A Dream of the North Sea Part 13

When the blankets were brought, Ferrier said, "Now I'm going to make him sweat violently, and then I shall trap him up, as some of you say, and you must do your best to keep him warm afterwards, or else you may lose him. When he has perspired enough you must rub him dry, with some muslin that I'll give you, and then merely wait till he's well."

In that wretched, reeking hole Ferrier improvised a Russian bath with a blanket or two, a low stool, and a lamp turned down moderately low. He helped to hold up his man until the sweat came, first in beads, and then in a copious downpour; he wrapped him up, and did not leave till the patient professed himself able to get up and walk about. The men merely gaped and observed the miraculous revival with faith unutterable. Then our young man bade good-bye, merely saying, "You'll keep your berth for a couple of days, and then signal us if you want me."

The sky was ragged and wild with the tattered banners of cloud; the sea was inky dark, and the wind had an iron ring. The Mission vessel had dropped to leeward of the fis.h.i.+ng smack, and the boat had about three hundred yards to go. But what a three hundred yards! Great black hills filled up the s.p.a.ce and flowed on, leaving room for others equally big and equally black. The sides of these big hills were laced with lines of little jumping hillocks, and over all the loud wind swept, shearing off tearing storm-showers of spray. An ugly three hundred yards!

"Well, how is it now, skipper?"

"Neck or nothing, sir. You can stop here if you like."

"Oh, no! Mr. Lennard would have apoplexy. Let us try. It can't be worse than it was in coming."

"Good-bye, sir. I'm sorry my comrades hadn't the risk instead of you.

I'll take good care you don't attend one of _them_."

Home, happiness, fame! The face of Marion Dearsley. Images of peace and love.--All these things pa.s.sed through Lewis Ferrier's mind as he prepared for that black journey. A dark wave swung the boat very high.

"Will she turn turtle?" No. But she was half full. "Bale away, sir."

Whirr, went the wind; the liquid ma.s.ses came whooping on. One hundred yards more would have made all safe, though the boat three times pitched the oars from between the tholepins. A big curling sea struck her starboard quarter too sharply, and for a dread halfminute she hung with her port gunwale in the water as she dropped like a log down the side of the wave. It was too cruel to last. Ferrier heard an exclamation; then a deep groan from the skipper; and then to the left he saw a great slate-coloured Thing rus.h.i.+ng down. The crest towered over them, bent, shattered with its own very velocity, and fell like a crumbling dark cavern over the boat. There was a yell from both smacks; then the boat appeared, swamped, with the men up to their necks; then the boat went, sucking the men down for a time, and then Lewis Ferrier and his two comrades were left spinning in the desperate whirls of the black eddies.

"Run to them!" yelled Tom. "Never mind if you carry everything away.

Only keep clear of the other smack." Ferrier found the water warm, and he let himself swing pa.s.sively. His thoughts were in a hurly-burly. Was this the end of all--youth, love, brave days of manhood? Nay, he would struggle. Had they not prayed before they set out? All must come right--it must. And yet that spray was choking. He could not see his companions. A yell. "Lewis, my son, I'll come over." But Tom was held back; the smack was brought up all shaking. First the skipper caught a rope. Good, n.o.ble old man! He was half senseless when they hauled him on board. Then Lewis heard, as in a torpid reverie, a great voice, "Lay hold, Lewis, and I _will_ come if you're bothered." What was he doing?

Mechanically he ran the rope under the sleeve of his life-jacket; a mighty jerk seemed likely to pull him in halves as the smack sheered; then a heavy, dragging pain came--he was being torn, torn, _torn_.

He woke in the cabin before the fire, and found Tom Lennard blubbering hard over him. "Warm it seems, Thomas? Reckon I almost lost my number that time."

"My good Lewis! No more. I had to strip you, and I've done everything.

The skipper's dead beat, and if Bob couldn't steer we should be in a pickle. Let me put you in a hot blanket now, and you'll have some grog."

Then, with his own queer humour, Lewis Ferrier said, "Tom, all this is only a lesson. If we'd had a proper boat, a proper lift for sick men, and a proper vessel to lift them into, I should have been all right. We won't come back to have these baths quite so often. We'll have a _s.h.i.+p_ when we come again, and not merely a thing to sail. And now give me just a thimble-full of brandy, and then replace the bottle amongst the other poisonous physic! I'm getting as lively as a gra.s.shopper. A nautical--a nautical taste, Thomas!"

And then Ferrier went off to sleep just where he was, after very nearly giving a most convincing proof in his own person of the necessity for a hospital vessel.

Lennard brooded long, and at last he went to the skipper and asked, "Old man, shall Bob shove her head for home?"

The skipper nodded.

And now you may see why I purposely made this chapter so long.

You have an accurate picture of what goes on during all the snowy months on that wild North water!

CHAPTER III.

THE PLOTTER.

An old gentleman and a tall girl were walking in the secluded grounds of a great house that had once belonged to an unhappy Prince. The place was very near London, yet that suggestive hum of the City never seemed to pierce the deep glades of the park; the rooks talked and held councils, and tried culprits, and stole, and quarrelled as freely as they might have done in the wilds of Surrey or Wilts.h.i.+re; the rabbits swarmed, and almost every south-country species of wild bird nested and enjoyed life in the happy, still woods and shrubberies. Modern--very modern--improvements had been added to the body of the old house, but there was nothing vulgar or ostentatious. Everything about the place, from the old red palace to the placid herd of Alderney cows that grazed in a mighty avenue, spoke of wealth--wealth solid and well-rooted. There was no sign of shoddy anywhere; the old gentleman had bought the place at an enormous price, and he had left all the ancient work untouched; but he would have stables, laundry, tennis-court, and so on through the offices and outside buildings, fitted out according to rational principles of sanitation, and, if the truth be told, he would rather have seen healthy ugly stables than the most quaint and curious of living-rooms that ever spread typhoid.

Mr. Ca.s.sall was a man of peculiarly modern type. From his youth upward he had never once acknowledged himself beaten, though he had known desperate circ.u.mstances; 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 a.s.sessed 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 pa.s.sionately 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 Ca.s.sall'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 un.o.btrusive 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 a.s.sist your Polish Jew in the East, nor Quashee n.i.g.g.e.r 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 300 a year and ask them to play at being St. Paul, and you don't convert a hundred n.i.g.g.e.rs 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 a.s.sist _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 fas.h.i.+on, 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. Ca.s.sall 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. Ca.s.sall was scandalously unjust to the missionaries--an injustice which would have vanished had he personally known the glorious results for G.o.d 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 a.s.sisted 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 Ca.s.sall, 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 st.u.r.dy, 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 Ca.s.sall.

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 sh.o.r.e."

"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 pa.s.ser-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.