CHAPTER VI.

THE MISSION HALL.

And now you know what our people have been driving at all the time. I

have reported their talk, and we shall have very little space for more

of it, as the time must shortly come for swift action. From the moment

when Ferrier groaned with despair, a lightning thought shot into

Marion's brain and settled there. She had a grand idea, and she was

almost eager to get ashore: one indefinite attraction alone held her.

Ferrier was almost as eager to return, for his electric nature was

chafed by the limitations that bound him; he knew he could do nothing

without further means and appliances, and, in the meantime, he was only

half doing work of supreme importance. He wished to glance slightly at

the social and spiritual work of the fleet, but his heart was in his own

trade.

The weather held up nicely, and on the morning after Ferrier saved the

broken-ribbed youngster, the schooner had a rare crowd on board. The men

tumbled over the side with lumbering abandonment, and met each other

like schoolboys who gather in the common-room after a holiday. As Blair

said, they were like a lot of Newfoundland puppies. Poor Tom Betts came

up among the roistering crowd--pale, weary, and with that strange,

disquieting smile which flits over sick men's faces; he was received as

an interesting infant, and his narratives concerning the marvellous

skill of the doctor were enough to supply the fleet with gossip for a

month. None of the "weeds" of the fleet were on board, and the assembly

might be taken as representing the pick of the North Sea population.

With every observant faculty on the stretch Ferrier strolled from group

to group, chatting with man after man; no one was in the least familiar,

but the doctor was struck with the simple cordiality of all the fellows.

A subtle something was at work, and it gradually dawned on the young

student that these good folk had the sentiment of brotherhood which is

given by a common cause and a common secret. The early Christians loved

one another, and here, on that grey sea, our sceptic saw the early

Christian movement beginning all over again, with every essential

feature reproduced. All types were represented; the grave man, the stern

man, the sweet-faced dreamy man--even the comic man. The last-named here

was much beloved and admired on account of his vein of humour, and he

was decidedly the Sydney Smith of the fleet. His good-temper was

perfect; a large fellow of the Jutish type lifted him with one huge arm,

and hung him over the side; the humorist treated this experience as a

pleasant form of gentle exercise, and smiled blandly until he was

replaced on deck. When he was presented with a cigar, he gave an

exposition of the walk and conversation of an extremely haughty

aristocrat, and, on his saying, "Please don't haddress me as Bill. Say

'Hahdeyedoo, Colonel,'" the burly mob raised such a haw-haw as never was

heard elsewhere, and big fellows doubled themselves up out of sheer

enjoyment, the fun was so exquisite.

Lewis was struck by the men's extraordinary _isolation_ of mind; you may

not understand his thought now, but, when you visit the North Sea, the

meaning will flash on you. _Isolation_--that is the word; the men know

little of the world; they are infantine without being petty; they have

no curiosity about the passage of events on shore, and their solid world

is represented by an area of 70 feet by 18. They are always amusing,

always suggestive, and always superhumanly ignorant of the commonest

concerns that affect the lives of ordinary men. When your intellect

first begins to measure theirs, you feel as if you had been put down in

a strange country, and had to adapt your mind and soul to such a set of

conditions as might come before you in a dream. I, the transcriber of

this history, felt humiliated when a good man, who had been to sea for

thirty-three years on a stretch, asked me whether "them things is only

made up"; them things being a set of spirited natural history pictures.

I reckon if I took Mr. Herbert Spencer, or Mr. Grant Allen, or Mr. Lang

out to the fleets, I could give them a few shrewd observations regarding

the infancy of the human mind.

There was a fair amount of room for a religious service, the men packed

themselves into their places with admirable and silent politeness, and

the yacht was transformed into a mission hall. As to the fishermen's

singing, one can never talk of it sufficiently. Ferrier was stirred by

the hoarse thunder of voices; he seemed to hear the storming of that

gale in the cordage once more, and he forgot the words of the hymn in

feeling only the strong passion and yearning of the music. Then

Fullerton and Blair prayed, and the sceptic heard two men humbly

uttering petitions like children, and, to his humorous Scotch intellect,

there was something nearly amusing in the naïve language of these two

able, keen men. They seemed to say, "Some of our poor men cannot do so

much as think clearly yet; we will try to translate their dumb craving."

Charles Dickens, that good man, that very great man, should have heard

the two evangelists; he would have altered some of the savage opinions

that lacerated his gallant heart. To me, the talk and the prayers of

such men are entrancing as a merely literary experience; the balanced

simplicity, and the quivering earnestness are so exactly adapted to the

one end desired.

Blair's sermon was brief and straightforward; he talked no secondhand

formalities from the textbooks; he met his hearers as men, and they took

every word in with complete understanding. When I hear a man talking to

the fishers about the symbolism of an ephod, I always want to run away.

What is needed is the human voice, coming right from the human heart:

cut and dried theological terms only daze the fisherman; he is too

polite to look bored, but he suffers all the same. I fancy Blair's

little oration might be summed up thus: Fear God and keep His

commandments, for this is the whole duty of man--and I do not know that

you can go much further. The wild Kurd in the desert will say to you, "I

cannot do that. It is a shame"; he has no power of reasoning, but he

_knows_; and I take it that the fishers are much like him when their

minds are cleared alike of formalism and brutality. Many of the men were

strongly moved as Blair went on, and Lewis saw that our smiling preacher

had learned to cast away subtleties. Fullerton's preaching was like

Newman's prose style; it caught at the nerves of his hearers, and left

them in a state of not unhealthy tension. It seemed impossible for them

to evade the forcible practical application by the second speaker of

points in the discourse to which they had already listened; nor could

they soon--if ever--forget the earnest words with which he

closed--"Bear in mind, my friends, that Christianity does not consist in

singing hymns or saying prayers, but in a personal knowledge of Jesus

Christ as your Saviour; and when you have learned to know Him thus, your

one object in life will be to glorify Him. It is right and well both to

sing and to pray, but let us take care that these exercises are the

expression in words of the heart's devotion to its Divine Lord and

Master."

They were ripe for the "experience" meeting, and this quaintest of all

religious exercises gave Ferrier data for much confused meditation.

Apparently a man _must_ unbosom himself, or else his whole nature

becomes charged with perilous stuff, so these smacksmen had, in some

instances, substituted the experience meeting for the confessional. In

Italy you may see the sailors creeping into the box while the priest

crouches inside and listens to whispers; on the North Sea a sailor

places a very different interpretation upon the Divine command, "Confess

your faults one to another, and pray one for another that ye may be

healed." He goes first to his Saviour, and afterwards stands up before

all his mates and makes his confession boldly: every new confidence

nails him to his vows; he knows that the very worst of his past will

never be brought up against him, and he is supported by the sympathy of

the rough fellows who punctuate his utterances with sighs and kindly

handshaking.

When the penitent sits down his mind is eased; the mysterious sympathy

of numbers cheers him, the sense of Divine forgiveness has given him

power, and he is ready to face life again with new heart. Ferrier caught

the note of formality again and again, but he could see that the phrases

had not putrefied into cant.

Just as the soul can only be made manifest through the body, so a

thought can only be made manifest by means of words. An importunate,

living thought is framed in a perfect phrase which reflects the life of

the thought. Then you have genuine religious utterance. The conditions

change and the thought is outworn: if the phrase that clothed the old

thought remains and is used glibly as a verbal counter, then you have

Cant, and the longer the phrase is parrotted by an unbeliever, the more

venomous does the virus of cant become. To the fishers--childlike

men--many of the old Methodist turns of speech are vital; to a cultured

man the husk of words may be dry and dead, but if he is clever and

indulgent he will see the difference between his own mental state and

that of the poor fisher to whom he listens.

The experiences were as varied as possible; some were awe-striking, some

were pitiful, some verged on comedy. The comfortable thing--the

beautiful thing--about the confessions, was that each man seemed tacitly

to imply a piteous prayer, "My brothers help me to keep near my Saviour.

I may fall unless you keep by me;" while the steady-going, earnest men

took no praise to themselves for keeping straight, but generally ended

with some such phrase as, "Praise the blessed Lord; it's all along o'

His grace as I've been walkin' alongside o' Him."

One fine man, with stolid, hard face, rose and steadied himself against

a beam. His full bass tones were sad, and he showed no sign of that

self-satisfied smirk which sometimes makes the mind revolt against a

convert.

"My friends, I'm no great speaker, but I can tell you plain how I come

to be where I am. I was a strongish, rough young chap, and thought about

nothing but games. I would fight, play cards, and a lot of more things

that we don't want to talk about here. When I married, I drank and

thought of nothing but my own self. Once I took every penny I had off a

voyage to the public-house, and I stopped there and never had my boots

off till I went to sea again. Every duty was neglected, my wife went

cold in the bad weather, and my children were barefooted. When you're

drinking and fooling you can see nothing at all, and you think you're

a-doing all right, and everybody else is wrong when they try to help

you. Out at sea I gambled and drunk when I could get the money; I made

rare game of religious men, and lived as if I had never to die. Then I

was persuaded by one of my mates to visit the Mission ship, the very

first as ever come, and I wish there was twenty. I'd had a bad time

ashore, and my children was frightened of my ways, though I was kind

enough when sober, and I'd left the wife to pick up a living how she

could. Then I heard what Mr. Fullerton said; God bless him! And I says

to myself, 'Tom Barling, you're no better than a pig you're not.' But I

was proud, and I needed to be brought low. I went again and again and

talked with old John about the Mission ship, but, bless you, I couldn't

see nothing. But some kind of a--what I may say a voice kept a-saying,

'Tom Barling, you're not a good 'un,' and at last I got what I wanted,

and I bursts out crying for joy, for I had learned to trust my blessed

Saviour, whose blood cleanses from all sin. And now by His grace I've

dropped the drink, and them fits of bad temper, and my family looks

well, and I'm so quiet in my breast here like, as I can walk for hours

on deck and pray quiet, and never think of no drink, nor cards, nor

excitement, and I never nags at any man that's wrong as I was, but I

says 'I wish you were happy as me, mate, and you may be if you'll come

to the dear Lord.' And that's all. I bless God for the Mission, because

there's many a chap like me that would like to do right but he don't

know how. I was a bad chap, and I went on doing bad things because I

knew no better; and so, brothers, when you see a mate going wrong just

coax him. And God bless you, gentlemen and ladies, and all on us."

