Mr. Cassall was a man of peculiarly modern type. From his youth upward he had never once acknowledged himself beaten, though he had known desperate circumstances; he saw that, as our civilization goes, money is accounted a rough gauge of merit, and a man's industry, tenacity, sobriety, self-control, and even virtue, are estimated and popularly assessed according to the amount of money which he owns, and he resolved that, let who will fail, he at least would have money and plenty of it. He bent his mind on one end for forty years; he was unscrupulous in all respects so long as he could keep within the law; he established a monopoly in his business on the ruins of scores of small firms which he crushed by weight of metal; he had no pity, no consideration, no remorse, in business hours; and he succeeded just as any other man of ability will succeed if he gives himself up body and soul to money-making. He never was proud; he was only hard. To his niece, whom he passionately loved, he would say, "Never be ashamed, my dear, to tell people that your uncle was a wholesale draper and hosier. Your mother was a little ashamed of it, and I had some trouble to cure her. Don't you be so silly. People think all the more of you for owning frankly that you or your relations have risen from the ranks, as they call it."

When he retired his wealth was colossal. Smart men would say that Bob Cassall's name was good for a million anywhere; and indeed it was good for two millions, and more even than that. He never felt the burden of great riches; as soon as he was safe he seemed to change his nature, and became the most dexterously benevolent of men. He abhorred a cadger; he abhorred the very sight of the begging circulars which so appreciably increase the postman's daily burden. He was a sensible reader, and, when he heard of a traveller who was something more than a mere lion, he would make his acquaintance in the most respectful and unobtrusive way, and he managed to learn much. His shrewd innocence and piquant wit pleased those whom he questioned, and as he was always willing to place his house, horses, boats, and game, at the disposal of any traveller who pleased him, he was reckoned rather a desirable acquaintance. His prejudice against missions to the lower tribes was derived solely from men who had lived and worked among the negroes, and, like all his other prejudices, it was violently strong. He would say, "Have we not good white men here who are capable of anything? I don't want to assist your Polish Jew in the East, nor Quashee Nigger in Africa. Show me a plucky fellow that is ready to work at anything for any hours, and I'll help him. But instead of aiding our own kindly white race, you fool away millions on semi-baboons; you send out men at L300 a year and ask them to play at being St. Paul, and you don't convert a hundred niggers a year—and those who are converted are often very shady customers. Your Indian men drive about in buggies, and the 'cute natives laugh at them. Do you know what a Bengali Baboo or a Pathan is really like? The one is three times as clever as your missionary; the other is a manly fanatic and won't have him at any price. You're a maritime nation, and you've got ten thousand good British seamen out of work. Why not assist them?"

So this quaint and shockingly heterodox millionaire would rave on, for he was a most peppery old person. One dark and terrible legend is current concerning him, but I hardly dare repeat it. An affable gentleman from a foreign mission called on him one day, and obtained admission (I am bound to add without any subterfuge). Bob heard the visitor's story, and knitted his beetling bushy brows. He said: "Well, sir, you've spoken very fairly. Now just answer me one or two questions. How much money have you per year?"

"Half a million."

"Good. Does any one supervise your missionaries?"

"We have faith in their integrity, and we credit them with industry."

"You trust them five hundred miles up country?"

"Certainly, sir."

"How many missionaries' wives died in the last ten years?"

"I think probably about eighty."

"Eighty sweet English girls condemned to death. Good." The grizzled old fellow rose in dignified fashion, and said:

"You will perhaps lunch alone, and I shall be pleased if you will be good enough to make this your final visit."

Then the story goes on to say that Mr. Cassall placed a kennel on the lawn with a very large and truculent brindled bulldog as tenant; over the kennel he coiled a garden hose, and above the bulldog's portal appeared the words, "For Foreign Missions."

This seems too shocking to be true, and I fancy the whole tale was hatched in the City. Certainly Mr. Cassall was scandalously unjust to the missionaries—an injustice which would have vanished had he personally known the glorious results for God and humanity achieved by self-denying missionaries and their devoted wives who carry the gospel of Christ to far-off heathen lands—but then where is the man who has not his whims and oddities?

This man, according to his lights, spread his benefactions lavishly and wisely on public charities and private cases of need. He liked above all things to pick out clever young men and set them up in retail businesses with money lent at four per cent. Not once did he make a blunder, and so very lucky was he that he used to tell his niece that with all his enormous expenditure he had not touched the fringe of his colossal capital. If he assisted any advertised charity he did so in the most princely way, but only after he had personally held an audit of the books. If the committee wanted to have the chance of drawing ten thousand pounds, let them satisfy him with their books; if they did not want ten thousand pounds, or thought they did not deserve it, let them leave it alone.

This was Robert Cassall, who was Marion Dearsley's uncle. His grim, grizzled head was stooping a little as he bent towards his niece on this soft winter day, and he himself looked almost like the human type of a hard, wholesome, not unkindly Winter. His high Roman nose, penthouse brows, quick jetty eye, square well-hung chin, and above all his sturdy, decided gait—all marked him for a Man every inch, and he did not belie his appearance, for no manlier being walks broad England than Robert Cassall.

He was listening a little fretfully to his niece, but her strength and sweetness kept him from becoming too touchy. The deep contralto that we know, said—

"Well then, you see, uncle dear, these men cannot help themselves. They are—oh! such magnificent people—that is the country-born ones, for some of the town men are not nice at all; but the East Coast men are so simple and fine, but then, you know, they are so poor. Our dear Mr. Fullerton told me that in very bad weather the best men cannot earn so much as a scavenger can on shore."

"Yes, yes, my girl. You know I listen carefully to everything you say. I value your talk immensely, but don't you observe, my pet, that if I help every one who cannot help himself I may as well shorten matters by going into the street and saying to each passer-by, 'Please accept half a crown as your share of my fortune'?"

"But the reasons are peculiar here, uncle. Oh! I do so wish Mrs. Walton could see you. She has logic, and she reasons where I dream."

"Hah! Would you? What? Turn Mrs. Walton loose at me? No ladies here, miss, I warn you."

"Now, please be good while I go on. I want to repeat Dr. Ferrier's reasoning if I can. You have fish every day—mostly twice?"

"Yes, but I don't give charity to my butcher. The rascal is able to tip me, if the truth were known."

"True, uncle, and you don't need to give anything to your fishmonger. Why, you silly dear, you think you are a commercial genius, and yet the fishmonger probably charges you ever so much per cent over and above what the fishermen receive, because of the great expense of railway carriage and distribution of the fish. I know that, because Mr. Fullerton told me; so you see I've corrected you, even you, on a point of finance."

How prettily this stern, composed young woman could put on artful airs of youthfulness when she chose! How she had that firm, far-seeing old man held in position, ready to be twirled round her rosy finger!

Which of us is not held in bondage by some creature of the kind? Unhappy the man who misses that sweet and sacred slavery.

Mr. Cassall wrinkled his grim face not unpleasantly. "Go on; go on. You're a lawyer, neither more nor less. By the way, who is this—this what's-the-name—the Doctor, that you mentioned?"

"Oh! he is a very clever young man who has chosen to become a surgeon instead of being a university professor. He's now out on the North Sea in all this bad weather. He was so much struck with the need of a hospital, that he made up his mind to risk a winter so that he may tell people exactly what he has seen. He doesn't do things in a half-hearted way.

"What a long, pretty description of Mr. Ferrier. You seem to have taken a good deal of notice of the fortunate youth. Well, proceed."

Marion was a little flushed when she resumed, but her uncle did not observe anything at all unusual.

"Where was I?—Oh, yes! You hold it right to give money in charity to deserving objects. Now these men out at sea were left for years, perhaps for centuries, to live as a class without hope or help. Dear good creatures like my own uncle actually never knew that such people were in existence. They were far worse off than savages who have plantains and pumpkins and cocoanuts, and they were our own good flesh and blood, yet we neglected them."

"So we do the East Enders, and the Lancashire operatives and the dock labourers."

"True. But we are doing better now. Then you see the East End has been discovered a long time, and visitors can walk; but the poor North Sea men were left alone, until lately, by everybody."

"Still, we haven't come to why I should help them."

"Oh! uncle, you are a commercial man. Look at selfish reasons alone. You know how much we depend on sailors, and you often say the country is so very, very ill-provided with them. And these men are—oh! such splendid seamen. Fancy them staying out for two months with a gale of wind per week, and doing it in little boats about eighty feet long. You should see a hundred of them moving about in mazes and never running into any trouble. Oh! uncle, it is wonderful. Well, now, these men would be all ready for us if we were in national danger. I heard Mr. Fullerton say that hundreds of them are in the Naval Reserve, and as soon as they learned their way about an ironclad, they would take to the work by instinct. There is nothing they don't understand about the sea, and wind and weather. Would any negro help us? Why, Lord Wolseley told your friend Sir James Roche that a thousand Fantees ran away from fifty painted men of some other tribe; and Lord Wolseley said that you can only make a negro of that sort defend himself by telling him that he will die if he runs away. You wouldn't neglect our own men who are so brave. Why they might have to defend London, where all your money is, and they would do it too." (Oh! the artful minx!) "And we send missions to nasty, brutal Fantees who run away from enemies, and we leave our own splendid creatures far worse off than dogs."

"Well, if I'm not having the law laid down to me, I should like to know who ever had. But I'm interested. Let's go round by the avenue, through the kitchen garden, and then round to the front by road, and make the walk as long as you can. Why on earth didn't Blair tell me something of this before? Most wonderful. He talks enough, heaven knows, about anything and everything, but he never mentioned that. Why?" "Now don't be a crusty dear. I don't know what good form is, but he told me he thought it would hardly be good form to bring up the subject in your company, as it might seem as though he were hinting at a donation. Now that's plain."

"Good. Now never mind the preaching. I understand you to say that's done good."

