling dark
cavern over the boat. There was a yell from both smacks; then the boat
appeared, swamped, with the men up to their necks; then the boat went,
sucking the men down for a time, and then Lewis Ferrier and his two
comrades were left spinning in the desperate whirls of the black eddies.
"Run to them!" yelled Tom. "Never mind if you carry everything away.
Only keep clear of the other smack." Ferrier found the water warm, and
he let himself swing passively. His thoughts were in a hurly-burly. Was
this the end of all--youth, love, brave, days of manhood? Nay, he would
struggle. Had they not prayed before they set out? All must come
right--it must. And yet that spray was choking. He could not see his
companions. A yell. "Lewis, my son, I'll come over." But Tom was held
back; the smack was brought up all shaking. First the skipper caught a
rope. Good, noble old man! He was half senseless when they hauled him
on board. Then Lewis heard, as in a torpid reverie, a great voice, "Lay
hold, Lewis, and I _will_ come if you're bothered." What was he doing?
Mechanically he ran the rope under the sleeve of his life-jacket; a
mighty jerk seemed likely to pull him in halves as the smack sheered;
then a heavy, dragging pain came--he was being torn, torn, _torn_.
He woke in the cabin before the fire, and found Tom Lennard blubbering
hard over him. "Warm it seems, Thomas? Reckon I almost lost my number
that time."
"My good Lewis! No more. I had to strip you, and I've done everything.
The skipper's dead beat, and if Bob couldn't steer we should be in a
pickle. Let me put you in a hot blanket now, and you'll have some
grog." Then, with his own queer humour, Lewis Ferrier said, "Tom, all
this is only a lesson. If we'd had a proper boat, a proper lift for
sick men, and a proper vessel to lift them into, I should have been all
right. We won't come back to have these baths quite so often. We'll
have a _ship_ when we come again, and not merely a thing to sail. And
now give me just a thimble-full of brandy, and then replace the bottle
amongst the other poisonous physic! I'm getting as lively as a
grasshopper. A nautical--a nautical taste, Thomas!"
And then Ferrier went off to sleep just where he was, after very nearly
giving a most convincing proof in his own person of the necessity for a
hospital vessel.
Lennard brooded long, and at last he went to the skipper and asked, "Old
man, shall Bob shove her head for home?"
The skipper nodded.
And now you may see why I purposely made this chapter so long.
You have an accurate picture of what goes on during all the snowy months
on that wild North water!
*CHAPTER III.*
*THE PLOTTER.*
An old gentleman and a tall girl were walking in the secluded grounds of
a great house that had once belonged to an unhappy Prince. The place
was very near London, yet that suggestive hum of the City never seemed
to pierce the deep glades of the park; the rooks talked and held
councils, and tried culprits, and stole, and quarrelled as freely as
they might have done in the wilds of Surrey or Wiltshire; the rabbits
swarmed, and almost every south-country species of wild bird nested and
enjoyed life in the happy, still woods and shrubberies. Modern--very
modern--improvements had been added to the body of the old house, but
there was nothing vulgar or ostentatious. Everything about the place,
from the old red palace to the placid herd of Alderney cows that grazed
in a mighty avenue, spoke of wealth--wealth solid and well-rooted.
There was no sign of shoddy anywhere; the old gentleman had bought the
place at an enormous price, and he had left all the ancient work
untouched; but he would have stables, laundry, tennis-court, and so on
through the offices and outside buildings, fitted out according to
rational principles of sanitation, and, if the truth be told, he would
rather have seen healthy ugly stables than the most quaint and curious
of living-rooms that ever spread typhoid.
Mr. Cassall was a man of peculiarly modern type. From his youth upward
he had never once acknowledged himself beaten, though he had known
desperate circumstances; he saw that, as our civilization goes, money is
accounted a rough gauge of merit, and a man's industry, tenacity,
sobriety, self-control, and even virtue, are estimated and popularly
assessed according to the amount of money which he owns, and he resolved
that, let who will fail, he at least would have money and plenty of it.