Every variety of story was told, and, in the exaltation of the hour, the

men sang rapturously. Some of the speakers moved the doctor with

terrible pathos. (I, who chronicle these things, have heard tales which

come to me in wild dreams, and make me tremble with pity and terror.)

There was no showing off, and even those who used the stereotyped

phrase, "When I was in the world," did it with a simple modesty which

our learned friend found charming. Apparently not one of those poor

fellows felt a single prompting of conceit, and if their very innermost

feeling had been translated it would come out like this: "Brothers,

through mercy we've all slipped away from an ugly fate; we're on safe

ground; let's hang together and help each other nearer to God, lest we

should get adrift and make shipwreck."

Lewis was particularly pleased with their kindly mode of talking about

backsliders.

"Come, old lads," said one fair-haired Scandinavian, "let's all say a

word for poor old Joe Banks. He's a backslider just now, through that

dreadful drink. Let's all pray as he may see his sin against his

Saviour, and come right back to Him. He's too good to lose, and we won't

let go on him."

Then the excitement gathered, and the meeting really developed into what

might be fairly termed a Service of Praise. The men almost roared their

choruses, then they prayed passionately, then they sang again, and the

rush of harmless excitement went on hour by hour, until the strongest

enthusiasts had to obey the signal given by the darkness.

On deck there were merry partings, and the Newfoundland puppy business

was resumed with exceeding vigour. Tom Lennard was exalting his

popularity, and he knew the history of the father, the mother, the wife,

the children (down to the last baby), of every man with whom he talked.

The wind was still, the moon made silver of the air; the fleet hung like

painted ships on painted ocean,--and the men delayed their partings like

affectionate brothers whom broad seas must soon divide. The distant

adoration paid to the ladies would have amused some indifferent

shoregoers. You know the story of the miners who filled a Scotch

emigrant's hand with gold dust and "nuts" on condition that he let his

wife look out from the waggon? I can believe the tale. Great

fourteen-stone men lifted their extraordinary hats and trembled like

children when our good ladies talked to them; the sweetness of the

educated voice, the quiet naturalness of the thorough lady, are all

understood by those seadogs in a way which it does one good to

remember. The fellows are gentlemen; that is about the fact. Their

struggles after inward purity are reflected in their outward manners,

and to see one of them help a lady to a seat on deck is to learn

something new about fine breeding. Marion Dearsley was watched with a

reverence which, never became sheepish, and Ferrier at last said to

himself, "One might do anything with these men! The noblest raw material

in the world."

"Good-night; good-night. God bless you." One weird sound after another

came from boats that swam in the quivering moonbeams. Then came the

silence, broken only by the multitudinous whistling of the gaffs, and

the gentle moan of the timbers.

The nightly talk came off as usual; and also as usual the great

mathematician was forced to take the leading part, while Blair quizzed,

and the ladies, after the fashion of their sex, stimulated the men to

range from topic to topic. Fullerton was watching Ferrier, just as I

have seen a skilful professor of chemistry watching a tube for the first

appearance of the precipitate. This quiet thinker knew men, and he knew

how to use them; moreover, he thought he saw in Ferrier a born king, and

he strove to attract him just as he had striven to fascinate Miss

Dearsley. It was for the cause.

"What do you think of our work so far, Ferrier?"

"Good. But I want more."

Then, of course, Blair must needs have one of those wonderful jokes of

his. "Ha! I want more! A sort of scientific Oliver. I want more! What a

Bashaw! And what does his highness of many tails want?"

"Mr. Ferrier mustn't be too exorbitant. Science wears the seven-league

boots, but we have to be content with modest lace-ups and Balmorals,"

quietly observed Mrs. Walton.

"Oh! beautiful! A regular flash of--the real thing, don't you know. An

epigram. Most fahscinating! Oh-h!"

Poor Tom's elephantine delight over anything like a simile was always

emphatic, no matter whether he saw the exact point or not, and I'm

afraid that brilliant folk would have thought him perilously like a

fool. Happily his companions were ladies and gentlemen who were too

simple to sneer, and they laughed kindly at all the big man's

floundering ecstasies.

Ferrier said, "When I have got what I want, I shall vary your programme

if you will permit me. Do you know, it struck me that those good souls

are very like a live lizard cased in the dry clay? He fits his mould,

but he doesn't see out of it. I should like to give the men a little

wider horizon."

"Isn't heaven wide enough?"

"But your men are always staring _up_ at heaven. Could you not give them

a chance of looking _round_ a bit?"

"What are you driving at?"

"Mr. Ferrier means that they do not employ all their faculties. They are

going cheerfully through a long cave because they see the sun at the

mouth; but they don't know anything about the earth on the top of the

cave."

This was a surprisingly long speech for Marion Dearsley.

"You take me exactly. Now, Fullerton, I'm going to stay the winter out

here."

"You're what?" interjected Blair.

"Yes, I'm going to see the winter through; and I mean to lay some plans

before you."

"The Bashaw has some glimmerings of sense. Yes, the scientific creature

has. Go on, oh! many-tailed one."

"You miss the secular side a little. You cannot expect those grand,

good-humoured fellows of yours to be always content with devotional

excitement."

"But we don't. Our secular work, our care for the men's bodies, is just

as great as our care for their souls," said Fullerton, warmly. "We

simply cannot do everything; we lack means, and that must be our plea,

no matter how sordid it may seem to you. But you must clearly understand

that for my part, while I hold tenaciously to the primary duty of

'holding forth the Word of Life'--for it is 'the entrance of Thy Word

giveth light _and understanding to the simple_'--yet I am entirely with

you in feeling that we need to cultivate the intellect of these men. Go

on, Ferrier."

"Well; I meant to say that you must let the men know something of the

beauty of the world, and the wonder of it as well. Look here, Blair: do

you mean to say that I couldn't make a regular fairy tale out of the

geology of these Banks? Pray, ladies, excuse just a little shop; I can't

help it. Give me just one tooth of an elephant, dredged up off

Scarborough, and if I don't make those men delighted, then I may leave

the Royal Society."

"But, my good Bashaw," said Blair, "if you blindfold one of the

skippers, and tell him the soundings from time to time, he'll take you

from point to point, and pick up his marks just as surely as you could

touch your bedroom-door in the dark."

"Exactly. That's empirical knowledge; but when you explain _causes_, you

give a man a new pleasure. It _clinches_ his knowledge. Then, again,

supposing I were to tell those men something accurate about the movement

of the stars? Don't you think that would be interesting? If I could not

make it like a romance, then all the years I spent in learning were

thrown away."

"Could you get them to care for anything of the kind? Do you know that a

seaman is the most absolutely conservative of the human race?"

"We must begin. You give the men light, and I'll be bound that some of

us will make them like sweetness. If Miss Dearsley were to read

'Rizpah,' or 'Big Tom,' or any other story of pathos or self-sacrifice,

she would do the men good. Why, if I had the chance, I'd bring off my

friend Tom Gale, and let him make them laugh till they cried by reading

about Mr. Peggotty of Great Yarmouth and the lobster; or Mrs. Gummidge

and the drown-ded old-'un."

Mrs. Walton had been very quiet. She turned to the staid and taciturn

Mrs. Hellier and asked, "How do you find your readings suit at your

mission-room?"

"They please the women, and I suppose they would please men. Our people

are quite happy when we have a good reader. I'm a failure, because I

always begin to cry at the critical points; but Lena has no feelings at

all, and she can keep the room hushed for a whole hour."

Mrs. Walton smiled placidly.

"You see, Mr. Blair, there may be something in Mr. Ferrier's idea after

all. I believe that sweet, simple stories, or poetry, or pictures, would

please the men. See how pleased that Great Grimsby man was with the

girl's picture-book that you gave him. I'm almost converted. Besides,

now I remember it, I heard a gentleman who had been public orator at

Cambridge make a crowd of East-End people cry by reading 'Enoch

Arden'--of all the incredible things in the world."

"Thank you, madam; and when I have got that hospital for you, I shall

insist on having one room for pleasure, and pleasure alone; and I'll

take good care my patients are not disturbed in any way. Fullerton is

already on our side, so you and I will take Blair in hand, and curb that

unruly scepticism of his. He is a most unblushing, scoffing sceptic, is

he not, madam?"

Blair shook his jolly sides and rose, muttering something about a

fahscinating young puppy;--whereby it may be perceived that he was

thinking of mocking Tom. The night was splendid, and when a sharp air of

wind set all the smacks gliding, our voyagers had once more an

experience that is one of the most memorable for those to whom it comes

seldom. The seaman tramps smartly; cocks an eye at the topsail, swings

round, and rolls back till he is abreast of the wheel; then _da capo_,

and so on all night. But the reflective landsman gathers many sheaves

for the harvest of the soul. Happy is he if he learns to know what the

dense seaman's life is like.

There are nights when the joy of living will not let one sleep. Do I not

know them?