"Perfectly wonderful. You remember how we were both insulted and hooted at Burslem, only because we were strangers! Well, now, in all the time that we were away we never heard one uncivil word. Not only they were civil, and so beautifully courteous to us, but they were so kindly among themselves, and it is all because they take their Christianity without any isms."

That wicked puss! She knew how Robert Cassall hated the fights of the sects, and she played on him, without in the least letting him suspect what she was doing. He snorted satisfaction. "That's good! that's good! No isms. And you say they've dropped drink?"

"Entirely, uncle, and all through the preaching without any isms. It is such a blessed, beautiful thing to think that hundreds of men who used to make themselves and every one about them wretched, are now calm, happy fellows. And they do not cant, uncle. All of them know each other's failings, and they are gentle and forgiving to each other."

"What a precious lot of saints—much too good to live, I should fancy."

"Don't sneer, you graceless. Yes it's quite true. Do you know, dear, the Early Christian movement is being repeated on the sea."

"Umph. Early Christians! The later Christians have made a pretty mess of it. Now, just give me, without any waste words, all you have to say about this hospital business. Don't bring in preachee-preachee any more."

"Very good, dear. Stop me if I go wrong. I'm going round about. You know, you crabby dear, you wouldn't neglect an old dog or an old pony after it had served you. You wouldn't say, 'Oh, Ponto had his tripe and biscuit, and Bob had his hay;' you would take care of them. Now wouldn't you? Of course you would. And these fishers get their wages, but still they give their lives for your convenience just as the dog and the pony do."

"Yes, yes. But come to the hospital ship. You dance round as if you were a light-weight boxer sparring for breath."

"Hus-s-sh! I won't have it. The fishermen, then, are constantly being dreadfully hurt: I don't mean by such things as toothache, though many hundreds of them have to go sleepless for days, until they are worn out with pain;—I mean really serious, violent hurts. Why, we were not allowed to see several of the men who came to Dr. Ferrier for treatment. The wounds were too shocking. Nearly eight thousand of them are already relieved in various ways every year. Just fancy. And I assure you I wonder very much that there are no more."

"What sort of hurts?"

Then Marion told him all about the falling spars, the poisoned ulcers, the great festers, the poisoned hands caused by venomous fishes accidentally handled in the dark, wild midnights; the salt-water cracks, the thousand and one physical injuries caused by falls, or the blow of the sea, or the prolonged fighting with heavy gales. The girl had become eloquent; she had seen, and, as she was eloquent as women generally are, she was able to make the keen old man see exactly what she wanted him to see. Then she told how Ferrier stuck to the sinking smack and saved his patient, and Robert Cassall muttered, "That sounds like a man's doings;" and then with every modesty she spoke of Tom Betts's mistake. There never was such a fluent, artful, mock-modest, dramatic puss in the world!

"Hah! mistook you for an angel. Eh? Not much mistake when you like to be good, but when you begin picking my pocket, there's not much of the angel about that, I venture to say."

So spoke the old gentleman; but the anecdote delighted him so much that for two or three days he snorted "Angel!" in various keys all over the house, until the servants thought he must have turned Atheist or Republican, or something generally contemptuous and sarcastic. The girl had him in her toils, and the fascination was too much for him. She could look grand as a Greek goddess, calm and inscrutably imposing as the Venus of Milo; but she could also play Perdita, and dance with her enslaved ones like a veritable little witch. Robert Cassall was captured—there could not be much error about that. He asked, with a sudden snap of teeth and lips which made his niece start: "And how much do you want to coax out of me, Miss Molly. Give me an idea. Of course I'm to be the uncle in the play, and 'Bless you, me chee-ill-dren,' and the rest. Oh yes!"

"Oh, one vessel could be kept up for L30,000."

"What! Per year?"

"No. The interest on L30,000 in North Western Railway stock would support a vessel well. You could easily support two."

"This girl's got bitten by a money-spending tarantula. Why you'd dance a million away in no time. Why, in the name of common sense, why should I support two vessels and their hulking crews—who chew tobacco, of course, don't they? To be sure, and hitch their slacks! Why should I support all these manly tars!"

"Now! I'll be angry. I'll tell you why. You know you have more money than you can ever spend. You promise me some, and you're very good, but I'd almost rather live on my own than have too much. Well, I can't bear to think of your dying—but you must die, my own good dear, and you will have to divide your money before you go. There will be a lot of heart-burning, and I'm afraid poor me won't come off very lightly if I am left behind you. You will want a memorial."

"You remember me and do as I would like you to do, and we sha'n't trouble our minds much about memorials. I thought of almshouses, though."

"Oh! uncle dear, and then the Charity Commissioners may come in, and give all your money to fat, comfortable tradesmen's children, or well-to-do professional men, instead of to your old people, and the clergyman will be master of your money; and the old people will not be grateful, and all will go wrong, and my dear uncle will be forgotten. Oh! no."

"I say, come, come; you're too knowing. You're trying to knock a pet scheme of mine on the head."

The old man was genuinely concerned, and he felt as if some prop had been knocked away from him. But his sweet niece soon brought him round. She had scared his vanity on purpose, and she now applied the antidote.

"Supposing you give us two ships, you give yourself a better memorial than poor Alleyn of Dulwich, or Roan of Greenwich. Dear uncle, a charity which can be enjoyed by the idle is soon forgotten, and the pious founder is no more than a weed round the base of his own monument; he has not even a name. But you may actually see your own memorial working good long, long before you die, and you may see exactly how things will go on when your time is over. When you make out your deed of gift, exact the condition that one vessel must always be called after you, no matter how long or how often the ships are renewed. Sir James Roche can advise you about that. Place your portrait in the ship, and make some such provision as that she shall always carry a flag with your name, if you want to flaunt it, you proud thing! Then something like, at any rate, three thousand sufferers will associate your name with their happiness and cure every year; and they will say in every port in England, 'I was cured on the Robert Cassall,' or 'I should have lost that hand,' or 'I was dying of typhoid and our skipper thought I needed salts, but they cured me on the Robert Cassall.' And the great ships will pass your beautiful ship, and when people ask 'What is that craft, and who is Cassall?' they will say that Cassall gave of his abundance during his lifetime, so that seamen might be relieved of bitter suffering; and those brave men will be so very grateful. And oh! uncle, fancy going out to sea in your own monument, and watching your own wealth working blessedness before your eyes. Why, you will actually have all the pleasures of immortality before you have lost the power of seeing or knowing anything. Oh, uncle dear, think if you can only see one sailor's limbs saved by means of your money! Think of having a hundred living monuments of your goodness walking about in the beautiful world—saved and made whole by you!"

The girl frightened the plucky old gentleman. His voice trembled, and he said, "Why, we must send you to Parliament! You can beat most of those dull sconces. Why, you're a no-mistake born orator—a talkee-talkee shining light! But if you go in for woman's rights and take to short hair, I shall die, after burning my will! And now you kiss me, my darling, and don't scare me any more with that witch's tongue." Was ever millionaire in such manner wooed? Was ever millionaire in such fashion won? The gipsy's eyes glowed, and her heart beat in triumph. Was this the Diana of Ferrier's imagination? Was this the queen of whom that athletic young gentleman was silently dreaming as he swung over the pulsing mountains of the North Sea? This slyboots! This most infantile coax!

I wish some half-dozen of the most charming young ladies in England would only begin coaxing, and coax to as good purpose! I would go out next summer and willingly end my days in work on the water, if I thought my adorable readers would only take Marion Dearsley's hint, and help to blot out a little misery and pain from this bestained world.

While Mr. Cassall was standing, with his teacup, before the glowing wood fire, he said, "Be my secretary for half an hour, Molly, my pet. Write and ask Blair, and that other whom I don't know—Fullerton. Yes; ask them to dinner. And, let me see, you can't ask Mr. Phoenix the Sawbones?"

"Who, uncle?" "Why, the young doctor that performs such prodigies, of course."

"He's out on the sea now, dear, and I expect that he's in some abominable cabin—"

"Catching smallpox to infect cleanly people with?"

"No, dear. He is most likely tending some helpless tatterdemalion, and moving about like a clever nurse. He is strong—so strong. He pulled a man through a wave with one hand while he held the rigging with the other, and the man told me that it was enough to tear the strongest man to pieces"

"Here, stop the catalogue. Why, Sawbones must be Phoebus Apollo! If you talk much more I shall ask him a question or two. Go on with your secretary's duties, you naughty girl."

So ended the enslavement of Robert Cassall, and so, I hope, began his immortality. Oh! Marion Dearsley; sweet English lady. This is what you were turning over in your maiden meditations out at sea. Demure, deep, delicious plotter. What a coup! All the mischievous North Sea shall be jocund for this, before long. Surely they must name one vessel after you! You are a bloodless Judith, and you have enchanted a perfectly blameless Holofernes. I, your laureate, have no special song to give you just now, but I think much of you, for the sake of darkened fishers, if not for your own.

Mr. Cassall invited Sir James Roche to meet the other men. Sir James was the millionaire's physician and friend, and Cassall valued all his judgments highly, for he saw in the fashionable doctor a money-maker as shrewd as himself; and, moreover, he had far too much of the insular Briton about him to undervalue the kind of prestige which attaches to one who associates with royal personages and breathes the sacred atmosphere of money. Sir James was an apple-faced old gentleman, who had been a miser over his stock of health and strength. He was consequently ruddy, buoyant, strong, and his good spirits were infectious. He delighted in the good things of the world; no one could order a dinner better; no one could better judge a picture; no one had a more pure and hearty liking for pretty faces;—and it must be added, that few men had more worldly wisdom of the kind needed for everyday use. He could fool a humbug to the top of his bent, and he would make use of humbugs, or any other people, to serve his own ends; but he liked best to meet with simple, natural folks, and Cassall always took his fancy from the time of their first meeting onward.