He bent his mind on one end for forty years; he was unscrupulous in all
respects so long as he could keep within the law; he established a
monopoly in his business on the ruins of scores of small firms which he
crushed by weight of metal; he had no pity, no consideration, no
remorse, in business hours; and he succeeded just as any other man of
ability will succeed if he gives himself up body and soul to
money-making. He never was proud; he was only hard. To his niece, whom
he passionately loved, he would say, "Never be ashamed, my dear, to tell
people that your uncle was a wholesale draper and hosier. Your mother
was a little ashamed of it, and I had some trouble to cure her. Don't
you be so silly. People think all the more of you for owning frankly
that you or your relations have risen from the ranks, as they call it."
When he retired his wealth was colossal. Smart men would say that Bob
Cassall's name was good for a million anywhere; and indeed it was good
for two millions, and more even than that. He never felt the burden of
great riches; as soon as he was safe he seemed to change his nature, and
became the most dexterously benevolent of men. He abhorred a cadger; he
abhorred the very sight of the begging circulars which so appreciably
increase the postman's daily burden. He was a sensible reader, and,
when he heard of a traveller who was something more than a mere lion, he
would make his acquaintance in the most respectful and unobtrusive way,
and he managed to learn much. His shrewd innocence and piquant wit
pleased those whom he questioned, and as he was always willing to place
his house, horses, boats, and game, at the disposal of any traveller who
pleased him, he was reckoned rather a desirable acquaintance. His
prejudice against missions to the lower tribes was derived solely from
men who had lived and worked among the negroes, and, like all his other
prejudices, it was violently strong. He would say, "Have we not good
white men here who are capable of anything? I don't want to assist your
Polish Jew in the East, nor Quashee Nigger in Africa. Show me a plucky
fellow that is ready to work at anything for any hours, and I'll help
him. But instead of aiding our own kindly white race, you fool away
millions on semi-baboons; you send out men at L300 a year and ask them
to play at being St. Paul, and you don't convert a hundred niggers a
year--and those who are converted are often very shady customers. Your
Indian men drive about in buggies, and the 'cute natives laugh at them.
Do you know what a Bengali Baboo or a Pathan is really like? The one is
three times as clever as your missionary; the other is a manly fanatic
and won't have him at any price. You're a maritime nation, and you've
got ten thousand good British seamen out of work. Why not assist
_them_?"
So this quaint and shockingly heterodox millionaire would rave on, for
he was a most peppery old person. One dark and terrible legend is
current concerning him, but I hardly dare repeat it. An affable
gentleman from a foreign mission called on him one day, and obtained
admission (I am bound to add without any subterfuge). Bob heard the
visitor's story, and knitted his beetling bushy brows. He said: "Well,
sir, you've spoken very fairly. Now just answer me one or two questions.
How much money have you per year?"
"Half a million."
"Good. Does any one supervise your missionaries?"
"We have faith in their integrity, and we credit them with industry."
"You trust them five hundred miles up country?"
"Certainly, sir."
"How many missionaries' wives died in the last ten years?"
"I think probably about eighty."
"Eighty sweet English girls condemned to death. Good."
The grizzled old fellow rose in dignified fashion, and said:
"You will perhaps lunch alone, and I shall be pleased if you will be
good enough to make this your final visit."
Then the story goes on to say that Mr. Cassall placed a kennel on the
lawn with a very large and truculent brindled bulldog as tenant; over
the kennel he coiled a garden hose, and above the bulldog's portal
appeared the words, "For Foreign Missions."
This seems too shocking to be true, and I fancy the whole tale was
hatched in the City. Certainly Mr. Cassall was scandalously unjust to
the missionaries--an injustice which would have vanished had he
personally known the glorious results for God and humanity achieved by
self-denying missionaries and their devoted wives who carry the gospel
of Christ to far-off heathen lands--but then where is the man who has
not his whims and oddities?