Ferrier held a little chat with the girls before the scattered party

finally broke up, and Marion Dearsley pleased him mightily by saying,

"You were quite right about the pleasure-room. Only wait till we've

begun our work, and we shall make that dreadful Mr. Blair ashamed of

himself."

"What's this? Scandal and tittle-tattle begun on board? I shall exert my

authority as admiral."

"I knew you were behind me, and that is why I reproved you, sir. We

think the same about the matter, and so does Lena."

Then Ferrier and Blair and Tom talked until the air of the small hours

drove them below, and they saw the yacht skimming among the quiet fleet.

There was enough wind to move the trawls, but the lonely procession did

not travel as on that tremendous night when Lewis first learnt what a

regular hustler was like.

All the days that followed went by pleasantly enough, though Ferrier

could not help chafing. He was constantly busy with lancet, bandages,

splints; he kept a diary of his cases, and after he had cruised among

the fleet for three weeks he came to the conclusion that, if the average

of injuries and ailments were the same all the year round, every man in

the fleet must be under treatment at least _three times a year_. It

sounds queer, but I can back it with facts--definite cases.

November opened finely, and the weather, except for sharp breezes in the

chill of the early morning, left it possible to visit vessel after

vessel daily. Ferrier never had an uncivil word. One rough customer whom

he asked to board the yacht grinned and answered, "No, sir; I don't hold

with Bethel ships. But," he added remorsefully, "I've heard I reckon

fifty times about you and your ladies and gentlemen, and if you was

capsized out o' that eer boat, I'd have mine out and take her arter you

my own self if the seas was a comin' over that there mast-head."

Then Lewis shook hands with his frank opponent, who grinned affably and

waved until the boat was nearly out of sight. When the time for parting

came, Blair told the Admiral, and the bold fellow said humbly, "Well,

you've done us good. If you only knew, sir, what it is for _us_--_us_,

you know, to have people like you among us, why you'd go and give such a

message as would make the gentlemen ashore feel regular funny. When I

first come to sea we was brutes, and we was treated as brutes. We know

you can't do everything, but just the thought of you being about makes a

difference. It makes men prouder and more ready to take care o'

themselves--if you'll excuse me saying so."

"We'll do far more yet, Admiral," interposed Fullerton. "We're learning

to walk at present. Wait till you see us in full going order, and none

of you will know yourselves."

"Well, good-bye, sir. And I want to ask you particular, sir--_very_

particular. If the wind suits, don't run for home till just about dusk

to-morrow evening, and go through us. The glass is firm, and I think we

shall do well for days to come. Mind you oblige us, sir."

And next morning, as the boats met by the side of the carrier, there was

much gossip, and many mysterious messages passed. Blair told Skipper

Freeman what the Admiral wanted, and the good man grinned hard. "Right,

sir; your time's your own. I'll manage."

The dusk drooped early; a fair breeze was blowing, and the swift

schooner loitered with the smacks. Freeman sent up a rocket, the

schooner's foresail was let over, and she rustled away through the

squadron of brown-sailed craft.

"What's that, Freeman?" asked Blair, as a rocket shot up from the

Admiral's vessel.

"You'll see, sir, presently."

The schooner lay hard over when the big topsails were put on her, and

drew past one smack after another. Then a dingy vessel broke suddenly

into spots of fire; then another, then another. Flares, torches--every

kind of illumination was set going; the hands turned up, and a roar that

reverberated from ship to ship was carried over the water. The very

canopy of light haze looked fiery; the faces of the men flashed like

pallid or scarlet phantoms; the russet sails took every tint of crimson

and orange and warm brown, and from point to point of the horizon a

multitude of flames threw shaking shafts of light that glimmered far

down and splendidly incarnadined the multitudinous sea.

Every ship's company cheered vociferously, and the yacht tore on amid

clamour that might have scared timid folk.

"Why, the good fellows, they're giving us an illumination," said

Fullerton.

"Hah! very modest, I'm sure. I should just think they _were_ giving us

an illumination, sir. I should venture to say that they possibly _were_

doing a little in that way, sir. Yes, sir. Hah! Oh! No-o-oble, sir.

Picturesque, sir, in extreme! I'll write a poem descriptive of this,

sir. And, thank God," said Tom at last, with real feeling, "thank God

there are some people in the world who know what gratitude is like. Hah!

I'm glad I lived to see this day."

The last cheer rattled over the waves. "That's the grandest thing I ever

saw, Miss Dearsley," whispered Lewis.

"I was about to say those very words." Still the schooner tore on;

still the light failed more and more; and then once again, with stars

and sea-winds in her raiment, Night sank on the sea. The yacht was bound

for home, and every one on board had a touch of that sweet fever that

attacks even the most callous of sailors when the vessel's head is the

right way. We shall see what came of the trip which I have described

with dogged care.

END OF BOOK I.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

JANUARY IN THE NORTH SEA!

A bitter morning, with light, powdery snow spotting here and there a

livid background; grey seas travelling fast, and a looming snow-cloud

gradually drooping down. The gulls are mad with hunger, and a cloud of

them skirl harshly over the taffrail of a stout smack that forges fast

through the bleak sea. The smack is coated with ice from the mast-head

to the water's edge; there is not much of a sea, but when a wave does

throw a jet of water over the craft it freezes like magic, and adds yet

another layer to a heap which is making the deck resemble a miniature

glacier.

The smack has a flag hoisted, but alas! the signal that should float

bravely is twisted into a shabby icicle, and it would be lowered but for

the fact that the halliards will not run through the lump of ice that

gathers from the truck to the mast-head. All round to the near horizon a

scattered fleet of snow-white smacks are lingering, and they look like a

weird squadron from a land of chilly death. On the deck of the smack

that has the flag a powerful young man is standing, and by his side--by

all that is astounding--is an enormous man with an enormous beard and a

voice that booms through the Arctic stillness. That is our new scene.

* * * * *

I am not going to play at mystery, for you know as well as I do that the

young man named in that gloomy overture was Lewis Ferrier, and that his

companion was good Tom Lennard;--though what brought the giant out into

the frozen desolation I shall not say just yet.

Yes, Lewis kept his word, and at the time of which we are speaking he

had been three weeks at work on the Bank. He had now three cloth coats

on over his under-wear, and, over all, a leather coat made at Cronstadt,

and redolent of Russia even after weeks of hard wear. With all this he

could not do much more than keep warm. Tom was equipped in similar

fashion, and both men wore that air of stoical cheerfulness which marks

our maligned race, and which tells of the spirit that has sent our

people as masters over all the earth.

"Let's come down and have coffee with the men, Tom. I'm going to have a

try at that Lowestoft smack if the snow only keeps away."

"Right, my adventurer; I'm with you. But I'm not going to let you run

any more risks of that life of yours, my bold mariner. Hah! I'm here to

take care of you, and you've got to be very meek, or I'll set up an

opposition shop. Don't you think I can? Didn't I do up that skipper's

arm in his sling after you took off his finger? Eh! Beware of a rival.

Ah-h!"

"Yes, Thomas, but if you administer turpentine for pleurisy, as you did

to the big Yarmouth fellow, we shall have to turn on a special coroner

to attend on you."

"My good what's-his-name?--Admirable Hitchin--ah-h Admirable Crichton!

that child of Nature took the turpentine of his own accord. I left it

with orders that the application should be external, and it was to be

rubbed in until we got back with the emulsion and the proper liniment;

he tastes it, and finds it hot; he swallows the lot by degrees, and he

doesn't die--he gets well. How am I to blame! I take credit for a

magnificent cure, sir. If you say two words, I'll advertise Lennard's

miraculous emulsion in every journal in town when we get back."

"Coffee, skipper, coffee. The shipwrecked mariners demand refreshment,"

boomed Thomas.

Ah! that coffee! Thick, bitter-sweet, greasy with long stewing! What a

fluid it is--or rather what a solid! Its insolent stodginess has only a

surface resemblance to a fluid; yet it is a comfort on snowy mornings,

and our wanderers took to it kindly.

Lewis had laid himself out to be merry, and several grinning faces

peered from the bunks with kindly welcome as he took his seat on a

rickety fish-box. The skipper asked, "Shall the steward fetch your bread

in here, sir? You can't manage ours."

"All right. How are the men aft?"

"The young fellow from the _Achilles_ was jabbering a bit again. By the

way, you knew Tom Betts had come away in the old _Achilles_, didn't you,

sir?"

"What Tom Betts? Oh yes. Man with concussion of the brain, wasn't it?"

"So I heerd, sir. He told everybody at home how you saved him, and when

he said how he thought he'd gone to heaven he set all the women in the

Mission Hall a-pipin' of their eye. He's on the Lord's side now, sir.

You done that." "Well, I'm a queer customer to do anything of the kind,

skipper. I'm only glad I got him sewed up soon enough, but my business

ends there."

"You're jest as good as some as makes a frap about bein' good. I think,

sir, you put's on some of that light-come-go-away kind of a game."

"Never mind; we'll only hope we'll have no more cases like that exactly.

I don't know how we should have managed if there had been such another

last week."

"That was a strongish sea, and we're sure of more."

You never can get a North Sea man to own that any weather is very bad.

Years after a really bad gale he may give the wind credit for being in

earnest, but usually he talks in a patronizing way of the elements,

using diminutives, and trying to make light of the trouble so long as it

lasts. There had been hard weather since Lewis came out, and, though he

had ample stores and appliances now, he found that he was hampered by

the limitations of space as he was on board the schooner. Life had been

very rough for the young fellow and his burly worshipper since they came

out, and they only kept each other up by a mutual sham of the most

elaborate character. After breakfast, Lewis gave orders to run as close

as might be safe to the thick of the fleet; the smack was practically

under his command, and he took her where he thought he might be most

needed. One of his patients in the after-cabin was muttering uneasily,

for there was some feverishness; the other man had come down with a

crash on the icy deck, and the shock had apparently caused concussion of

the spine, for he could not move, and he was fed as if he were a child.