Sir James spent the afternoon in driving with his host, and they naturally chatted a great deal about Mr. Cassall's new ideas. The physician listened to his friend's version of Miss Dearsley's eloquence, and then musingly said, "I don't know that you can do better than take your niece's advice. The fact is, my dear fellow, you have far too much money. I have more than I know how to use, and mine is like a drop in that pond compared with yours. If you leave a great deal to the girl, you doom her to a life of anxiety and misery and cynicism; she will be worse off than a female cashier in a draper's shop. If she marries young, she will he picked up by some embarrassed peer; if she waits till she is middle-aged, some boy will take her fancy and your money will be fooled away on all kinds of things that you wouldn't like. This idea, so far as it has gone in my mind, seems very reasonable. I'm not thinking of the fishermen at all; that isn't my business at present. I am thinking of you, and I fancy that you may do a great deal of good, and, at the same time, raise your position in the eyes of your countrymen. The most modest of us are not averse to that. Then, again, some plutocrats buy honours by lavishing coins in stinking, rotten boroughs. Your honours if they should come to you, will be clean. At any rate, let us both give these men a fair hearing, and perhaps our worldly experience may aid them. An enthusiast is sometimes rather a fiddle-headed chap when it comes to business."

"I don't want my money to be fought over, and I won't have it. If I thought that people were going to screech and babble over my money, I'd leave the whole lot to the Dogs' Home."

"We'll lay our heads together about that, and I reckon if we two can't settle the matter, there is no likelihood of its ever being settled at all."

The harsh, wintry afternoon came to a pleasant close in the glowing drawing-room. Sir James had coaxed Marion until she told him all about the gale and the rest of it. He was very much interested by her description of Ferrier.

"I've heard of that youngster," he said. "He began as a very Scotch mathematician, and turned to surgery. I heard that he had the gold medal when he took his fellowship. He must be a fine fellow. You say he is out at sea now? I heard a little of it, and understood he wasn't going to leave until the end of December. But it never occurred to me that he was such a friend of yours. You must let me know him. We old fogies often have a chance of helping nice young fellows."

Mrs. Walton and Miss Ranken arrived with Blair and Fullerton, and everybody was soon at ease. Sir James particularly watched Fullerton, and at last he said to himself, "That fellow's no humbug."

The dinner passed in the usual pleasant humdrum style; nobody wanted to shine; that hideous bore, the professional talker, was absent, and the company were content with a little mild talk about Miss Ranken's seclusion at sea during the early days of the autumn voyage. The girl said, "Well, never mind, I would go through it all again to see what we saw. I never knew I was alive before."

Instinctively the ladies refrained from touching on the business which they knew to be nearest the men's minds, and they withdrew early. Then Cassall came right to the point in his usual sharp, undiplomatic way.

"My niece has been telling me a great deal about your Mission, Mr. Fullerton, and she says you want a floating hospital. I've thought about the matter, but I have so few details to go upon that I can neither plan nor reason. I mean to help if I can, merely because my girl has set her mind on it; but I intend to know exactly where I am going, and how far. I understand you have twelve thousand men that you wish to influence and help. How many men go on board one vessel?"

"From five to seven, according to the mode of trawling."

"That gives you, roughly, say two thousand sail. Marion tells me you have now about eight thousand patients coming on board your ships yearly. Now, if you manage to cover the lot, you must attend on a great many more patients."

"We can only dabble at present. We have little pottering dispensaries, and our men manage slight cases of accident, but I cannot help feeling that our work is more or less a sham. People don't think so, but I want so much that I am discontented."

Sir James broke in, "Your vessels have to fish, haven't they?"

"They did at first. We hope to let them all be clear of the trawl for the future."

Mr. Cassall looked at Sir James. "I say, Doctor, how would you like one of your men to operate just after he had been handling fish? Do they clean the fish, Mr. Fullerton? They do? What charming surgeons!"

"We have gone on the principle of trying to do our best with any material. Our skippers are not first-rate pulpit orators, but we have been obliged to let them preach. Both their preaching and their surgery have done an incredible amount of good, but we want more."

"Exactly. Now, I'm a merchant, Mr. Fullerton, and I know nothing about ships, but I understand your vessels are all sailers. Is that the proper word? You depend on the wind entirely. How would you manage if you took a man on board right up, or down, the North Sea?—I don't know which is up and which is down; but, any way, you want to run from one end to the other. How would you manage if you had a very foul wind after your man got cured?"

"We must take our chance. As a matter of experience, we find that our vessels do get about very well. The temperatures of the land on each side of the sea vary so much, that we are never long without a breeze."

"Still, you depend on chance. Is that not so? Now I never like doing things by halves. Tell me frankly, Mr. Fullerton, what would you do if you took off a smallpox case, and got becalmed on the run home?"

Fullerton laughed. "You are a remarkably good devil's advocate, Mr. Cassall, but if I had ever conjured up obstacles in my own mind, there would have been no mission—would there, Blair? And I venture to think that the total amount of human happiness would have been less by a very appreciable quantity." Besides, it is absolutely against rules to take infectious cases on board the mission vessels. "Cassall isn't putting obstacles in your way," interposed Sir James. "I know what he's driving at, but strangers are apt to mistake him. He means to draw out of you by cross-examination the fact that quick transport is absolutely necessary for your hospital scheme. Take an instance. Miss Dearsley tells me the men stay out eight weeks, and then run home. Now suppose your cruiser meets one of the home-going vessels, and the captain of this vessel says, 'There's a dying man fifty miles N.W. (or S.W., or whatever it is) from here. You must go soon, or he won't be saved. What are you going to do if you have a foul wind or a calm?"

"But that dying man would probably be in a fleet, and what I wish to see is not a single cruising hospital, but that all our mission vessels in future should be of that type, i.e., one with every fleet."

Cassall broke in, "Yes, yes, by all means; but, I say, could you not try steam as well? Why not go in at once for a steamer as an experiment, and then you can whisk round like a flash, and time your visits from week to week."

Blair rose in his seat wearing a comic expression of despair and terror.

"Why, we're driven silly now by people who offer us ships, without saying anything about ways and means for keeping the ships up. My dear Cassall, you do not know what a devourer of money a vessel is. Every hour at sea means wear and tear somewhere, and if we are to make our ships quite safe we must be constantly renewing. It's the maintenance funds that puzzle us. If you give us a ship without a fund for renewals of gear, wages, and so on, it is exactly as though you graciously made a City clerk a present of a couple of Irish hunters, and requested him not to sell them. The vessel Fullerton has in his mind will need an outlay of L1,200 a year to keep her up. Suppose we invest the necessary capital in a good, sound stock, we shall get about 4 per cent for money, so that we require L30,000 for a sailing ship alone. As to the steamer, whew-w-w!"

"A very good little speech, Blair, but I think I know what I'm talking about. After all, come now, the steamer only needs extra for coal, engineers, and stokers. You don't trust to chance at all; you don't care a rush for wind or tide, and you can go like an arrow to the point you aim at. Then, don't you see, my very good nautical men—Blair is an absolutely insufferable old Salt since he came home—you can always disengage your propeller when there is a strong, useful wind, and you bank your fires. Brassey told me that, and he said he could always get at least seven knots' speed out of his boat if there was the least bit of a breeze. Then, if you're in a hurry, down goes your propeller, and off you go. The wards must be in the middle—what you call it, Blair, the taffrail?—oh, amidships. The wards must be amidships, and you must be able to lay on steam so as to work a lift. You shove down a platform in a heavy sea, lower a light cage, put your wounded man in it, and steam away. There you are; you may make your calls like the postman. Bill Buncle breaks his leg on Sunday; his mates say, 'All right, William, the doctor's coming to-morrow.' You take me? Tell me, how will you manage if you have a vessel short of hands to work her?"

"We propose to have several spare hands on board our hospital vessels. Hundreds will be only too glad to go, and we shall always have a sound man to take the place of the patient."

"Exactly. Well, with steam you can deposit your men and take them off with all the regularity of an ordinary railway staff on shore."

"But the money. It is too colossal to think of."

The falcon-faced old merchant waved his hand. "Blair and I, and you too, Mr. Fullerton, not to mention Roche, are all business men, and we don't brag about money. But you know that if I fitted out and endowed ten steamers, I should still be a fairly comfortable man. If you can't keep a steamer going with L4,000 a year, you don't deserve to have one, and if I choose to put down one hundred thousand, and you satisfy me as to the management, why should I not gratify my whimsy?"

"And I don't mean to be behindhand if I satisfy myself as to the quality of the work to be done," added Sir James. "Cassall and I will arrange as to how many beds—Roche beds, you understand—I shall be permitted to endow."

Fullerton sat dumb; a flush came and went over his clear face, and his lips moved.

Cassall proceeded: "My idea is to have a sailing vessel and a steamer. You have told us, Mr. Fullerton, that you must, in time, fit up half a dozen cruisers, if you mean to work efficiently, and our preliminary experiment will decide whether sail or steam is the better. Now, Blair, you must let me fit up your boat for a cruise."

"And pray why, Croesus? You talk as if you meant going a-buccaneering."

"I don't know what you call it, but I'm going round among those fleets with my niece, and I shall start in a week. If I'm satisfied, you shall hear from me." "And I'm going to play truant and go with you, Cassall," said Sir James.

"All right; that being so, we'll join the ladies."

Henry Fullerton and Blair walked to the station together that night, and the enthusiast said, "I pray that my brain may be able to bear this."

"Your fiddlestick, bear this! I wish some one would give me L150,000 to carry out my pet fad. I'd bear it, and go on bearing it, quite gallantly, I assure you, my friend."

A very happy pair of people were left to chat in Cassall's drawing-room as the midnight drew near. Sir James had retired early after the two good old boys had addressed each other as buccaneers and shellbacks, and made all sorts of nautical jokes. The discussion as to who should be admiral promised to supply a month's fun, but Cassall pretended to remember that Phoenix Sawbones would certainly wish to be commander, on account of the young puppy's experience.