This man, according to his lights, spread his benefactions lavishly and
wisely on public charities and private cases of need. He liked above
all things to pick out clever young men and set them up in retail
businesses with money lent at four per cent. Not once did he make a
blunder, and so very lucky was he that he used to tell his niece that
with all his enormous expenditure he had not touched the fringe of his
colossal capital. If he assisted any advertised charity he did so in
the most princely way, but only after he had personally held an audit of
the books. If the committee wanted to have the chance of drawing ten
thousand pounds, let them satisfy him with their books; if they did not
want ten thousand pounds, or thought they did not deserve it, let them
leave it alone.
This was Robert Cassall, who was Marion Dearsley's uncle. His grim,
grizzled head was stooping a little as he bent towards his niece on this
soft winter day, and he himself looked almost like the human type of a
hard, wholesome, not unkindly Winter. His high Roman nose, penthouse
brows, quick jetty eye, square well-hung chin, and above all his sturdy,
decided gait--all marked him: for a Man every inch, and he did not belie
his appearance, for no manlier being walks broad England than Robert
Cassall.
He was listening a little fretfully to his niece, but her strength and
sweetness kept him from becoming too touchy. The deep contralto that we
know, said--
"Well then, you see, uncle dear, these men cannot help themselves. They
are--oh! such magnificent people--that is the country-born ones, for
some of the town men are not nice at all; but the East Coast men are so
simple and fine, but then, you know, they are so poor. Our dear Mr.
Fullerton told me that in very bad weather the best men cannot earn so
much as a scavenger can on shore."
"Yes, yes, my girl. You know I listen carefully to everything you say.
I value your talk immensely, but don't you observe, my pet, that if I
help every one who cannot help himself I may as well shorten matters by
going into the street and saying to each passer-by, 'Please accept half
a crown as your share of my fortune'?"
"But the reasons are peculiar here, uncle. Oh! I do so wish Mrs. Walton
could see you. She has logic, and she reasons where I dream."
"Hah! Would you? What? Turn Mrs. Walton loose at me? No ladies here,
miss, I warn you."
"Now, please be good while I go on. I want to repeat Dr. Ferrier's
reasoning if I can. You have fish every day--mostly twice?"
"Yes, but I don't give charity to my butcher. The rascal is able to tip
_me_, if the truth were known."
"True, uncle, and you don't need to give anything to your fishmonger.
Why, you silly dear, you think you are a commercial genius, and yet the
fishmonger probably charges you ever so much per cent, over and above
what the fishermen receive, because of the great expense of railway
carriage and distribution of the fish. I know that, because Mr.
Fullerton told me; so you see I've corrected you, even you, on a point
of finance."
How prettily this stern, composed young woman could put on artful airs
of youthfulness when she chose! How she had that firm, far-seeing old
man held in position, ready to be twirled round her rosy finger!
Which of us is not held in bondage by some creature of the kind?
Unhappy the man who misses that sweet and sacred slavery.
Mr. Cassall wrinkled his grim face not unpleasantly. "Go on; go on.
You're a lawyer, neither more nor less. By the way, who is this--this
what's-the-name--the Doctor, that you mentioned?"
"Oh! he is a very clever young man who has chosen to become a surgeon
instead of being a university professor. He's now out on the North Sea
in all this bad weather. He was so much struck with the need of a
hospital, that he made up his mind to risk a winter so that he may tell
people exactly what he has seen. He doesn't do things in a half-hearted
way.
"What a long, pretty description of Mr. Ferrier. You seem to have taken
a good deal of notice of the fortunate youth. Well, proceed."
Marion was a little flushed when she resumed, but her uncle did not
observe anything at all unusual.
"Where was I?--Oh, yes! You hold it right to give money in charity to
deserving objects. Now these men out at sea were left for years,
perhaps for centuries, to live as a class without hope or help. Dear
good creatures like my own uncle actually never knew that such people
were in existence. They were far worse off than savages who have
plantains and pumpkins and cocoanuts, and they were our own good flesh
and blood, yet we neglected them."
"So we do the East Enders, and the Lancashire operatives and the dock
labourers."