Lewis bent over the helpless seaman, and spoke kindly. The man sighed,

"Thank God I am where I am, sir. That long plaister begins to burn a

bit, but I a'most like it. There's little funny feelings runs down my

arms and legs."

"All right! You'll soon be better. Did you work all through the gale?"

"We was about for two nights and a day, sir, and every one of us with

the ulcers right up the arms. It was warm business, I can tell you, sir.

My ulcers are all going away now, with this warm cabin, but they were

throbbing all night before. When I come down such a crack I was makin' a

run for the taickle, for fear we might let the gear drop, and I saw a

flash in my eyes, and nothing more till I was aboard here."

"You were trawling when that breeze started?"

"Yes. We mustn't mind weather when the market's to be considered. Tell

me now, sir--you've got time, haven't you, sir? Talkin' of the market,

and I've been nearly dead, and not out o' the muck yet--does the people

know what us chaps gets for fish?"

"They never think. The fish comes, and the milk comes, and they pay the

fishmonger's bill and the milkman's, and they think one's the same as

the other, my man."

"Eh! I was thinkin' about a gentleman as came from this Mission vessel

aboard of us. He saw our twelve o'clock haul, and he says, 'Bad breeze

last night, my man. Did you work through it?' Well, there was nothing

much of a wind--just enough to make us reef her; so I answers, and he

says, 'I suppose this is your night's work. Now, what is your share?' So

I said my share would likely be tenpence. Well, he gives a reg'lar

screech; and then I reckoned up the price of all the lot as well as I

could guess, and he screeched again. 'Why,' says he, 'old Mother Baubo,

that keeps the shop in my district at home, would charge me eight

shillings for that turbot, four-and-six for that, eightpence for each of

those sixty haddocks, and nobody knows what for the rest.' Now, I've

thought of that gentleman and his screech many a time since, and when I

felt the light a-comin' to my eyes here, I thought again. Do you think I

shall die, sir? Excuse me."

"Die! No. Fact is, I'm too good-natured a doctor. I shall have to stop

you from talking. Die! We'll make a man of you, and send you on board

soon. Go on, I can stay another five minutes." "Well, sir, when I

thought of death, I thought what people would say if they knew how much

I got for risking this smash. That night I was over the rail on to the

trawl-beam twice; I was at the pumps an hour; I pulled and hauled with

both arms raw, and the snow freezing with the salt as soon as it came on

my ulcers, and then I got the smash. And all for about eightpence. And

that screeching gentleman told me as how his Mother Baubo, as he calls

her, drives a broom and two horses, or a horse and two brooms--I'm

mixed. No, 'twas a land-oh and two horses, and a broom and one horse.

And I gets eightpence for a-many hours and a smash. I never mind the

fellows that tells us on Sundays when we're ashore to rise and assirk

our rights or something, but there's a bit wrong somewhere, sir. It

don't seem the thing."

"Well, you see people would say you needn't be a fisherman; you weren't

forced to come."

"But I was, sir. I knew no more what I was coming to than a babe, and

once you're here, you stays here." "Well, never mind for the present,

my man. Why, you're a regular lawyer, you rascal; I shall have to mind

my p's and q's with you. Now don't talk any more, or you'll fidget, and

that won't do your back any good. Will you have bread and milk, or

beef-tea and toast, you luxurious person? And I must be your valet."

"I don't know about vally, sir. It's vally enough for me. To think as I

should have a gentleman waitin' on me as if he was a cabin-boy! Anything

_you_ like, sir. The sight of you makes me better."

The man's tears were flowing; he was weak, poor fellow, and wanting in

the item of well-bred reticence. Lewis fed one patient, trimmed the

other's bed, put on a woollen helmet, sou'-wester, two pairs of gloves,

and the trusty Russian coat; then he was slung into the boat like a

bundle of clothes; landed springily on a thole, and departed over seas

not much bigger than an ordinary two-storey house. It was quite moderate

weather, and the sprightly young savant had lost that feeling which

makes you try to double yourself into knots when you watch a wave

gradually shutting away the outer world and preparing to fold its livid

gloom about you. "What would the Cowes fellows say to this, I wonder?"

thought the irreverent young pioneer. Then he chuckled over the thought

of the reckless Seadogs who march in nautical raiment on the pier. Those

wild, rollicking Seadogs! How the North Sea men would envy them and

their dower of dauntlessness! The Seadog takes his frugal lunch at the

club; he begins with a sole, and no doubt he casts a patronizing thought

towards the other Seadogs who trawled for the delicate fish. They are

not so like seamen in appearance as is the Cowes Seadog; they do not

wear shiny buttons; the polish on their boots is scarcely brilliant;

they wear unclean jumpers, and flannel trousers fit to make an aesthetic

Seadog faint with emotion of various sorts. No! they are not pattern

Seadogs at all--those North Sea workers. Would that they could learn a

lesson from the hardy Cowes Rover. Well, the Rover tries a cutlet after

his fish, then he has cheese and a grape or two, and he tops up his

frugal meal with a pint of British Imperial. A shilling cigar brings his

lunch up to just sixteen shillings--as much as a North Sea amateur could

earn in a week of luck--and then he prepares to face the terrors of the

Deep. Does he tremble? Do the thoughts of the Past arise in his soul?

Nay, the Seadog of Cowes is no man to be the prey of womanish tremors;

he goes gaily like a true Mariner to confront the elements. The boat is

ready, and four gallant salts are resting on their oars; the Seadog

steps recklessly on board and looks at the weather. Ha! there is a sea

of at least two inches high running, and that frail boat must traverse

that wild space. No matter! The man who would blench at even two hundred

yards of water, with waves even three inches high is totally, unworthy

of the name of a British Seadog! One thought of friends and mother dear;

one last look at the Club where that sole was served, and then, with all

the ferocious determination of his conquering race, the Seadog bids the

men give way. It is an awful sight! Four strokes, and the bow man

receives as nearly as possible half a pint of water on his jersey!

Steady! No shirking, my sons of the sea-kings. Twenty strokes more--the

peril is past; and the Seadog bounds on to the deck of his stout vessel.

He is saved. A basket with a turbot is in the stern-sheets; that turbot

will form part of the Seadog's humble evening meal. It cost a guinea,

and the North Sea amateurs, who received two shillings of that amount,

would doubtless rejoice could they know that they risked their lives in

a tearing August gale to provide for the wants of a brother Seadog.

By the time Lewis had finished his heroic reverie, he was nicely sheeted

with ice, for the spray froze as it fell, and he was alongside of the

smack that he wanted--which was more to the purpose. In a few minutes he

was engaged in dealing with a prosaic, crushed foot. A heavy boat had

jammed his patient against the iron side of the steam-carrier. The man

was stoical, like the rest of his mates, but he was in torture, for the

bones were all huddled into a twisted mass--a gruesome thing, ladies,

and a common thing, too, if you would but think it. Ferrier had to use

the knife first, for the accident was not so recent as he could have

wished; then for near half an hour he was working like some clever

conjurer, while the vessel heaved slowly, and the reek of the cabin

coiled rankly round him. What a picture! That man, the pride of his

university, the rising hope of the Royal Society, the professor whom

students would have idolized, was bending his superb head over a poor,

groaning sailorman, and performing a hard operation amid air that was

merely volatile sewage! A few men looked on; they are kind, but they all

suffer so much that the suffering of others is watched with passive

callousness.

"Brandy now, my man. This is your first and last drink, and you may make

it a good one. Don't give him any more, skipper, even if you have it on

board. You know why? Ah! the colour's coming back again. Now, my lad,

we're going to make your bed up on the cabin floor. Hand me a flannel;

and you, my man, some water out of the kettle. Now for a clean place.

I'll set up as a housemaid when I go ashore."

"Excuse _me_, sir, but if you thinks you're goin' to be let to scrub

that ar plank, sir, you're mistaken. I'm skipper here, and I'll do that

jest to show you how we thinks of your politeness, mister. Hand over

that scrubber."

"All right, you obstinate mule; of course you'll have your own way. Let

me see his mattress, then. Won't do! Which of you durst come with the

boat, and I'll send a cocoanut-fibre one for him?"

"We never talks about durst here, sir. Not many on us doesn't. We'll go,

when you goes."

So Lewis cheerily ended his task, and when his man was laid out, with a

dry bundle of netting under his head, the doctor bent over him only to

smile in his face quietly. He never looked at himself in a glass

excepting to part his hair; but he had learned that something in his

look tended to hearten his patients, so he gazed merrily at the cripple

and said, "Now, when you're better, tell your friends Professor Ferrier

said you were the pluckiest fellow he ever saw. I couldn't have borne

what you did. You are a real good, game bit of stuff! and don't let any

one tell me otherwise."

This unconscionable young doctor was picking up the proper tone for the

North Sea; he had no airs, and, when his boat was reeling away to his

own vessel again over the powdery crests of the sea, an Aldeburgh

fisherman said, "Well, Joe, be sewer, he's a wunnerful fine gent, that

is! He's the wunnerfullest, finest gent ever _I_ fared for to see. And

that he is--solid."

"Yes, Jimmy," said the skipper. "It's my belief, in a way o' speakin',

that if that theer mizen-boom catched you and knocked your head off,

that theer wunnerful young gent 'ud come, and he'd have his laugh, and

he'd up and he'd mend you, same as if you'd never come adrift, not one

little bit. What a thing is larnin', to _be_ sewer. Yes, sir, he'd mend

you. Nobody knows what he can dew, and nobody knows what he can't dew.