Marion whispered to her uncle, "I do believe you will make yourself very happy;" and the old gentleman answered, "It really seems to be more like a question of making you happy, you little jilt."

The little jilt, who was not much shorter than her uncle, looked demure, and the seance closed very happily.

Next day, Mr. Cassall began fitting out in a style which threatened an Arctic voyage of several winters at least; he was artfully encouraged by the little jilt, and he was so intensely pleased with his yachting clothes that he wore them in the grounds until he went away, which proceeding raised unfeigned admiration among the gardeners and the maids.



CHAPTER IV.

THE DENOUEMENT.

The stout-hearted old gentlemen ran out from the Colne in Blair's schooner, and Freeman had orders to take the Schelling, Ameland, Nordeney, and all the other banks in order. I need not go over the ground again in detail, but I may say that Sir James was never unobservant; he made the most minute notes and sought to provide against every difficulty. The bad weather still held, and there were accidents enough and illness enough, in all conscience. Cassall proposed to hang somebody for permitting the cabins of the smacks to remain in such a wildly unsanitary state; but beyond propounding this totally unpractical suggestion he said little, and contented himself with steady observation. One day he remarked to Sir James, "A lazy humbug would have a fine time in our cruiser if he liked. Who, among us landsmen, durst face weather like this constantly?"

"Yes; I've been thinking of that. You must have a regular masterful Tartar of a surgeon, and make him bear all responsibility. Pick out a good man, and give him a free hand; that seems the best thing to be done."

The two observers saw all that Ferrier had seen, and suffered a little of what he had suffered. Before they had their vessel's head pointed for home, Cassall remarked: "That young Sawbones must have a reasonable pluck, mind you, Roche. I find it hard enough to keep my feet, without having to manage delicate operations; and you notice that we've heard at least fifty of the men talk about this Ferrier's skill with his hands."

"That's your man, Cassall, if you only knew it. I shall make a point of meeting him. You haven't seen my plans, have you? Well, I've employed myself since we came out in trying to design every kind of fitting that you're likely to need. I used to be very good at that kind of thing, and I'm very glad my hand hasn't forgot its cunning. I shall test young Ferrier's judgment over my drawings, and that will be a good pretext for meeting him."

"The spring is on us now, Roche. We must use that youngster to get at people. He must have some kind of personal magnetism. Did you notice how that fellow choked and sobbed when he told us how the youngster refused to leave him during the gale? A good sign that. We must have parties to meet him, and let him do the talkee-talkee lecturing business. I shouldn't wonder if my girl found the nerve to speak. If you had only heard her oration delivered for my private gratification, you would have been pretty much amazed. She shall spout if she likes."

"I see you've set up a new hobby, my friend, and I can back you to ride hard. Seriously speaking, I never knew any cause that I would assist sooner than this. That fellow Fullerton was once described to me by a Jew as 'hare-brained.' It needed a curious sort of hare-brain to build up such an organization as we have seen. I may tell you a little secret, as we are alone. When I was fighting my way up, I was very glad to attend a working man, and I starved genteelly for a long time in a big fishing-port. I assure you that in those days a fisherman was the most ill-conditioned dog on God's earth. He knew less of goodness than a dog does, and I think you could see every possible phase of hoggishness and cruel wickedness on a Saturday night in that town. It used to be a mere commonplace to say that no one should venture into the fishermen's quarter after dark. There is a big change. You snarl at parsons a good deal, I know, but you can't snarl at what we have seen. You are quite right, and I mean to help spur your new hobby as hard as I can."

* * * * *

After Robert Cassall had been some days at home, Mr. Fullerton received the following letter:—

DEAR SIR,—As arranged at our last meeting, I went out to view your work among the North Sea fishermen, and I am satisfied that I may assist your admirable efforts. In this letter I merely sketch my proposals in an informal manner, but my solicitors, Messrs. Bowles and Gordon, Gresham Buildings, will be ready at any time to meet a deputation from the Council of the Mission, so that my wishes may be accurately stated, and all business settled in strict legal form.

1. I propose to build a steam cruiser of 350 tons, and I am now engaged in consulting with practical men concerning those technical details of which I have scanty knowledge.

2. This cruiser I wish to support entirely at my own expense; and, after my decease, the capital sum set aside for the maintenance of the vessel will pass into the hands of the Council. 3. I should naturally desire to have some voice in the appointment of trustees, and also in the selection of the medical staff; but no doubt my solicitors will arrange that to the satisfaction of all parties.

4. My niece, Miss Marion Dearsley, is intensely interested in your work, and, as a very large sum of money belonging to that lady remains at my disposal as her trustee, I have, with her approval, transferred to the Mission L30,000 Great Northern Railway ordinary shares, with which we desire to found a maintenance fund for a vessel of 200 tons. This transaction has been carried out at the urgent desire of my niece. I am informed that this sailing cruiser must be schooner-rigged on account of her tonnage, which would require an unworkable spread of canvas if she were rigged as a ketch. These matters I leave entirely to the experts whom I have retained.

5. Should you agree to my terms, and should you also come to a thoroughly clear understanding with my legal representatives, the building of the vessels may proceed at once. I will have nothing but the best, and therefore I will ask you to let me act directly and indirectly as superintendent of the construction of the ships. I have already taken the liberty of engaging a practical and scientific seaman—a merchant captain—who will, with your permission, watch over the building of the vessels to the last rivet.

6. We learn that Mr. Ferrier has returned. Could you and he make it convenient to come to us from Saturday next until Monday? In that time we may have much useful talk.

7. In conclusion, you will perhaps not be displeased if an old man, who has not your strong faith, ventures nevertheless to ask God's blessing on you and your Mission.

With much admiration and regard, I am, dear sir, Your obedient servant, ROBERT CASSALL.

H. Fullerton, Esq.

Committees of charitable organizations are not usually wanting in complaisance toward gentlemen who can spare lump sums of L130,000; so Mr. Cassall and his lawyers had very much of their own way. On the day when the last formal business was completed, Fullerton and our young savant, both in a state of bewildered exaltation of spirit, paid their visit to Mr. Cassall. Ferrier was strangely dumb in presence of Miss Dearsley, but he made up amply for his silence when he was alone with the men. Robert Cassall observed, however, that the youngster never spoke of himself. Once or twice the old man delicately referred to certain little matters which had occurred during the January gales—the amputation, the rescue of Lennard, the rough trips from smack to smack, the swamping of the small boat: but Ferrier was too eager for other people's good; he had so utterly forgotten himself that he hardly recognized Mr. Cassall's allusions. On the first evening at dinner Mr. Cassall said: "Now, Marion, you and Miss Lena must stay with us. She's not an orator like you; she was meant for a mouse, but you can do all the talk you like. And now, gentlemen, let me lay a few statements before you. I shall talk shorthand style if I can. First, I want Mr. Ferrier to be our first medical director, and I wish him to take the steamer on her first cruise. After that, if he likes to be a sort of inspector-general, we can arrange it. Next, I want to draw some more people into Mr. Fullerton's net. Excuse the poaching term. Mr. Ferrier and Mr. Fullerton can teach us, and I wish to begin with a big party here as soon as possible. After that, our young friend must go crusading. I'll provide every kind of expense, and we'll regard his engagement as beginning to-day if he likes. Next, I may tell you that I have already arranged for men to work night and day in relays on both my vessels—or rather your vessels. Mr. Director-General must see his hospital wards fitted out to the last locker, and I've taken another liberty in that direction. There's your cheque-book, and you are to draw at Yarmouth or London for any amount that you may think necessary. And now I fancy that is about all I need say."

Then Mr. Cassall smiled on his dumb-foundered hearers.

Ferrier said, "I must eventually stay on shore, I fear. I have resigned the professorship which I had hoped to keep; but I do not need to practise, and I am ready to see your venture well started."

Then the host finally insisted on hearing all about the cruise; he could understand every local allusion now, and the narrative touched him far more than any romance could have done. The girls dropped in a word here and there, for they claimed to be among the initiated, and thus an evening was spent in piling fresh fuel on the old gentleman's newborn fire of enthusiasm.

There never was such an elderly tornado of a man. After church on Sunday he packed the girls off in the pony-carriage, and then took his guests for a most vehement walk, during which he asked questions in a voice as vehement as his gait, and set forth projects with all the fine breadth of conception and heedlessness of cost which might be expected from an inspired man with a practically inexhaustible fund at his disposal.

The good Henry Fullerton had long walked in darkness; doubts had been presented to him; jibes and sneers had hailed upon him; all sorts of mean detractors had tried to label him as visionary, or crackbrain, or humbug, or even as money-grub: and now the clouds that obscured the wild path along which he had fared with such forlorn courage were all lifted away, and he saw the fulfilment of the visions which had tantalized him on doleful nights, when effort seemed vain and hope dead. He maintained his serenity, and calmly calculated pounds and shillings with all the methodic coolness of a banker's clerk. On the Sunday evening he was asked to confer privately with Mr. Cassall, and Ferrier was left free. Of course Lewis proposed a stroll in the grounds—what young man would have missed the opportunity?—and he listened delightedly to that musical, girlish talk for which he had longed during his tremendous vigils on the Sea of Storms.

Miss Ranken was in a flutter of exultation. "Did you ever know any one so clever as Marion?" she inquired, with quite the air of an elderly person accustomed to judge intellects. "We knew she could do anything with Mr. Cassall, but we never expected this. And now, Mr. Ferrier, you won't go and get drowned in nasty cabins any more, and you'll have your sailors all under your eye, and no more degenerate sea-sick ladies to plague you. Why, now we've made a start, we must capture some more millionaires, and we'll have a vessel with every fleet, and no sick men lying on grimy floors. By the way, what a capital association that would be—The Royal Society for the Capture of Millionaires. President and Organizing Director, Marion Dearsley; Treasurer, Lena Ranken; General Agent for Great Britain and the Colonies, Lewis Ferrier! Wouldn't that be splendid? I begin to feel quite like an administrator."