"True. But we are doing better now. Then you see the East End has been
discovered a long time, and visitors can walk; but the poor North Sea
men were left alone, until lately, by everybody."
"Still, we haven't come to why _I_ should help them."
"Oh! uncle, you are a commercial man. Look at selfish reasons alone.
You know how much we depend on sailors, and you often say the country is
so very, very ill-provided with them. And these men are--oh! such
splendid seamen. Fancy them staying out for two months with a gale of
wind per week, and doing it in little boats about eighty feet long. You
should see a hundred of them moving about in mazes and never running
into any trouble. Oh! uncle, it _is_ wonderful. Well, now, these men
would be all ready for us if we were in national danger. I heard Mr.
Fullerton say that hundreds of them are in the Naval Reserve, and as
soon as they learned their way about an ironclad, they would take to the
work by instinct. There is nothing they don't understand about the sea,
and wind and weather. Would any negro help us? Why, Lord Wolseley told
your friend Sir James Roche that a thousand Fantees ran away from fifty
painted men of some other tribe; and Lord Wolseley said that you can
only make a negro of that sort defend himself by telling him that he
will die if he runs away. You wouldn't neglect our own men who are so
brave. Why they might have to defend London, where all your money is,
and they would do it too." (Oh! the artful minx!) "And we send
missions to nasty, brutal Fantees who run away from enemies, and we
leave our own splendid creatures far worse off than dogs."
"Well, if I'm not having the law laid down to me, I should like to know
who ever had. But I'm interested. Let's go round by the avenue, through
the kitchen garden, and then round to the front by road, and make the
walk as long as you can. Why on earth didn't Blair tell me something of
this before? Most wonderful. He talks enough, heaven knows, about
anything and everything, but he never mentioned that. Why?"
"Now don't be a crusty dear. I don't know what good form is, but he
told me he thought it would hardly be good form to bring up the subject
in your company, as it might seem as though he were hinting at a
donation. Now that's plain."
"Good. Now never mind the preaching. I understand you to say that's
done good."
"Perfectly wonderful. You remember how we were both insulted and hooted
at Burslem, only because we were strangers! Well, now, in all the time
that we were away we never heard one uncivil word. Not only they were
civil, and so beautifully courteous to us, but they were so kindly among
themselves, and it is all because they take their Christianity without
any isms."
That wicked puss! She knew how Robert Cassall hated the fights of the
sects, and she played on him, without in the least letting him suspect
what she was doing. He snorted satisfaction. "That's good! that's
good! No isms. And you say they've dropped drink?"
"Entirely, uncle, and all through the preaching without any isms. It is
such a blessed, beautiful thing to think that hundreds of men who used
to make themselves and every one about them wretched, are now calm,
happy fellows. And they do not cant, uncle. All of them know each
other's failings, and they are gentle and forgiving to each other."
"What a precious lot of saints--much too good to live, I should fancy."
"Don't sneer, you graceless. Yes it's quite true. Do you know, dear,
the Early Christian movement is being repeated on the sea."
"Umph. Early Christians! The later Christians have made a pretty mess
of it. Now, just give me, without any waste words, all you have to say
about this hospital business. Don't bring in preachee-preachee any
more."
"Very good, dear. Stop me if I go wrong. I'm going round about. You
know, you crabby dear, you wouldn't neglect an old dog or an old pony
after it had served you. You wouldn't say, 'Oh, Ponto had his tripe and
biscuit, and Bob had his hay;' you would take care of them. Now
wouldn't you? Of course you would. And these fishers get their wages,
but still they give their lives for your convenience just as the dog and
the pony do."
"Yes, yes. But come to the hospital ship. You dance round as if you
were a light-weight boxer sparring for breath."
"Hus-s-sh! I won't have it. The fishermen, then, are constantly being
dreadfully hurt: I don't mean by such things as toothache, though many
hundreds of them have to go sleepless for days, until they are worn out
with pain;--I mean really serious, violent hurts. Why, we were not
allowed to see several of the men who came to Dr. Ferrier for treatment.