If we puts to this night--and I don't know why not, for we're

sailin'--if we gets a turbot I'll pay for it, and he'll have that theer

fish if I swims for it."

"You've always got a good way o' puttin' things, skipper, and I says I

holds 'long o' you."

The patient slumbered blissfully in the dreary cabin, which could only

be likened to a bewitched laundry in which things were always being

washed and never cleaned; the men awaited the Admiral's signal; the snow

thickened into ponderous falling masses;--and the professor jumped on

deck, to be met with a loud boom of gratification by Tom, who had begun

to dread the snow.

I like to think of that young gentleman faring over the treacherous

lulls of sad water amid the sinister eddies of the snowstorm. I wonder

if any other country could produce a gently-nurtured young scholar who

would make a similar journey. It seems doubtful, and more than doubtful.

Tom had been reading to the paralyzed fisherman, and, although his

ordinary tones had too much of the minute-gun about them to suit small

apartments, he could lower his voice to a quiet deep bass which was

anything but unpleasant, and he had completely charmed the poor helpless

one by reading--or rather intoning--"Evangeline." Seafaring folk _will_

have sentiment in their literature and music; humour must be of the most

obvious sort to suit them--in fact they usually care only for the

horseplay of literature--but pathos of any sort they accept at once, and

Tom had tears of pride in his eyes when he told Lewis how the man had

understood the first part of the poem, and how he had talked for a good

half-hour about the eviction of the Acadians, and its resemblance to the

fate of various fishermen's wives who had got behind with their rents.

The evening closed in a troublous horror of great darkness, and the

anxious night began. Ferrier always made up his mind to stay below at

night, and he amused himself either by snatching a chat with the

skipper, or by reading one or two good novels which he had brought. But

imagine the desolation, the sombre surroundings, the risks to be run

every hour--every second--and you will understand that those two English

gentlemen had something in them passing self-interest, passing all that

the world has to offer. Ferrier never dreamed of becoming a nautical

recluse; he was too full of the joy of life for that: but he had a

purpose, and he went right at his mark like a bullet from a rifle. Once

that evening he went on deck and tried to peer through the wall of

trembling darkness that surrounded him; the view made him feel like the

victim in Poe's awful Inquisition story--the walls seemed to be closing

in. Faintly the starboard light shone, so that the snowflakes crossed

its path like dropping emeralds that shone a little in glory and then

fell dark; on the other side a fitful stream of rubies seemed to be

pouring; the lurid gleam from the cabin shone up the hatchway;--and, for

the rest, there was cold, darkness, the shadow of dread, and yet the

lookout-men were singing a duet as if death were not. The freezing drift

was enough to stop one's breath, but the lads were quite at ease, and,

to the air of a wicked old shanty, they sang about weathering the storm

and anchoring by and by. Ferrier was not a conscious poet;--alas! had he

the fearful facility which this sinful writer once possessed, I shudder

to think of the sufferings of his friends when he described the brooding

weariness of this night in verse. He bottled up his verses and turned

them all into central fire; but he had poetry in every fibre all the

same.

Tom remarked, "This is very much like being iced for market. I wonder

what we could possibly do, if anything came into us as that barque did?

Let's talk about home."

"Pleasant indoors now; I can see the fire on the edges of the

furniture. The very thought of a hearthrug seems like a heathen luxury.

What will you do first when you get home, Tom?"

"Turkish bath."

"And then?"

"Oysters."

"Then?"

"Dinner."

"And after?"

"I'll spend the whole evening in pretending to myself I'm on the North

Sea again, and waking up to find that I've got my armchair under me."

"Can you see anything, Jim, just a point or so abaft the beam."

This was an ugly interruption to the Barmecides, who had begun to set

forth shadowy feasts. That is the way in thick weather; you are no

sooner out of one scrape than you blunder into another.

"Yes, sir, she'll go clear," sang out the man.

"She won't, I'm afraid," said Lewis, under his breath. It was most

puzzling; there was no guide; the snow made distances ridiculous, and

the black shadow came nearer.

"Up, all of you, and set your fenders. Doctor, show him a flare."

It was a smack, and her lights had gone wrong somehow; she was moving

but slowly, and she let the Mission vessel off with a hole in the mizen.

The scrimmage would have meant death had any breeze been blowing; but

the men took it coolly after the one dread minute of anxiety was over.

If we were all able to imagine our own deaths as possible--to _really_

imagine it, I mean--then one snowy night on the banks would drive any

man mad; no brain could stand it. We all know we shall die, but none of

us seem to believe it, or else no one would ever go to sea a second time

in winter. A steady opiate is at work in each man's being--blurring his

vision of extinction, and thus our seamen go through a certain

performance a dozen times over in a winter, and this performance is much

like that of a blindfold man driving a Hansom cab from Cornhill to

Marble Arch on a Saturday evening during a November fog.

The man who shoved the cork fender over the side had received a graze

which sent a big flap of skin over his eye and blinded him with blood.

He laughed when Lewis dressed him, and said, "That was near enough for

most people, sir. I've seen two or three like that in a night."

"Well, I like to see you laugh, but I thought all was over when I saw he

was going to give us the stem."

"So did I, sir; but fishermen has to git used to being drowned."

As Lennard and the doctor sat filling the crew's cabin with billows of

smoke, the former said--"There's a kind of frolicsome humour about these

men that truly pleases me. Frolicsome! isn't it?"

"Well, we've stood another dreary day out; but think of those poor

beggars aft, lying in pain and loneliness. Tom, let's say our prayers; I

don't know that there's much good in it, but when I think of twelve

thousand men bearing such a life as we've had, I think there

must--there must be some Power that won't let it last for ever. Mind,

when we've done praying, no more sentiment; we'll smoke and laugh after

we've put in a word for the fishermen--and ourselves."

"And somebody else."

"Who?"

"I'll write and ask Mr. Cassall. That's Miss Dearsley's uncle."

I have seen our Englishmen fool on in that aimless way during all sorts

of peril and trouble. I want you to understand that the evangelist and

the sceptic both were prepared to hear the scraunch of the collision on

that deadly night; they had seen two entire ships' companies lost since

they came out, yet they would not give in or look serious altogether.

They had come to found a hospital for the mangled hundreds of fishermen,

and they were going through with their task in the steady, dogged,

light-hearted British way. Foreigners and foreigneering Englishmen say

it is blockheaded denseness. Is it?

CHAPTER II.

A CRUCIAL TEST.

"When you sailed away in the Yarmouth ships,

I waved my hand as you passed the pier;

It was just an hour since you kissed my lips,

And I'll never kiss you no more, my dear.

* * * * *

"For now they tell me you're dead and gone,

And all the world is nothing to me;

And there's the baby, our only one,

The bonny bairn that you'll never see."

("The Mate's Wife," by J. Runciman.)

Suffering--monotonous, ceaseless suffering; gallant endurance; sordid

filth; unnamed agonies; gnawing, petty pains; cold--and the chance of

death. That was the round of life that Lewis Ferrier gazed upon until a

day came that will be remembered, as Flodden Field was in Scotland, as

Gettysburg is in America, as January 19th, 1881, is in Yarmouth. Ferrier

had stuck to his terrible routine work, and, as Sir Everard Romfrey

observes: "To stick to work _after_ the great effort's over--that's what

shows the man." The man never flinched, though he had tasks that might

have wearied brain and heart by their sheer nastiness; the healer must

have no nerves.

A little break in the monotony came at last, and Mr. Ferrier and Mr. T.

Lennard had an experience which neither will forget on this side of the

grave. Contrary to the fashion of mere novelists, who are not dreamers

and who consequently cannot see the end of things, I tell you that both

men were kept alive, but they had something to endure.

The day had been fairly pleasant considering the time of year, and our

friends were kept busy in running from vessel to vessel, looking after

men with slight ailments. There was no snow, but some heavy banks hung

in the sky away to the eastward. When the sun sank, the west was almost

clear, and Tom and Lewis were electrified by the most extraordinary

sunset that either had ever seen. The variety of colour was not great;

all the open spaces of the sky were pallid green, and all the wisps of

cloud were leprous blue: it was the intensity of the hues that made the

sight so overpowering, for the spaces of green shone with a clear

glitter exactly like the quality of colours which you see on Crookes's

tubes when a powerful electric current is passed through.

"That's very artistic, and everything else of the sort; it's ah-h better

than any painting I ever saw, but there's something about it that

reminds me of snakes and things of that kind. Snakes! If you saw a

forked tongue come out of that blue you wouldn't be surprised."

"You're getting to be quite an impressionist, Tom. The sky is horrible.

I see all our vessels are getting their boats in; we'd better follow

suit. How's the glass, skipper?" "Never saw anything like it, sir. This

night isn't over yet, and I reckon what's coming is coming from the

nor'-east. We're going to reef down. I haven't seen anything like this

since 1866, and I remember we had just such another evening."

As usual, the gulls were troubled in their minds, and wailed piercingly,

for they seem to be mercurial in temperament, and no better weather

prophets can be seen.

The two ambulance-service men went below, declining to show any

misgivings, and they had a good, desultory chat before anything happened

to call them on deck. They talked of the poor bruised fellows whom they

had seen; then of home; then of the splendid future when men would be

kinder, and no fisherman with festering wounds would ever be permitted

to die like a dog in a stinking kennel. Pleasant, honest talk it was,

for the talkers were pleasant and honest. No bad man can talk well. Our

two gentlemen had learned a long lesson of unselfishness, and each of

them seemed to become gentler and more worthy in proportion as he gave

up more and more of his comfort and his labour to serve others.