This was the very longest speech that Miss Ranken was ever known to make, and she was applauded for her remarkable excursion into practical affairs.

"You must tell us a little more about your winter, Mr. Ferrier. Lena hasn't heard half enough," observed the stately "little jilt" when the cataract of Miss Ranken's eloquence had ceased flowing.

"Better wait until the meeting, Miss Dearsley. Then, if you are satisfied, I may be able to do something in different places."

"But you will tell us how Tom Betts fared in the end?"

"He was well and at work when we left his fleet, and he had established a sort of elaborate myth, with you as central figure. I'm afraid you would never recognize your own doings if you heard his version of them. Tom's imagination is distinctly active. We had no bad mishaps with our men, but it was a dreadful time."

"I think you seem to be more solemn and older than when you went away first, Mr. Ferrier," remarked the Treasurer of the Capturers.

"One ages fast there; I really lived a good deal. One life isn't enough for that work. I suppose the Englishmen began working on the Banks two hundred years ago, and we have all that time of neglect to make up."

"Yes. I wonder now what was the use of our ancestors. My brother says that no philosopher has ever discovered the ultimate uses of babies; I wonder if any one can tell the uses of those blundering, silly old ancestors of ours. As far as I can see, we have to put up with all sorts of horrid things, and you have to go and get wet on dirty fishing-boats, just because our ancestors neglected their proper business and stayed lazy at home."

"You mustn't start a Society for the Abolition of Ancestors, Miss Ranken. We have to make up all lost ground, and we can't help it. I'm sorry almost that I take it all so seriously. I feel so very much like a middle-aged prig. Perhaps, Miss Dearsley, we may grow more cheerful when your uncle and I (and you) are fairly at work and clear of brooding. At present I seem to exude lectures and serious precepts."

"You go to Yarmouth after the meeting, Mr. Ferrier?"

"Yes; we must all of us copy you, and humour your uncle. I can see he feels time going very fast, and I shall play at being in a hurry all the time I am looking after the new vessels."

"My uncle says I must speak to our meeting."

"Why not? If you like, I can bring some good lady orators to keep you in countenance."

"I shall consider. I don't think we ought to talk; but we cannot afford to neglect any fancy of uncle's."

Ferrier never heard so queer a speech from a girl before. She had evidently made up her mind to face an ordeal which would stagger the nerves of the "young person" of the drawing-room; and her deliberate acceptance of a strained and unnatural situation pleased him. He thought, "If she ever does take to the platform, the capture of the millionaires is sure to begin."

Cassall and Fullerton looked very solemn and satisfied during the evening, and both of them were just a little tiresome in recurring to their new and exhaustless topic.

The old man was off to Yarmouth long before his guests were astir, for a fever of haste was upon him. He returned in the evening, and until Saturday he was employed with his beautiful secretary in making the most lordly preparations for the great meeting—the first of the series which was to revolutionize rich people's conceptions of duty and necessity.

A very brilliant company assembled; the old man was an artist in his way, and he had spread his lures with consummate tact. How on earth he got hold of eminent pressmen, I cannot tell; but then, eminent pressmen, like the rest of our world, are distinctly susceptible to the blandishments of amiable millionaires. Sir John Rooby, the ex-Lord Mayor, appeared in apoplectic importance; Lady Glendower, who had expended a fortune on the conversion of the Siamese, also waited with acute curiosity; every name on every card there was known more or less to Secretaries, to Missionary Societies, to begging-letter writers—to all the people who run on the track of wealth. The great saloon, which reached from the front, right across the mansion to the windows that overlooked the park, was filled fairly; and Ferrier was not a little perturbed by the sight of his audience.

Mr. Cassall soon ended all suspense by coming to the point in his quick fashion. (He would not have succeeded as a parliamenteer, for he had a most uncultivated habit of never using forty words where five would serve.) "Sir John, my lords, ladies, and gentlemen,—I have lately returned from a voyage in the North Sea among the Fishing Fleets. That was perhaps a foolish trip for an old man to make, in a world of rheumatics and doctors' fees; but I'm very glad I made it. Most people are very ready to point out the faults of others: I have to point out my own. I learned that I had been unwittingly neglecting a duty, and now I blame myself for remissness. It's very pleasant to blame yourself, because it gives you such a superior sense of humility, and I am enjoying the luxury to the full. I saw a great deal of beautiful and promising work going on, and I saw ever so much pain, and squalor, and unnecessary unhappiness. I needn't tell you that I've made up my mind to assault that pain and squalor and unhappiness, and try to drive them out of the field; I needn't tell you, because the newspapers have done that for me. They always know my business as well as I know it myself. Now it struck me that many men are as ignorant as I was. I know that some people continually go about imagining evil; but there are others who are constantly seeking for chances of doing good, and they jump at their chance the moment they clap eye on it. That is why I arranged this meeting. I cannot describe things, nor put out anything very lucidly—except a balance-sheet; but I have a young friend here, who has been at sea all winter in those ugly gales that made us so uncomfortable on shore, and he will tell us something. Then we have also Mr. Fullerton, who has been working and speechifying to some purpose for years. While I was pur-blind, this gentleman was clear-sighted; and, if you could go where I have been, and see the missionary work that I have seen, you would never speak ill of a missionary again. I do not believe ill of men. Some one among our statesmen summed up his ideas of life by saying, 'Men are very good fellows, but rather vain.' I should say, 'Men are mixtures; but few can resist the temptation to do a good action if they are shown how to do it.' Now, we're all very comfortable here—or I hope so, at all events; and it will do us good to hear of strong, useful men who never know what comfort means—and that through no fault of their own, but only through the strange complications of civilized society. I call on Mr. Fullerton to address this meeting." Fullerton rose and faced his audience like a practised hand. His trance-like intensity of gaze might have led you to think that he was going to pour out a lengthy speech: but he had tact; he knew that he would please Cassall and the audience by letting them hear the words of a new man, and he merely said: "For years I have addressed many meetings, and I have worked and prayed day and night. Help has risen up for me, and now I am content to be a humble member of the company who have agreed in their hundreds to aid in my life's work. I am but an instrument to be laid aside when my weary day is over and my Master's behests fulfilled. I see light spreading, darkness waning, kindness growing warmer, purity and sobriety become the rule in quarters where they were unknown; and I am thankful—not proud, only thankful—to have helped in a work which, I believe, is of God. We are now near the attainment of a long dream of mine, thanks to Robert Cassall; and, when the fulfilment is complete, I care not when I may be called on to say my 'Nunc dimittis.' And now I will not stand longer between you and Mr. Ferrier." Thus, with one dexterous push Ferrier found himself projected into the unknown depths of his speech. He was easy enough before students, but the quick whispers, the lightning flash of raised eye-glasses, the calm, bovine stare of certain ladies, rather disconcerted him at first. But he warmed to his work, and in deliberate, mathematical fashion wrought through his subject. He told of the long Night; the dark age of the North Sea. The little shivering cabin-boy lay on his dank wooden couch, and curled under the wrench of the bitter winter nights; he had to bear a hard struggle for existence, and, if he were a weakling, he soon went under. Alas! there had been instances, only too well authenticated, of boys being subjected to the most shocking treatment—though we would not saddle upon the majority of fishermen the responsibility for this cruelty on the part of a few. "What could a boy know of good?" said the speaker, with a sharp ring of the voice. "Why, the very name of God was not so much as a symbol to him; it was a sound to curse with—no more; and it might have seemed to a man of bitter soul that God had turned away His face from those of His human works that lived, and sinned, and suffered and perished on the grey sea." Then Ferrier showed how the light of new faith, the light of new kindness, had suddenly shot in on the envenomed darkness, like the purifying lightning that leaps and cleans the obscured face of a murky sky. He told of the incredulity which greeted the first missionaries, and he explained that the men could not think it possible that any one should care to show them human sympathy; he traced the gradual growth of belief, and passionate gratitude, and he then turned dexterously off and asked, "But how could you touch men's souls with transforming effect, where the poor body—the humble mask through which the soul gazes—was torn with great pain, or perplexed with pettier ills? My lords, ladies, and gentlemen, I have seen, in one afternoon, suffering home with sombre acquiescence, suffering the very sight of which in all its manifold dreariness would have driven you homeward shuddering from this beautiful place. Till this good man—I will say this great man—carried his baffling compound of sacred zeal and keen sense into that weary country, those toiling sailors were hopeless, loveless, comfortless, joyless, and—I say it with awe—heavenless; for scarcely a man of them had knowledge or expectation of a life wherein the miseries of this one may be redressed in some far land where Time is not." Then the youngster coldly, gravely told of his surgical work, and it seemed as if he were drawing an inexorable steel edge across the nerves of his terrified hearers. He watched the impression spread, and then sprang at his peroration with lightning-footed tact. "We English are like barbarians who have been transferred from a chilly land to a kind of hot-house existence. We are too secure; no predatory creature can harm us, and we cultivate the lordlier and lazier vices. Our middle class, as Bismarck says, has 'gone to fat,' and is too slothful to look for the miseries of others. The middle-class man, and even the aristocrat, are both too content to think of looking beyond their own horizon. And yet we are good in essentials, and no tale of pity is unheeded—if only it be called forth loudly enough. Let us wake our languid rich folk. They suffer from a surfeit—an apoplexy—of money. An eager, wakeful, nervous American plutocrat, thinks nothing of giving a large fortune to endow a hospital or an institute for some petty Western town. Are we meaner or more griping than the Americans? Never. Our men only want to know. Here is a work for you. I do not call our fishermen stainless; they are rude, they are stormy in passions, they are lacking in self-control; but they are worth helping. It is not fitting that these lost children of civilization should draw their breath in pain. Help us to heal their bodies, and maybe you will see a day when their strength will be your succour, and when their rescued souls shall be made in a glory of good deeds and manly righteousness." There was no mistake about the effect of this simple speech. I cannot give the effect of the timbre of Ferrier's voice, but his virility, his majestic seriousness, just tinctured by acuteness, and his thrill of half-restrained passion, all told heavily.