The wounds were too shocking. Nearly eight thousand of them are already
relieved in various ways every year. Just fancy. And I assure you I
wonder very much that there are no more."
"What sort of hurts?"
Then Marion told him all about the falling spars, the poisoned ulcers,
the great festers, the poisoned hands caused by venomous fishes
accidentally handled in the dark, wild midnights; the salt-water cracks,
the thousand and one physical injuries caused by falls, or the blow of
the sea, or the prolonged fighting with heavy gales. The girl had
become eloquent; she had _seen_, and, as she was eloquent as women
generally are, she was able to make the keen old man see exactly what
she wanted him to see. Then she told how Ferrier stuck to the sinking
smack and saved his patient, and Robert Cassall muttered, "That sounds
like a man's doings;" and then with every modesty she spoke of Tom
Betts's mistake. There never was such a fluent, artful, mock-modest,
dramatic puss in the world!
"Hah! mistook you for an angel. Eh? Not much mistake when you like to
be good, but when you begin picking my pocket, there's not much of the
angel about that, I venture to say."
So spoke the old gentleman; but the anecdote delighted him so much that
for two or three days he snorted "Angel!" in various keys all over the
house, until the servants thought he must have turned Atheist or
Republican, or something generally contemptuous and sarcastic. The girl
had him in her toils, and the fascination was too much for him. She
could look grand as a Greek goddess, calm and inscrutably imposing as
the Venus of Milo; but she could also play _Perdita_, and dance with her
enslaved ones like a veritable little witch. Robert Cassall was
captured--there could not be much error about that. He asked, with a
sudden snap of teeth and lips which made his niece start: "And how much
do you want to coax out of me, Miss Molly. Give me an idea. Of course
I'm to be the uncle in the play, and 'Bless you, me chee-ill-dren,' and
the rest. Oh yes!"
"Oh, one vessel could be kept up for L30,000."
"What! Per year?"
"No. The interest on L30,000 in North Western Railway stock would
support a vessel well. You could easily support two."
"This girl's got bitten by a money-spending tarantula. Why you'd dance
a million away in no time. _Why_, in the name of common sense, why
should I support two vessels and their hulking crews--who chew tobacco,
of course, don't they? To be sure, and hitch their slacks! Why should
I support all these manly tars!"
"Now! I'll be angry. I'll tell you why. You know you have more money
than you can ever spend. You promise me some, and you're very good, but
I'd almost rather live on my own than have too much. Well, I can't bear
to think of your dying--but you must die, my own good dear, and you will
have to divide your money before you go. There will be a lot of
heart-burning, and I'm afraid poor me won't come off very lightly if I
am left behind you. You will want a memorial."
"You remember me and do as I would like you to do, and we sha'n't
trouble our minds much about memorials. I thought of almshouses,
though."
"Oh! uncle dear, and then the Charity Commissioners may come in, and
give all your money to fat, comfortable tradesmen's children, or
well-to-do professional men, instead of to your old people, and the
clergyman will be master of your money; and the old people will not be
grateful, and all will go wrong, and my dear uncle will be forgotten.
Oh! no."
"I say, come, come; you're too knowing. You're trying to knock a pet
scheme of mine on the head."
The old man was genuinely concerned, and he felt as if some prop had
been knocked away from him. But his sweet niece soon brought him round.
She had scared his vanity on purpose, and she now applied the antidote.
