A Dream of the North Sea Part 15

Sir James spent the afternoon in driving with his host, and they naturally chatted a great deal about Mr. Ca.s.sall'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 cas.h.i.+er in a draper's shop. If she marries young, she will he picked up by some embarra.s.sed 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 lavis.h.i.+ng 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 fellows.h.i.+p. 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 pa.s.sed in the usual pleasant humdrum style; n.o.body wanted to s.h.i.+ne; 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 Ca.s.sall 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 s.h.i.+ps 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. Ca.s.sall 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 s.h.i.+ps, 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.

Ca.s.sall, 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 quant.i.ty." Besides, it is absolutely against rules to take infectious cases on board the mission vessels. "Ca.s.sall 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."

Ca.s.sall 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 s.h.i.+ps, without saying anything about ways and means for keeping the s.h.i.+ps up. My dear Ca.s.sall, 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 s.h.i.+ps quite safe we must be constantly renewing. It's the _maintenance_ funds that puzzle us. If you give us a s.h.i.+p 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 1,200 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 30,000 for a sailing s.h.i.+p 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. Bra.s.sey 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, amids.h.i.+ps. The wards must be amids.h.i.+ps, 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 sh.o.r.e."

"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 4,000 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. "Ca.s.sall 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.

Ca.s.sall 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, Ca.s.sall,"

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 150,000 to carry out my pet fad. I'd bear it, and go on bearing it, quite gallantly, I a.s.sure you, my friend."

A very happy pair of people were left to chat in Ca.s.sall'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 sh.e.l.lbacks, and made all sorts of nautical jokes. The discussion as to who should be admiral promised to supply a month's fun, but Ca.s.sall 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. Ca.s.sall 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 Sch.e.l.ling, 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 un.o.bservant; 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. Ca.s.sall 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?"