At last Ferrier said, "Well, Tom, we had a heavy turn in the autumn. If

we go this time we'll go together, and I've often wondered what that

could be like. What do men say when they meet the last together? Whew-w!

How I hate death. The monster! The beastly cold privation. To leave even

a North Sea smack must be bitter."

The patients were listening; the man with concussion was gone, cured,

and his place was held by a burly man who had tried (as heavy fellows

will) to haul his own fourteen stone up to the main-boom during a

breeze, in order to repair a reef-earring. The vessel came up to the

wind, and the jar flung poor Ebenezer Mutton clash on to the deck.

Luckily he did not land on his skull, but he had a dislocated ankle.

Ebenezer whispered, "I heern you talkin' about the gale, sir, and you're

right; we've got somethin' to come. I have a left arm that can beat any

glass ever was seen. I come down from the jaws of the gaff just when we

was snuggin' her before the gale in '66, and my arm went in four places.

Ever since then that there arm tells every change as plain as plain can

be. Yes, sir, it's hard to die, even out off a North Sea smack, as you

say. Just before the '66 breeze I used often to think, 'Shall I go

overboard?' but when we was disabled, and skipper told us 'twas every

man for hisself, I looked queer. My arm says there's bad a-comin', and I

know you don't skeer easy, or a wouldn't tell you."

A hollow sound filled the whole arch of the sky; it was a great,

bewildering sound like a cry--an immense imprecation of some stricken

Titan.

"What can that be?" murmured Lennard, with his bold face blanched. "That

caps everything."

The masterful sound held on for a little, and then sank into a tired

sort of moan.

"Callin' them together, sir,--that's what some o' the West Country chaps

calls the King o' the Winds speakin'. It's only snow gettin' locked in

the sky, and you'll see it come away in a little."

"I don't know what it is, Ebenezer, but I don't like it."

On deck the night was black, the splendid green of the west had burnt

out, and a breeze was making little efforts from time to time, with

little hollow moans.

"Bad, bad, bad, bad, sir," barked the skipper, angrily.

The vanward flights of twirling flakes came on then, as if suddenly

unleashed, the wind sprang up, and the great fight began. If you,

whoever you may be, and two more strong men had tried to shut an

ordinary door in the teeth of that first shock, you would have failed,

for the momentum was like that of iron.

"Steady, and look out," the skipper yelled.

The third hand was lifted off his feet and dashed into the lee channels.

Ferrier fought hard, but he was clutched by the hand of the wind, and

held against the mizen-mast; he could just clutch the rest in which a

lifebuoy was hanging, and that alone saved him from being felled.

The Lord is a Man of War! Surely His hosts were abroad now. No work of

man's hands could endure the onset of the forces let loose on that bad

night. The sea jumped up like magic, and hurried before the lash of the

wind. Then, with a darkening swoop, came the snowstorm, hurled along on

wide wings; the last remnants of light fled; the vessel was shut in, and

the devoted company on board could only grope in the murk on deck. No

one would stay below, for the sudden, unexampled assault of the

hurricane had touched the nerve of the coolest.

I am told by one who was on a wide heath at the beginning of that

hurricane, that he was coated with solid ice from head to foot on the

windward side; his hair and beard were icicles; his spaniel cowered and

refused to move; and a splendid, strong horse, which was being driven

right in the teeth of the wind, suddenly put its nose to the ground, set

its forelegs wide apart, and refused to go on. Not far from the horse

was a great poplar, and this tree suddenly snapped like a stick of

macaroni; the horse started, whirled round, and galloped off with the

wind behind.

What must it have been at sea? Men durst not look to windward, for a

hard mass seemed to be thrust into nostrils and eyes, so that one was

forced to gasp and choke. As for the turmoil!--all Gravelotte, with half

a million men engaged, could not have made such a soul-quelling,

overmastering sound. Every capacity of sound, every possible discordant

vibration of the atmosphere was at work; and so, with bellow on bellow,

crash on crash, vast multitudinous shriek on shriek, that fateful

tempest went on.

Ferrier found that unless he could get under the lee of something or

other, he must soon be sheathed in a coat of ice that would prevent him

from stirring at all. Oddly enough, he found afterwards that the very

fate he dreaded had befallen several forlorn seamen: the icy missiles of

the storm froze them in; the wind did not chill them, it throttled

them, and they were found frozen rigid in various positions.

The mate came and whispered in Ferrier's ear (for shouting was useless),

"The skipper would like a word with you. We'll keep some sort of a

look-out, but it isn't much good at present. Come into our cabin."

Lewis was not sorry, for the waves began to take the vessel without

"noticing" her, as it were, just as a good hunter takes an easy ditch in

his stride. If one came perpendicularly upon her, it was easy to see

what must happen.

The skipper said, "I want you gentlemen to assist me. I'm ordered to

obey _you_, but I know this sea, and I tell you that I'm doubtful

whether I shall save the vessel. I can't keep her hove-to much longer,

for this simple reason as she'll bury herself and us. I've got two

hundred and forty-four miles to run home. Will you let me run her? If

so, I'll take her in under storm canvas. She's splendid before wind and

sea, and I can save her that way; if we stop as we are, I fear we drown.

I've seen so many years of it that I don't so much mind, but having you

is a terrible thing. Hishht, a sea's coming!--I can tell by the lull."

Then the two landsmen cowered involuntarily, and looked in each other's

eyes with a wild surmise, for a shock came which made the vessel quiver

like a tuning-fork in every fibre; the very pannikins on the cabin floor

rattled, and all the things in the pantry went like rapidly chattering

teeth. It was not like an ordinary blow of the sea. The skipper rushed

aft, hoping to get on deck through Ferrier's cabin, but he met a

cataract of water which blinded him, and he came back saying, "I doubt

her deck won't stand another like that. Now, gentlemen, it's for you to

decide."

"Skipper, send Bill up to help me with the boat. That last's drove her

abreast the skylight."

The one look-out man had saved himself. How, only a smacksman can tell.

The skipper came down again.

"Now, gentlemen, shall I run or not?" "Well, skipper, if we get through

this we shall be more needed than ever."

"Yes, sir; but if that last sea hadn't glanced a bit on our starboard

bow, we _shouldn't_ have got through. We've saved the boat, but she was

snapped from the grips like a rotten tooth."

"But, skipper, we may be pooped in running, or we may do some damage to

the rudder and broach-to. Then we should be worse off than here."

"Very well, gentlemen. I'm not concerned for myself. My duty's done now,

and I'll do my best. I advise you to take some coffee, and try to get a

few hours' rest before the pinch comes. You'll not get much rest then."

Another sea came, and another; the sound of the wind paralyzed thought

and made speech impossible. Had any one said, "The end of the world has

come," you would have felt only a mild surprise, for even the capacity

for fear or apprehension was stunned as the brain is stunned by a blow.

"I can't stand this any longer, Tom. Even brandy wouldn't do much good

for more than an hour. Do you hear me?"

Tom nodded in a dazed way.

"Well, then, let's go into the open somehow. Perhaps the skipper's

strong, hot coffee _will_ wake us. Anyhow, let us try a cup."

Oh! that indescribable night! To know that death was feasting in that

blackness; to feel that vigilance was of no avail; to turn away

convulsed from the iron push of the demoniac force which for the time

seemed to have taken the place of an atmosphere. Smash! Rattle. Then a

wild whistling; a many lashes, that flapped and cracked; then the fall

of the spar, and the deep, quick sigh from Lennard as it whizzed close

by him. The gaff of the mizen had broken away, halliards and all, as if

a supernatural knife had been drawn across by a strong hand. The men

were hanging on, while a bellying, uncontrollable canvas buffeted them

as if it had volition and sense, and strove to knock their senses out of

them. A canvas adrift is like an unruly beast. All hands came through

the after-cabin, and attacked the thundering sail.

"For your lives now, chaps, before another sea comes! I can't slack away

these halliards. Bob, out knife, and up in the rings; cut them away."

The gaff had fallen, but it was not clear yet. In some mysterious

fashion the mizen halliards had yielded and slipped for some distance

after a sudden shock had cut the gaff halliards and let the jaws of the

gaff free; so now the sail would neither haul up nor come down. Like a

cat Bob sprang up the remaining rings, and hacked at the gear; the sail

fell--and so did Bob, with a dull thud.

"Oh! skipper, that's a bad 'un."

"Cast a line round him till we've stowed. Jim, take hold of her; she's

falling off! Shove her to the wind again till we're done! Now, lads, all

of you on to the sheet! Haul! oh, haul! Slack away them toppin' lifts.

So; now we've got her! Where's Bob?"

"Doctor's got him below, skipper." Poor Bob had tried to save himself

with his right arm, and his hand had been bent backwards over, and

doubled back on his forearm. Bob was settled for the rest of the gale.

Lewis soon had the broken limb put up, and Bob stolidly smoked and

pondered on the inequalities of life. Why was he, and not another, told

off to spring up that reeling mizen into a high breeze that ended by

mastering him, and flinging him as if he had been a poor wrestler

matched with a champion? Here he was--crippled.

"Well, Bob, if this is a specimen, we shall see something when it

clears."

"Yes, doctor; you may say that, you may. I never see nothing like it. If

you give a man ten hundred thousand goulden sovereigns, and you says,

'Tell me directly you see anything comin',' he couldn't. When I was on

the look-out, I held this 'ere hand, as is broken, up before my eyes,

and I couldn't see it, sir--and that's the gospel, as I'm here!"