Slowly the party dispersed to the tents on the lawn, and many were the languidly curious inquiries made about the strange young professor who had turned missionary. The man himself was captured by Lady Glendower, who explained her woe at the perfidious behaviour of Myung Yang, the most interesting convert ever seen, who was now in penal servitude for exercising his imitative skill on my lady's signature. "And I expended a fortune, Mr. Ferrier, on those ungrateful people. Is it not enough to make one misanthropic?"

"Your ladyship must begin again on a new line."

"After hearing you, and all about those charmingly horrid accidents, I am almost tempted to take your advice."

Ferrier was invited to address at least a dozen more drawing-room meetings, and Sir John Rooby grunted, "Young man! I'm ready to put a set of engines in that boat of Cassall's, and you can have so much the more money for her maintenance."

Before Ferrier went to Yarmouth he heard that Fullerton was astounded at the number of financial sheep who had followed the plucky bell-wether. Said he, "We shall never turn our backs now. There will be three hospital cruisers on the stocks before the autumn, and your steamer will serve to supply them when we have them at work. If I were not fixed on God's firm ground, I should think I had passed away and was dreaming blissfully."

Oh! the fury and hurry around that steamer! Men were toiling without cessation during all night and all day; one shift relieved another, and Cassall employed two superintendents instead of one. The way the notion came to him was this:—he had an abrupt but most essentially pleasant way of getting into conversation with casual strangers of all ranks, and he always managed to learn something from them. "Nice smack that on the stocks," he remarked to a bronzed, blue-eyed man who was standing alert on a certain quay.

"Yes, sir. That's honest oak. I like that. But that other's not so honest."

"You mean the steamer?"

"Yes, sir. I don't like the way things goes along. The surveyor's been down. He and the manager are having champagne together now, and you may bet there's some skulking work going on in the dark corners. I know the ocean tramps, sir. Many's the time I've seen the dishonest rivets start out of 'em like buttons of a woman's bodice if it's too tight. If I was an owner, and building a vessel, I'd test every join and every rivet myself. You force a faulty plate into place, and the first time your vessel gets across a sea she buckles, and there's an end of all."

"You understand shipbuilding?"

"Only a sailor does, sir. He has the peril; the builders have the money."

"What are you?" "Merchant captain, sir," said the stout man, turning on the questioner a clear, light blue eye that shone with health and evident courage.

"Are you in a situation?"

"My vessel's laid up, sir, and I'm waiting to take her again."

"I'm not impertinent, but tell me your wages."

"Ten pound a month, and good enough too, these bad times."

"Then if you'll superintend the building of a vessel for me, I'll give you L150 a year—or at that rate, and you shall have a smaller vessel afterwards, if you care to sail a mere smack."

And so the bargain was struck, and Captain Powys was employed as bulldog, a special clause being inserted in the contract to that effect.

"Men won't like it," said the builder. "They'll lead him a life."

"Tell them, if they do, you lose your contract and they lose their work." So the splendid little steamer grew apace; she was composite, and Cassall took care that she should be strong. The most celebrated living designer of yachts had offered to make the drawings for nothing, out of mere fondness for Cassall, but the old gentleman paid his heavy fee. If any one can design a good and safe vessel it is the yacht-builder, whose little thirty tonners are expected to run quite securely across the Bay in the wild autumn. The Robert Cassall had not a nail or bolt in her that was not scrutinized by a stern critic. "Never mind fancy work or fancy speed. Give me perfect collision bulk-heads; perfect watertight compartments; make her unsinkable, and I don't care if you only make her travel ten knots—that's good enough for the North Sea."

Powys asked and obtained an assistant to take a turn on the day or night shifts, and the British workmen were held hard in hand by two acute and most critical mariners.

Robert Cassall had value for every penny of his money, but he certainly did not spare the place. His friend the yacht-builder twice came to see how the work was going on, and he said, "You'll be able to run her round the Horn if you like. You see I took care that she shouldn't kick like those steam-carriers. You'll find her as stiff as they make them."

Sir John Rooby resolved that the peerless engines which he provided should be fitted under cover, so, as soon as the hull was completed, the engineers began their work; and as it turned out, the experiment of launching a boat with all engines complete was an entire success. Sir James Eoche came and watched the fitting of all the appliances designed by him, and it seemed that he was as exquisite in mechanical skill as he was sagacious in treatment of disease. Ferrier was afraid that the vehement old man would wear him out, but he bottled his impatience, and sought repose in the gentle society of Sir James. The two medicos pottered on with pulleys and wheels and inclined planes with much contentment, and they satisfied themselves at last that a man might be picked up in any sea, and swiftly placed under cover, without sustaining a jar severe enough to hurt even a gouty subject.

Cassall did not like the workmen to be discontented over his incessantly vigilant superintendents, so, with his inexhaustible good-humour and resolution, he hit on a mode of conciliation. He met both shifts on a Friday, and said, "Now, men, I'm not a bad sort even if I am determined not to have a scamped nail in my vessel. Now you're working hard, and we'll show the prettiest vessel in England presently, so to-morrow we'll have two brakes here at eleven o'clock, all who like will drive to a certain little place that I know of, and we'll have a rare good dinner together, and come home in the evening. We'll have no spirits, and no shaky hands for Monday. Plenty of good, pure spring water with orange champagne for those who like it."

This was a very successful announcement, and Robert presided at table with extreme satisfaction on account of his own Machiavellian astuteness. Oh! those millionaires. What chances they have!

The scene at the launch of the Robert Cassall was imposing. The Queen, it was thought, would be present; but an intensely exciting and close general election had just taken place, and Her Majesty was occupied with relays of the gentlemen who are good enough to carry on the operation known as Governing the Country; so that the bunting and the manifold decorations served to grace the progress of a Royal Duke, who brought his August Mother's message.

I have nothing to do with the speeches this time; I only know that the steamer looked superb, with her gay stripe, and her beautiful trim on the water. The town was in a state of excitement until nightfall, and the people who had tickets to view the Fisherman's Palace passed in a steady and orderly procession over the broad deck; through the smart main ward with its polished oak floor; through the operating-room, and through the comfortable, unostentatious club-room, which had been designed by Lewis Ferrier. Robert Cassall was silently ecstatic now that the pinch of his work was over; and he had good reason to be proud, for no prettier or more serviceable piece of work was ever bought with money, and no man on earth need have grudged to exchange the costly obscurity of the monumental stone, for this beautiful memorial which promised to be the pride of the North Sea.

The riggers went hard at work; the captain and crew were sent on board to assist, and thus before the autumn storms broke once more, the Robert Cassall was ready for sea.

The whole fabric seemed to have risen like a vision, and the most hopeful of those who endured that cruel gale the year before could hardly believe that they were not deceived by some uneasy, uncanny dream.

The steamer surged away past the pier on her first trip, and a dense black crowd cheered and shouted blessings after her.

"Ah! they jeered me the first time I sailed from here under that flag. Thank God for the wonderful change," said Fullerton. "Never mind bygones. There's a good stiff sea outside. Let us watch how she takes it."

The sturdy old man was triumphant, satisfied with himself and his work, and he only wished to see how the contrivance of his audacious, teeming brain would succeed. Tom Lennard was on board again; and he only recovered from a congestion of adjectives on the brain, after he had fairly freed his nerves by smoking a pipe. He was still subdued, and he never let loose that booming laugh of his except on supremely important occasions. He attached himself much to Miss Dearsley, and, as he was passionately fond of talking about Lewis Ferrier, his company was surprisingly grateful to the young lady. Blair could not be with them, but he religiously promised to give Ferrier a lively time in the spring. The party of five were enough in themselves, and they watched with all the pride of successful people as their vessel, the offspring of dreams, flew over the seas without plunging or staggering. The captain came aft.

"Well, sir, this is better than wind-jamming. I think she's doing elevens easily, and, if the wind comes round a bit, she shall have the try-sails, and I warrant she does twelve."

"You'll go right for the Short Blues, as we arranged?"

"We shall pick them up in eighteen hours from now, sir, and I'll be glad if we haven't to work your patent sling, though I'd like to see it tried."

When the night came, and the men were smoking in Ferrier's room, the young man suddenly said, "Mr. Cassall, I hope you'll live to see at least six of these ships knocking about. In the meantime I'd sooner have your memorial than that awful, costly abortion of Byron's. I mean the one with a cat, or a puppy or something, sprawling at the man's feet."

Cassall slowly smiled.

"Not bad; not bad. But wait till I'm done, my lad; wait till I'm done. I've managed a beginning; I've designed a scheme for a ship, and now I'm bent on something bigger. Wait. I mean to move the conscience of your plutocrats, and I shall do it the hard, City style; see if I don't."

"Hah-h! Meantime this, sir, is, as I may say, recherche, unique, fahscinating."

"I must set my watch now," laughed the surgeon, and he whistled for the male nurses. He had drilled them to perfection in a week or two, and they had no easy time with him, for he was resolved to have naval precision and naval smartness on board the Cassall; and Tom was thankful that a man whose cheek showed chubby signs of containing a quid of tobacco, was not instantly suspended from the gaff. That was what he said, at any rate.

The Robert Cassall picked up the fleet just when the boarding was at its height, and her arrival caused a wild scene. Work and discipline were forgotten for a while: men set off flares which were absurdly ineffective in daylight; they jumped on the thofts of boats, ran up the rigging, and performed all sorts of clumsy antics out of sheer goodwill, as the beautiful steamer worked slowly along, piling up a soft, snowy scuffle of foam at her forefoot. The spare hands who had been brought out for the cruise yelled salutations to friends, and one of them casually remarked: "If this had happened before the drink was done away with, there would have been a funny old booze in some o' them ar smacks, just for excitement like." There were no patients from the first fleet excepting one man with that hideous poisoned hand which, like death, cometh soon or late to every North Sea fisher. He was sent back for his kit; one of the Cassal's hands was sent in his place, and the steamer rushed away after leaving a stock of tobacco with the Mission smack.