"Supposing you give us two ships, you give yourself a better memorial
than poor Alleyn of Dulwich, or Roan of Greenwich. Dear uncle, a charity
which can be enjoyed by the idle is soon forgotten, and the pious
founder is no more than a weed round the base of his own monument; he
has not even a name. But you may actually see your own memorial working
good long, long before you die, and you may see exactly how things will
go on when your time is over. When you make out your deed of gift,
exact the condition that one vessel must always be called after you, no
matter how long or how often the ships are renewed. Sir James Roche can
advise you about that. Place your portrait in the ship, and make some
such provision as that she shall always carry a flag with your name, if
you want to flaunt it, you proud thing! Then something like, at any
rate, three thousand sufferers will associate your name with their
happiness and cure every year; and they will say in every port in
England, 'I was cured on the _Robert Cassall_,' or 'I should have lost
that hand,' or 'I was dying of typhoid and our skipper thought I needed
salts, but they cured me on the _Robert Cassall_.' And the great ships
will pass your beautiful ship, and when people ask 'What is that craft,
and who is Cassall?' they will say that Cassall gave of his abundance
during his lifetime, so that seamen might be relieved of bitter
suffering; and those brave men will be so very grateful. And oh! uncle,
fancy going out to sea in your own monument, and watching your own
wealth working blessedness before your eyes. Why, you will actually have
all the pleasures of immortality before you have lost the power of
seeing or knowing anything. Oh, uncle dear, think if you can only see
one sailor's limbs saved by means of your money! Think of having a
hundred living monuments of your goodness walking about in the beautiful
world--saved and made whole by you!"
The girl frightened the plucky old gentleman. His voice trembled, and
he said, "Why, we must send you to Parliament! You can beat most of
those dull sconces. Why, you're a no-mistake born orator--a
talkee-talkee shining light! But if you go in for woman's rights and
take to short hair, I shall die, after burning my will! And now you
kiss me, my darling, and don't scare me any more with that witch's
tongue." Was ever millionaire in such manner wooed? Was ever
millionaire in such fashion won? The gipsy's eyes glowed, and her heart
beat in triumph. Was this the Diana of Ferrier's imagination? Was this
the queen of whom that athletic young gentleman was silently dreaming as
he swung over the pulsing mountains of the North Sea? This slyboots!
This most infantile coax!
I wish some half-dozen of the most charming young ladies in England
would only begin coaxing, and coax to as good purpose! I would go out
next summer and willingly end my days in work on the water, if I thought
my adorable readers would only take Marion Dearsley's hint, and help to
blot out a little misery and pain from this bestained world.
While Mr. Cassall was standing, with his teacup, before the glowing wood
fire, he said, "Be my secretary for half an hour, Molly, my pet. Write
and ask Blair, and that other whom I don't know--Fullerton. Yes; ask
them to dinner. And, let me see, you can't ask Mr. Phoenix the
Sawbones?"
"Who, uncle?"
"Why, the young doctor that performs such prodigies, of course."
"He's out on the sea now, dear, and I expect that he's in some
abominable cabin----"
"Catching smallpox to infect cleanly people with?"
"No, dear. He is most likely tending some helpless tatterdemalion, and
moving about like a clever nurse. He is strong--so strong. He pulled a
man through a wave with one hand while he held the rigging with the
other, and the man told me that it was enough to tear the strongest man
to pieces----"
"Here, stop the catalogue. Why, Sawbones must be Phoebus Apollo! If
you talk much more I shall ask him a question or two. Go on with your
secretary's duties, you naughty girl."
So ended the enslavement of Robert Cassall, and so, I hope, began his
immortality. Oh! Marion Dearsley; sweet English lady. This is what you
were turning over in your maiden meditations out at sea. Demure, deep,
delicious plotter. What a _coup_! All the mischievous North Sea shall
be jocund for this, before long. Surely they must name _one_ vessel
after _you_! You are a bloodless Judith, and you have enchanted a
perfectly blameless Holofernes. I, your laureate, have no special song
to give you just now, but I think much of you, for the sake of darkened
fishers, if not for your own.
Mr. Cassall invited Sir James Roche to meet the other men. Sir James
was the millionaire's physician and friend, and Cassall valued all his
judgments highly, for he saw in the fashionable doctor a money-maker as
shrewd as himself; and, moreover, he had far too much of the insular
Briton about him to undervalue the kind of prestige which attaches to
one who associates with royal personages and breathes the sacred
atmosphere of money. Sir James was an apple-faced old gentleman, who
had been a miser over his stock of health and strength. He was
consequently ruddy, buoyant, strong, and his good spirits were
infectious. He delighted in the good things of the world; no one could
order a dinner better; no one could better judge a picture; no one had a
more pure and hearty liking for pretty faces;--and it must be added,
that few men had more worldly wisdom of the kind needed for everyday
use. He could fool a humbug to the top of his bent, and he would make
use of humbugs, or any other people, to serve his own ends; but he liked
best to meet with simple, natural folks, and Cassall always took his
fancy from the time of their first meeting onward.