"Do you think we're out of the track of ships?" "I know no more than

Adam, sir. Hello! what's that?"

"Up here, sir--up, quick!"

Ferrier's heart jumped as he thought--"Tom."

"Haul on here, sir, with us. God be praised, he took his rope over with

him. Haul, for the Lord's sake! Now! now!"

Ferrier lashed at his work in a fury of effort: a sea sent him on his

knees, and yet he lay hack against the inrush of water, and hauled with

all the weight of body and arms.

"Haul, my men! A good life is at the end of that line. Haul! the ice may

congeal his pulses before you get at him! Haul! oh, haul!"

The skipper sprang to the grating abaft the wheel.

"Here he is. Glory be to God! Are you right, sir?"

No answer.

"My God! are you sure, skipper?"

"Sure. Look!"

Ferrier saw an object like a mass of seaweed, but the night was so

pitchy that no outline could be made out.

"Who durst try to pass a line under his arms?"

"Hand here, skipper; I will."

"Oh, Lewis! Keep nerve and eye steady. The graves are twenty fathoms

below."

Lennard was inert, and no one could tell how he held on until he was

flung on the deck.

"Lend us that binnacle lamp, Jim. Turn it on him."

Then it was seen that Tom might have been hauled up without putting

Ferrier in peril, for the rope was twice coiled under his arms and

loosely knotted in front; he had taken that precaution after seeing Bob

fall. Moreover, strange to say, his teeth were locked in the rope, for

he had laid hold with the last effort of despair.

The wind volleyed; the darkness remained impenetrable, and every sea

that came was a Niagara; yet the gallant smack stood to it, and Tom

Lennard slumbered after the breath came back to him. His ribs had stood

the strain of that rope, but he had really been semi-strangled, and he

was marked with two lurid, extravasated bands round his chest. He never

spoke before falling asleep; he only pressed Ferrier's hand and pointed,

with a smile, upward.

"If it goes on like this, sir, there won't be many of us left by the

morning."

"No, skipper. I hope the men will secure themselves like us. Mr. Lennard

had a near thing. He has a jaw like a walrus, or his teeth must have

gone."

So, in fitful whispers, the grim scraps of talk went on while the blare

of the trumpets of the Night was loosened over the sea.

"Look--over the port-side, there. It's beginning."

Ferrier could make out nothing until the skipper gave him the exact line

to look on. Then he saw a Something that seemed to wallow darkly on a

dark tumble of criss-cross seas.

"He's bottom up, sir. If we'd been running and gone into him, we should

have been at rest soon."

"How beautifully we are behaving, skipper. I suppose there's no chance

of our going like that?"

"Not without something hits our rudder. We seem to have got away from

the track now. While you were below, you see, I got her mainsail in, and

that strip of sail has no more pull than a three-cloth jib. Please God,

we may get through. If anything happens to my mainmast I shall give

in--but it's a good spar."

Ferrier's mind went wandering with a sort of boding fierceness; he

framed dramatic pictures of all that was passing in the chaotic ruin of

shattered seas that rushed and seethed around. He had often spoken of

the gigantic forces of Nature, but the words had been like algebraic

formulae; now he saw the reality, and his rebellious mind was humbled.

"To-morrow, or next day, I shall have to see the misery that this

causes. But why should I talk of misery? The word implies a complaint.

A hundred smacksmen die to-night. Pitiful! But if this hurricane and all

the lesser breezes did not blow, then millions would die who live now in

healthy air. If the sea were not lashed up and oxygenated, we should

have a stagnant pest-hole like an old rotten fishpond all round the

world. England would be like Sierra Leone, and there would soon be no

human race. Who talks of kindness and goodness in face of a scene like

this? We know nothing. The hundred fishermen die, and the unpoisoned

millions live. We are shadows; we have not a single right. If I die

to-night, I shall have been spent by an Almighty Power that has used me.

Will He cast me to nothingness after I have fulfilled my purpose? Never.

There is not a gust of this wind that does not move truly according to

eternal law; there can be no injustice, for no one can judge the Judge.

If I suffer the petty pang of Death while a great purpose is being

wrought out, I have no more reason to complain than if I were a child

sharply pushed out of the way to let a fireengine pass. The great

Purpose is everything, and I am but an instrument--just as this

hurricane is an instrument. I shall be humble and do the work next my

hand, and I will never question God any more. If a man can reckon his

own individuality as anything after seeing this sight, he is a human

failure; he is an abortion that should be wiped out. And now I'll try to

pray."

So in sharp, short steps the scholar's thought strode on, and the sombre

storming of the gale made an awful accompaniment to the pigmy's

strenuous musings. Ferrier's destiny was being settled in that

cataclysm, had he only known it; his pride was smitten, and he was ready

to "receive the kingdom of God as a little child," to begin to learn on

a level with the darkened fishermen whom he had gently patronized. As

soon as he had resolved that night on Self-abnegation, as soon as the

lightning conviction of his own insignificance had flashed through him,

he humbly but "boldly" came "to the Throne of Grace." Like every one

else who thus draws near to God through the Saviour's merit, he learned

what it is to "obtain mercy"; a brooding calm took possession of his

purified soul, and he was born again into a world where pride, egotism,

angry revolt, and despair are unknown.

There would be no good in prolonging the story of this wrestle; there

was a certain sameness in every phase, though the dangers seemed to

change with such protean swiftness. For three days it lasted, and on the

third day Tom Lennard, Ferrier, the patients, and the crew, were far

more interested in the steward's efforts to boil coffee than they were

in the arrowy flight of the snow-masses or the menace of towering seas.

Ferrier attended his men, and varied that employment by chatting with

Lennard, who was now able to sit up. Tom was much shaken and very

solemn; he did not like talking of his late ordeal.

"Lewis, my dear friend, I have looked on the Eternal Majesty, and now

death has no more terror for me. He will hide me in the shadow of His

wings. I have seen what was known to them of old time; I knew when the

gun seemed to go off inside my head, and I could feel nothing more, I

knew that I should live: and that was the last light I saw in this world

until you saved me--God bless you! We won't ever speak of it again."

Thus spoke Tom, with a fluency and correctness of diction which

surprised himself. And he has never dilated on his mishap throughout his

life so far.

It is not uncommon--that same awe-stricken reticence. This writer knows

a man, a great scholar, a specimen of the best aristocratic class, a man

fitted to charm both men and women. Long ago, he and two others slid two

thousand feet down an Alpine slope. For two days and two nights the

living man rested on a glacier--tied to the dead. "Oh! wretched man that

I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!" My subject

knows all about this; he has gazed on the Unutterable, and he has never

mentioned his soul-piercing experience to any creature. There are more

things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

* * * * *

The worst of the ordeal was over; the snow ceased, the hurricane fined

off, and only the turbulent water rushing in discoloured mountains under

the last impetus of the wind--only that cruel water persisted in

violence. It seemed as if for days the sea were sentient, and could not

forget its long torture. Then came a griping frost and a hard sky, with

slight breeze and a quiet sea.

Oh, the marks of ruin and annihilation! The sea was strewn with

wreckage; masses of timber swung around in loose rafts; vessels, bottom

up, passed the smack from day to day; the fleet was dispersed, and only

a few battered and ragged vessels could be seen rolling here and there

in disorganized isolation. "Goodness knows when we shall ever see our

people again, sir. We can't do nothin'; I'll keep a sharp look-out all

through daylight, and we'll pick them up if we can, but I fancy most of

them have run for home or the Humber. Before we settle to work again I

was thinking of a little thanksgiving service. We're saved for some good

purpose, sir, and it's only fit we should say a word humbly to our

blessed Father in heaven."

And all on board met in the simple North Sea fashion, and even the

patients had their say. Only Tom Lennard remained impenetrably silent;

he knew too much; he was a past-master in the mystery of mysteries. The

people used to say in Ravenna, "Behold, there is the man who has been in

hell," when they saw the awful face of Dante; poor, loose-brained Tom

Lennard had also seen that which may not be made known.

"There's some on 'em right ahead, skipper, I think. Joe Questor's there,

I know. He hasn't lost his new mainsail. See 'em, skipper?"

A few dark grey shadows like slim poles were all that Ferrier could see;

but the man was right, and when the deft fingers--those miraculous

fingers--of the seaman had set the mizen right, the smack was sailed

with every stitch on, until she buried herself in the sulky, slow bulges

of the ground swell. Ferrier said, "You see, skipper, it's better to

risk carrying away something, than to have some poor smashed customer

waiting helpless." And the skipper cracked on with every rag he could

show until, on a sealing frosty morning, he shot in among the dismal

remains of the gallant fleet.

Ferrier's vessel would have pleased certain lovers of the picturesque if

they had studied her appearance, but she was in a dreadful state from

the prosaic seaman's point of view. Every wave had been laid under

tribute by the frost, and a solid hillock had gathered forward; the

anchor was covered in like a candied fruit; the boat was entirely

concealed by a hard white mass; while as for the ropes--they cannot be

described fittingly. Would any one imagine that a half-inch rope could

be made the centre of a column of ice three inches in diameter? Would

any one imagine that a small block could be the nucleus of a lump as

large as a pumpkin? From stem to stern the vessel was caked in glossy

ice, and from her gaffs and booms hung huge icicles like the stalagmites

of the Dropping Cave. All the other smacks were in the same plight, and

it was quite clear that no fishing could be done for awhile, because

every set of trawl-gear was banked in by a slippery, heavy rock.

There was something dismal and forlorn in the sound of the salutations

as Ferrier ran past each vessel; the men were in low spirits despite

their deliverance, for there was damage visible in almost every craft,

and, moreover, the shadow of Death was there. When Lewis came alongside

of the Admiral he sang out "What cheer?" and the answer came, "Very bad.