In the next fleet the same scenes made things in general lively. The skipper of the ordinary Mission smack came on board, and joyously cried: "I'm main glad you're come, sir. We've got one case that beats me. I can't do anything at all." Sir James Eoche's boat with the balanced stretcher was sent, and a crippled man was whipped up and slid along the boarding-stage before he had time to recover from his surprise. He had a broken patella—a nasty case—and he had gained the distinction of being the first man put to bed in that airy, charming ward. He will probably claim this honour with more or less emphasis during the rest of his lifetime. I fear that curiosity of an aggravated kind caused one or two gentlemen to be suddenly afflicted with minor complaints; but Ferrier had a delightful way of dealing with doubtful martyrs, and the vessel was soon cleared of them.

So the Robert Cassall scoured the North Sea like a phantom, sometimes crawling in the wake of the fleet when the gear was down, sometimes flying from one bank to another. In the course of two long, sweeping rounds she proved that she was worth all the other cruisers put together—for medical and surgical purposes alone. Danger was reduced to a minimum, and the sick men were, one by one, returned safely to their own vessels. When, on a rather calm day, a tubular boat was tried, and a prostrate man was seen flying over the water with what intelligent constables call "no visible means of support," the general opinion of the smacksmen was that no one never knowed what would come next. Some gentlemen threatened to be gormed if they did not discover a solution of this new and awful problem; others, more definite, were resolved to be blowed; and all the oldsters were agreed that only a manifest injustice could have caused them to be born so soon.

Robert Cassall was at length assured by experience that his enterprise had quadrupled the power of the Mission, and he only longed to see how his little miracle would succeed in winter. As for Lewis, he set himself to make a model hospital; his men were made to practise ambulance work daily; they had practical lectures in the evening, and, in a month, before the coals had given out, the mere attendants could have managed respectably if their adored martinet had given in from any cause. One last picture before the Bobert Cassall makes her brief scurry home.

The long sea was rolling very truly; the sick men in the wards were resting—clean, quiet, attentive; the nurses lounged at the dispensary door; Tom Lennard leaned his great bulk against the elaborately solid machinery which Ferrier had designed for purposes of dentistry, and the grim, calm old man sat with a tender smile in his eyes which contrasted prettily with the habitual sternness of his mouth.

A deep contralto voice was intoning a certain very noble fragment of poetry from a book that the men loved to hear when its words were spoken by that stately dame, who now read on from psalm to psalm: "For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Thine eyes; nevertheless, Thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto Thee."

"Amen," said Fullerton. "Amen," added the other three men. "Amen," said the sick sailors; and the Amen rustled softly above the lower rustle of the water that fled past the sides of the swift vessel. We shall see this brave hospital ship again, for I want to dream of her for long and many a day. Meantime, adieu, sweet lady; adieu.



APPENDIX A.

Since I set down a picture of my North Sea dream, I have passed through a valley of shadows. The world of men seemed to be shut out; the Past was forgotten, or, through the dark, vague trouble, Death smiled on me coldly, as if to warn me that my pulses must soon be touched with ice. In that strange trance my petty self was forgotten, and I waited quietly till I should be bathed in the flood of bliss to which Death is but the Portal. As from some dim, far land there came echoes of storm and stress, and then swift visions of the sea flitted past my eyes. While gazing languidly on the whirl of the snow, or listening to the thunder of winds in the clamorous night, I thought, as it were in flashes, about the fishermen who people the grey country that I used to know. Nevermore, oh! nevermore shall I see the waves charging down on the gallant smacks. All is gone: but my little share of a good work is done; I have warmed both hands before the fire of Life; it sinks, and I am ready to depart.

The dream has begun to come true in a way which is rather calculated to astound most folks: a hospital vessel, the Queen Victoria, is actually at work, and has gone out on the wintry sea just at the time when the annual record of suffering reaches its most intense stage; a scheme at which grave men naturally shook their heads has been shown to be practicable, and we see once more that the visionary often has the most accurate insight into the possibilities of action. To those who do not go to sea I will give one hint; if a man is sent home on the long journey over the North Sea, he not only suffers grievously but he loses his employment, and his family fare badly. If he be transferred to the hospital ship his place is filled for a little while by one of the spare hands whom the Mission sends out, and his berth is saved for him. I do not deny that the scheme is rather impressive in the magnitude of its difficulty; but then no man breathing—except its originator—would ever have fancied, five years ago, that the Mission would become one of the miracles of modern social progress. If comfortable folks at home could only see how those gallant, battered fishermen suffer under certain circumstances of toil and weather, they would hardly wonder at my putting forward the hospital project so urgently. By rights I ought to have spoken about other branches of the Mission's work, but the importance of the healing department has overshadowed all other considerations in my mind. To Dare, and Dare again, and Dare always, is the one plan that leads to success in philanthropy as surely as it leads to success in politics or war. Those who have undertaken to civilize our Deep Sea fishermen must continue to dare without ceasing; they must educate the thousands of good men and women whose sacred impulses lead them to aim at bettering this blind and struggling world; spiritual enthusiasm must be backed by material force, and the material force can only be gained when the great, well-meaning, puzzled masses are enlightened. We all know the keen old saying about the man who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before. How much more worthy of thankfulness is the man who gives us a harmless, devout citizen in place of a ruffian, a hale and capable seaman in place of an agonized cripple, a quiet abstainer in place of a dangerous debauchee, a seemly well-spoken friend of society in place of a foul-mouthed enemy of society? Up till very recent years the fishermen were a rather debauched set, and those who had money or material to barter for liquor could very easily indulge their taste. Sneaking vessels—floating grogshops—crept about among the fleets, and an exhausted fisherman could soon obtain enough fiery brandy to make him senseless and useless. The foreigners could bring out cheap tobacco, and the men usually went on board for the tobacco alone. But the shining bottles were there, the sharp scent of the alcohol appealed to the jaded nerves of men who felt the tedium of the sea, and thus a villainous agency obtained a terrible degree of power. I have, in a pamphlet, explained how the founder of the Mission contrived to defeat and ruin the foreign liquor trade, and I may do so again in brief fashion. Our Customs authorities at that date would not let the Mission vessels take tobacco out of bond, and Mr. Mather was, for a long time, beaten. But he has a somewhat unusual capacity for mastering obstacles, and he contrived to sweep the copers off the sea by the most audacious expedient that I have heard of in the commercial line. A great firm of manufacturers offered tobacco at cost price; the tobacco was carried by rail from Bristol to London; it was then sent to Ostend, whence a cruiser belonging to the Mission cleared it out, and it was carried to the banks and distributed among the fleets. A fisherman could buy this tobacco at a shilling per pound. The copers were undersold, and they found it best to take themselves off. No one can better appreciate this most dashingly beneficial action than the smack-owners, for their men are more efficient and honest; the fishermen themselves are grateful, because few of them really craved after drink, and the general results are obvious to anybody who spends a month in the North Sea. We know the Six Governments most intimately concerned have seen the wisdom of this action, and one of the best of modern reforms has been consummated. The copers did a great amount of mischief indirectly, apart from the traffic in spirits. If some of our reformers at home could only see the prints and pictures and models which were offered for sale, they would own, I fancy, that if the Mission had done no more than abolish the traffic in literary and other abominations, it has done much. A few somewhat particular folk object to supplying the men with cheap tobacco, but any who knows what intense relief is given to an overworked man by the pipe will hardly heed the objection much. After a heavy spell of work, a seaman smokes for a few minutes before the slumberous lethargy creeps round his limbs, and he is all the better for the harmless narcotic.