Sir James spent the afternoon in driving with his host, and they
naturally chatted a great deal about Mr. Cassall's new ideas. The
physician listened to his friend's version of Miss Dearsley's eloquence,
and then musingly said, "I don't know that you can do better than take
your niece's advice. The fact is, my dear fellow, you have far too much
money. I have more than I know how to use, and mine is like a drop in
that pond compared with yours. If you leave a great deal to the girl,
you doom her to a life of anxiety and misery and cynicism; she will be
worse off than a female cashier in a draper's shop. If she marries
young, she will be picked up by some embarrassed peer; if she waits till
she is middle-aged, some boy will take her fancy and your money will be
fooled away on all kinds of things that you wouldn't like. This idea,
so far as it has gone in my mind, seems very reasonable. I'm not
thinking of the fishermen at all; that isn't my business at present. I
am thinking of you, and I fancy that you may do a great deal of good,
and, at the same time, raise your position in the eyes of your
countrymen. The most modest of us are not averse to that. Then, again,
some plutocrats buy honours by lavishing coins in stinking, rotten
boroughs. Your honours if they should come to you, will be clean. At
any rate, let us both give these men a fair hearing, and perhaps our
worldly experience may aid them. An enthusiast is sometimes rather a
fiddle-headed chap when it comes to business."
"I don't want my money to be fought over, and I won't have it. If I
thought that people were going to screech and babble over my money, I'd
leave the whole lot to the Dogs' Home."
"We'll lay our heads together about that, and I reckon if we two can't
settle the matter, there is no likelihood of its ever being settled at
all."
The harsh, wintry afternoon came to a pleasant close in the glowing
drawing-room. Sir James had coaxed Marion until she told him all about
the gale and the rest of it. He was very much interested by her
description of Ferrier.
"I've heard of that youngster," he said. "He began as a very Scotch
mathematician, and turned to surgery. I heard that he had the gold
medal when he took his fellowship. He must be a fine fellow. You say he
is out at sea now? I heard a little of it, and understood he wasn't
going to leave until the end of December. But it never occurred to me
that he was such a friend of yours. You must let me know him. We old
fogies often have a chance of helping nice young fellows."
Mrs. Walton and Miss Ranken arrived with Blair and Fullerton, and
everybody was soon at ease. Sir James particularly watched Fullerton,
and at last he said to himself, "That fellow's no humbug."
The dinner passed in the usual pleasant humdrum style; nobody wanted to
shine; that hideous bore, the professional talker, was absent, and the
company were content with a little mild talk about Miss Ranken's
seclusion at sea during the early days of the autumn voyage. The girl
said, "Well, never mind, I would go through it all again to see what we
saw. I never knew I was alive before."
Instinctively the ladies refrained from touching on the business which
they knew to be nearest the men's minds, and they withdrew early.
Then Cassall came right to the point in his usual sharp, undiplomatic
way.
"My niece has been telling me a great deal about your Mission, Mr.
Fullerton, and she says you want a floating hospital. I've thought
about the matter, but I have so few details to go upon that I can
neither plan nor reason. I mean to help if I can, merely because my
girl has set her mind on it; but I intend to know exactly where I am
going, and how far. I understand you have twelve thousand men that you
wish to influence and help. How many men go on board one vessel?"
"From five to seven, according to the mode of trawling."
"That gives you, roughly, say two thousand sail. Marion tells me you
have now about eight thousand patients coming on board your ships
yearly. Now, if you manage to cover the lot, you must attend on a great
many more patients."
"We can only _dabble_ at present. We have little pottering
dispensaries, and our men manage slight cases of accident, but I cannot
help feeling that our work is more or less a sham. People don't think
so, but I want so much that I am discontented."