We shall be a fortnight before we get them together."

"Do you think many are lost?"

"I knows of seven gone down, but there may be more for all I know. Some

that ran for home would get nabbed on the Winterton or the Scrowby."

"Up with our flag, skipper, and see about the boat." Ferrier knew that

his task would soon be upon him, and he helped like a Titan, with axe

and pick, to clear away the ice. A spell of two hours' labour, and the

expenditure of dozens of kettles of hot water, freed the boat, and she

was put out, regardless of the chance of losing her. (By the way, the

men care very little about a boat's being swamped so long as the painter

holds. I have seen three go under astern of one vessel during the

delivery of fish. The little incident only caused laughter.)

The chapter of casualties was enough to curdle the blood of any one but

a doctor--a doctor with perfect nerve and training. All kinds of violent

exertions had been used to save the vessels, and men had toiled with

sacks sewn round their boots to avoid slipping on a glassy surface which

froze like a mirror whenever it was exposed for a few seconds to the air

between the onrushes of successive waves. Ferrier carried his life in

his hand for three days as he went from vessel to vessel; the sea was

unpleasant; the risk involved in springing over icy bulwarks on to

slippery decks was miserable, and the most awkward operations had to be

performed at times when it needed dexterity merely to keep a footing.

One man had the calf of his leg taken clean away by a topmast which came

down like a falling spear; the frost had caught the desperate wound

before Ferrier came on the scene, and the poor mortal was near his last.

The young man saw that the leg must go; he had never ventured to think

of such a contingency as this, and his strained nerve well-nigh failed

him. A grim little conversation took place in the cabin between the

skipper, the doctor, and the patient. I let the talk explain itself, so

that people may understand that Ferrier's proposed hospital was not

demanded by a mere faddist. The man was stretched on a moderately clean

tablecloth laid on the small open space in the close dog-hutch below; a

dull pallor appeared to shine from _underneath_, and glimmered through

the bronze of the skin. He was sorely failed, poor fellow. The skipper

stood there--dirty, unkempt, grim, compassionate. Ferrier put away a

bucket full of stained muslin rags (he had tried his best to save the

limb), and then he said softly, "Now, my son, I think I can save you;

but you must take a risk. We can't send you home; I can't take you with

me until we get a turn of smooth water; if I leave you as you are, there

is no hope. Do you consent to have the leg taken off?"

"Better chance it, Frank, my boy. I dursn't face your old woman if I go

home without you."

"Will it give me a chance? Can I stand the pain?"

"You'll have no pain. You'll never know, and it all depends upon

_afterwards_."

"I stand or fall with you, doctor. I have some little toebiters at home

I don't want to leave yet."

"Very good. Now, skipper, stand by him till I come back; I have some

things to bring."

Two wild journeys had to be risked, but the doctor's luck held, and he

once more came on that glassy deck. Sharply and decisively he made his

preparations. "Have you nerve enough to assist me, skipper?"

"I'll be as game as I can, doctor."

"Then kneel here, and take this elastic bag in your hand; turn this rose

right over my hands as I work, and keep the spray steadily spirting on

the place. You understand? Now, Frank, my man, when I put this over your

face, take a deep breath."

* * * * *

Ferrier was pale when Frank asked "Where am I?" He waved the skipper

aside, and set himself to comfort the brave man who had returned from

the death-in-life of chloroform.

"Bear down on our people and let my men take the boat back. I'm going to

stop all night with you, skipper."

"Well, of all the----well, there sir, if you ain't. Lord! what me and

Frank'll have to tell them if we gets home! Why, it's a story to last

ten year, this 'ere. And on this here bank, in a smack!" "Never mind

that, old fellow. Get my men out of danger."

The extraordinary--almost violent--hospitality of the skipper; his

lavishness in the matter of the fisherman's second luxury--sugar; his

laughing admiration, were very amusing. He would not sleep, but he

watched fondly over doctor and patient.

Ferrier was fortified now against certain insect plagues which once

afflicted him, and the brilliant professor laid his head on an old cork

fender and slept like an infant. He did not return until next evening;

he went without books, tobacco, alcohol, and conversation, and he never

had an afterthought about his own privations.

Frank seemed so cool and easy when his saviour left him, that Ferrier

determined to give him a last word of hope.

"Good-bye, my man. No liquor of any sort. You'll get well now. Bear up

for four days more, because I must have you near me; then either you'll

run home with me, or I'll order your skipper to take you."

Nothing that the Middle Ages ever devised could equal that suffering

seaman's unavoidable tortures during the next few days. He should have

been on a soft couch; he was on a malodorous plank. He should have been

still; he was only kept from rolling over and over by pads of old

netting stuffed under him on each side. Luxury was denied him; and the

necessities of life were scarce indeed.

Poor Frank! his sternly-tender surgeon did not desert him, and he was at

last sent away in his own smack. He lived to be an attendant in a

certain institution which I shall not yet name.

After much sleepless labour, which grew more and more intense as the

stragglers found their way up, Ferrier summarized his work and his

failures. He had treated frostbite--one case necessitating amputation;

he had cases of sea-ulcers; cracks in the hand. Stop! The outsider may

ask why a cracked hand should need to be treated by a skilled surgeon.

Well, it happens that the fishermen's cracked hands have gaps across the

inside bends of the fingers which reach the bone. The man goes to sleep

with hands clenched; as soon as he can open them the skin and flesh

part, and then you see bone and tendon laid bare for salt, or grit, or

any other irritant to act upon. I have seen good fellows drawing their

breath with sharp, whistling sounds of pain, as they worked at the net

with those gaping sores on their gnarled paws. One such crack would send

me demented, I know; but our men bear it all with rude philosophy.

Ferrier learned how to dress these ugly sores with compresses surrounded

by oiled silk. Men could then go about odd jobs without pain, and some

of them told the surgeon that it was like heaven.

Well, there were half a score smashed fingers, a few severe bruises,

several poisoned hands, a crushed foot, and many minor ailments caused

by the incessant cold, hunger, and labour. Ten men should have been sent

home; one died at sea; ten more might have saved their berths if they

could have had a week of rest and proper treatment. My hero was

downcast, but his depression only gave edge and vigour to his resolution

in the end. He had learned the efficacy of prayer now--prayer to a

loving and all-powerful Father; and he always had an assured sense of

protection and comfort when he had told his plain tale and released his

heart. I, the writer, should have smiled at him in those days, but I am

not so sure that I could smile with confidence now.

Lennard stuck to his favourite with helpful gallantry, and became so

skilled a nurse that Ferrier was always content to leave him in charge.

Both men tried to cheer each other; both were sick for home, and there

is no use in disguising the fact. When Ferrier one day came across the

simple lines--

"Perhaps the selfsame song has found a path

To the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn,"

he came near to imitating Ruth. He knew his duty well enough, but the

affections and the spirit are strong. Then the almost ceaseless bad

weather, and the many squalid conditions of life, were wearing to body

and soul.

An abominable day broke soon after Frank had sailed for home, and a sea

got up which threatened to shake the spars out of our smack. Half a gale

blew; then a whole gale; then a semi-hurricane, and at last all the

ships had to take in the fourth reef in the mainsail. The two Samaritans

were squatting on the floor in the cabin (after they had nailed canvas

strips across the sides of the berths to prevent the patients from

falling out), for no muscular power on earth could have enabled its

possessor to keep his place on a high seat in that maddening jump. It

was enough to jerk the pipe from one's mouth. The deck was all the time

in a smother of half-frozen slush, and the seas were so wall-sided that

the said slush fell in great plumps from side to side with a force which

plucked the men off their legs several times. Again and again it

appeared as if the smack must fall off the sides of the steep seas, as

the long screw colliers sometimes do in the Bay of Biscay when the

three crossing drifts meet. It was a heartbreaking day, and, at the very

worst, a smack bore down as if he meant to come right into the Mission

vessel. Sweeping under the lee and stopping his vessel, the smack's

skipper hailed. "Got the doctor on board?" Down went the newcomer into

the trough, leaving just a glimpse of his truck. Up again with a rolling

wave. "Yes. What's up?"

"We've got a man dying here, and not one of my white-livered hounds will

go in the small boat."

"Can't you persuade them?"

"No. They'll forfeit their voyage first."

"Edge away from us, and I'll see."

By this time the two smacks were almost in collision, but they went

clear. The skipper went below and stated the case. Ferrier listened

grimly.

"What do you think, skipper?"

"Your life's precious, sir. You've come to be like the apple of my eye;

I'd rather die myself than you should go."

"Are your men game enough?"

"I'm going myself if you go. If I die I shall be in my Master's

service."

"Is it so very bad?"

"Very."

"What's our chance?"

"Ten to one against us ever coming back."

"It's long odds. Shove the boat out."

"Stop a bit, sir. Don't smile at an old man. Let's put it before the

Lord. I never found that fail. Come, sir, and I'll pray for you."

"All cant," do you say, reader? Maybe, my friend, but I wish you and I

could only have the heart that the words came from. The skipper bared

his good grey head, and prayed aloud.

"Lord, Thou knowest we are asked to risk our lives. We are in Thine

hands, and our lives are nothing. Say, shall we go? We shall know in our

hearts directly if you tell us. Spare us, if it be Thy will; if not,

still Thy will be done. We are all ready." After a pause the skipper

said, "We'll do it, sir. Shove on your life-jacket. I'll take two

life-buoys."

Lennard had kneeled with the others, and he said, "Shall I go?"

"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 tholepins. A big curling sea struck her

starboard quarter too sharply, and for a dread halfminute 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.