In this land of plethoric riches there are crowds of people who treat philanthropy as a sort of investment; they place money in a sinking fund and they forego all interest. We want to show them one line of investment wherein they may at least see plenty of results for their money. Speaking for myself, I should like to see money which is amassed by Englishmen concentrated for the benefit of other Englishmen. Looking at the matter from a cool and business-like point of view, I can see that every effort made to keep our fishermen in touch with the mass of their countrymen, is a step towards national insurance—if we put it on no higher ground. In the old days the fisher had no country; he knew his own town, but the idea of Britain as a power—as a mother of nations—never occurred to him; the swarming millions of inland dwellers were nothing to him, and he could not even understand the distribution of the wares which he landed. The Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen has brought him into friendly contact with much that is best among his countrymen; he is no longer exiled for months together among thousands of ignorant celibates like himself; he finds that his fortunes are matters for vivid interest with numbers of people whose very existence was once like a hazy dream to him; and, above all, he is brought into contact during long days with sympathetic and refined men, who incidentally teach him many things which go far beyond the special subjects touched by amateur or professional missionaries. A gentleman of breeding and education meets half a dozen smacksmen in a little cabin, and the company proceed to talk informally. Well, at one time the seamen's conversation ran entirely on trivialities—or on fish. As soon as the subject of Fish was exhausted, the exiles growled their comments on Joe's new mainsail, or the lengthening of Jimmy's smack; but nowadays the men's horizon is widened, and the little band of half a dozen who meet the missionary are eager to learn, and eager to express their own notions in their own simple fashion. The gentleman, of course, shows his fine manners by granting attention to all his rough friends when they talk, and the smacksmen find that, instead of a preacher only, a man who withdraws himself to his private cabin when his discourse has been delivered, they have among them a kindly fellow-worker, who enters with the true spirit of camaraderie into all that interests or concerns them, and gives counsel and cheery chat without a sign of patronage. Then, after the little meeting is over, and the evening begins to fall, the fascinating landsman will stroll on the deck for a few minutes, until the smack's boats come over the great seas to bear away the visitors; all his gossip is like a revelation to the rude, good-hearted creatures, and his words filter from vessel to vessel; his very accent and tone are remembered; and when the hoarse salute "God bless you!" sounds over the sea, as the boats go away, you may be sure that the fishers utter their blessing with sincere fervour. Then there are the great meetings on calm, happy Sundays, when the cultured clergyman who has snatched a brief rest from his parochial duties, or five or six amateurs (many of them University men) stroll about among the congregation before the formal service begins. The roughs who come on board for the first time are inclined to exhibit a sort of resentful but sheepish reserve, until they find that the delicate courtesy of these Christian gentlemen arises from sheer goodwill; then they become friendly and confidential. Well, all this intercourse is gradually knitting together the upper and middle classes on shore and the great seagoing population; the fishers feel that they are cared for, and the defiant blackguardism of the outcast must by and by be nearly unknown. I feel it almost a duty to mention one curious matter which came to my notice. An ugly morning had broken with half a gale of wind blowing; the sea was not dangerous, but it was nasty—perhaps nastier than it looked. I was on board a steam-carrier, a low-built, powerful iron vessel that lunges in the most disturbing manner when she is waiting in the trough of the sea for the boats which bring off the boxes of fish. The little boats were crashing, and leaping like hooked salmon, and grinding against the sides of the steamer, and I could not venture to walk about very much on that reeling iron deck. The crowd of smacksmen who came were a very wild lot, and, as the breeze grew stronger, they were in a hurry to get their boxes on board. Since one of the trunks of fish weighs 80 lbs., I need hardly say that the process of using such a box as a dumb-bell is not precisely an easy one, and, when the dumb-bell practice has to be performed on a kind of stage which jumps like a bucking broncho, the chances of bruises and of resulting bad language are much increased. The bounding, wrenching, straining, stumbling mob in the boats did not look very gentle or civilized; their attire was quite fanciful and varied, but very filthy, and they were blowzy and tired after their wild night of lashing rain and chill hours of labour. A number of the younger fellows had the peculiar street Arab style of countenance, while the older men were not of the very gentle type. In that mad race against wind and tide, I should have expected a little of the usual cursing and fighting from a mob which included a small percentage of downright roughs. But a tall man, dressed in ordinary yachtman's clothes, stood smoking on deck, and that was the present writer. The rough Englishmen did not know that I had been used to the company of the wildest desperadoes that live on earth. They only knew that I came from the Mission ship, and they passed the word. Every rowdy that came up was warned, and one poor rough, who chanced to blurt out a very common and very nasty Billingsgate word, was silenced by a moralist, who observed, "Cheese it. Don't cher see the Mission ship bloke?" I watched like a cat, and I soon saw that the ordinary hurricane curses were restrained on my account, simply because I came from the vessel where all are welcome—bad and good. For four hours I was saluted in all sorts of blundering, good-humoured ways by the men as they came up. Little scraps of news are always intensely valued at sea, and it pleased me to see how these rude, kind souls tried to interest me by giving me scraps of information about the yacht which I had just left. "She was a-bearing away after the Admiral, sir, when we passed her. It's funny old weather for her, and I see old Jones a-bin and got the torps'l off on her"—and so on. Several of the fellows shouted as they went, "Gord bless you, sir. We wants you in the winter." No doubt some of them would, at other times, have used a verb not quite allied to bless; but I could see that they were making an attempt to show courtesy toward an agency which they respect, and though I remained like a silent Lama, receiving the salutes of our grimy, greasy friends, I understood their thoughts, and, in a cynical way, I felt rather thankful to know that there are some men at least on whom kindness is not thrown away. The captain of the carrier said, "I never seen 'em so quiet as this for a long time, but that was because they seed you. They cotton on to the Mission—the most on 'em does."

This seems to me a very pretty and significant story. Any one who knows the British Rough—especially the nautical Rough—knows that the luxury of an oath is much to him, yet here a thorough crowd of wild and excited fellows become decorous, and profuse of civilities, only because they saw a silent and totally emotionless man smoking on the deck of a steam-carrier. On board the steamer, I noticed that the same spirit prevailed; the men treated me like a large and essentially helpless baby, who must be made much of. Alas! do not I remember my first trip on a carrier, when I was treated rather like a bundle of coarse fish? The reason for the alteration is obvious, and I give my very last experience as a most significant thing of its kind. Observe that the roughest and most defiant of the irreligious men are softened by contact with an agency which they regard as being too fine or too tiresome for their fancy, and it is these irregular ruffians who greet the Mission smacks with the loudest heartiness when they swing into the midst of a fleet.

Now, I put it to any business man, "Is not this a result worth paying for, if one wants to invest in charitable work?" I repeat that the Mission is indirectly effecting a national insurance; the men think of England, and of the marvellous army of good English folk who care for them, and they are so much the better citizens. We hear a dolorous howl in Parliament and elsewhere about the dearth of seamen; experts inform us that we could not send out much more than half our fleet if a pinch came, because we have not enough real sailors. Is it not well for us, as Britons, to care as much as we can for our own hardy flesh and blood—the finest pilots, the cleverest seamen, the bravest men in the world? They would fight in the old Norse fashion if it came to that, and they would be the exact sort of ready-made bluejackets needed to man the swarms of Wasps which must, some day, be needed to defend our coasts.

So far for purely utilitarian considerations. Again, supposing you take on board a hospital ship a man who is enduring bitter suffering; supposing you heal him, bring him under gentle influences, lead him to know the Lord Jesus Christ and to follow Him, and send him away with his personality transformed—is not all that worth a little money, nay, a great deal? I am fully aware that it is a good thing to convert a Jew or a Bechuana, or even a Fantee—their rescue from error is a distinct boon; but, while honouring all missions to savage nations, I like to plead a little for our own kindly breed of Englishmen. Already we see what may be done among them; good-hearted amateurs are willing to work hard, and the one hospital cruiser—One! among so many!—is succeeding splendidly. Give the English seamen a chance, then.

The interesting West African is clearly a proper object for pity as to his spiritual condition, but, to my mind, he has, in some respects, the jolliest, easiest life imaginable. Give him enough melon, and he will bask blissfully in the sun all day; you cannot get him to work any more than you can get him to fight for his own safety:—he is a happy, lazy, worthless specimen of the race, and life glides pleasantly by for him. Spend thousands on the poor Fantee by all means, but think also of our own iron men who do not lead easy lives; think of the terror of the crashing North Sea; think of the cool, imperturbable, matchless braves who combat that Sea and earn a pittance by providing necessaries (or luxuries) for you and for me. Save as many souls as you can—"preach the gospel to every creature;" heal as many bodies as you can; but, since the world's resources are narrow, consider carefully which bodies are to have your first consideration.

Years ago I had no conception of the amount of positive suffering which the fishermen endure. I was once on board a merchant steamer during a few months, and I was installed as surgeon-in-chief. We had a few cases which were pretty tiresome in their way, but then the utmost work our men had to do was the trifle of pulling and hauling when the try-sails were put on her, and the usual scraping and scrubbing and painting which goes on about all iron ships. But the smacksman runs the risk of a hurt of some kind in every minute of his waking life. He must work with his oilskins on when rain or spray is coming aboard, and his oilskins fray the skin when the edges wear a little; then the salt water gets into the sore and makes a nasty ulcer, which eats its way up until you may see men who dare not work at the trawl without having their sleeves doubled to the elbow. Then there are the salt water cracks which cut their way right to the bone. These, and toothache, the fisherman's great enemy, are the ailments which may be cured or relieved by the skippers of the Mission smacks. In a single year nearly eight thousand cases have been treated in the floating dispensaries, and I may say that I never saw a malingerer come on board. What would be the use? It is only the stress of positive pain that makes the men seek help, and their hard stoicism is very fine to see. A man unbinds an ugly poisoned hand, and quietly lets you know that he has gone about his work for a week with that throbbing fester paining him; another will simply say that he kept about as long as he could with a broken finger. Then there are cases of a peculiarly distressing nature—scalp wounds caused by falling blocks, broken limbs in various stages of irritation, internal injuries caused by violent falls in bad weather, and for all these there is ready and hearty help aboard the Mission vessel.

Scarcely one of the North Sea converts has turned out badly, for they usually have the stern stuff of good men in them; they have that manly and passionate gratitude which only the true and honest professor, free from taint of humbug or hypocrisy, can maintain, and I say deliberately that every man of them who is brought to lead a pure, sober, religious life, represents a distinct gain to our best national wealth—a wealth that is far above money.

I know that my dream may be translated into fact, for have we not the early success of the superb hospital smack to reassure us? Let us go a little farther and complete the work; let us make sure that no poor, maimed seaman shall be without a chance of speedy relief when his hard fate overtakes him on that savage North Sea. The fishers are the forlorn hope in the great Army of Labour; they risk life and limb every day—every moment—in our behoof; surely the luckier children of civilization may remember their hardly entreated brethren? No sentiment is needed in the business, and gush of any sort is altogether hateful. God forbid that I should hinder, those who feel led to aid the members of an unknown tribe in a dark continent, for in so doing I should be contravening the Divine injunction to evangelize all nations: but, on the other hand, I will discharge myself of what has lain as a burden on my conscience ever since I first visited the smacksmen; I will cry aloud for help to our own kith and kin, more, more HELP than has ever yet been given to them!

These men are splendid specimens of English manhood; their country is not far away; you can visit it for yourself and see what human nerve and sinew can endure, and if you do you will return, as I did, filled with a sense of shame that you had spent so many years in ignorance of your indebtedness to the fine fellows in whose behalf my tale is written. I am as grateful as our brave souls on the sea for all that has been done, but I incontinently ask for more, and I entreat those to whom money is as nothing to give the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen its hospital ship, for every fleet that scours the trawling grounds, but especially a fast or steam cruiser—a Robert Cassall—so that the wounded fisherman, in the hour of his need and his utter helplessness, may be as sure of relief as are the Wapping labourer or the Mortlake bargeman.