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 Counci. 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.