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 extraordinaryisolationof 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 potty; 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 heknows; 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 manmustunbosom 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 lookingrounda 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 lightand 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 explaincauses, you give a man a new pleasure. Itclincheshis 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; thenda 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 leastthree 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--veryparticular. 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 theyweregiving us an illumination, sir. I should venture to say that they possiblyweredoing 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 masthead 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 theAchilleswas jabbering a bit again. By the way, you knew Tom Betts had come away in the oldAchilles, 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! Anythingyoulike, 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 æsthetic 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 everIfared 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 folkwillhave 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--toreallyimagine 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 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 extraordinaryisolationof 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 potty; 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 heknows; 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 manmustunbosom 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 lookingrounda 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 lightand 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 explaincauses, you give a man a new pleasure. Itclincheshis 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; thenda 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 leastthree 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--veryparticular. 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 theyweregiving us an illumination, sir. I should venture to say that they possiblyweredoing 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 masthead 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 theAchilleswas jabbering a bit again. By the way, you knew Tom Betts had come away in the oldAchilles, 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! Anythingyoulike, 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 æsthetic 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 everIfared 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 folkwillhave 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--toreallyimagine 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?