A Dream of the North Sea | Page 8

fined off, and the scattered and shattered
vessels of the fleet began to draw together; a sullen swell still lunged
over the banks, but there was little wind and no danger. Fullerton said,
"Now, Ferrier, we have an extra medicine-chest on board, besides
Blair's stock, and you've seen the surgery. You'll have plenty of work
presently. After a gale like this there are always scores of accidents that
can't be treated by rough-and-tumble methods. A skipper may manage
simple things; we need educated skill. The men are beginning to know
Blair's boat, and I wish we had just twelve like her. You see we've got
at a good many of the men with our ordinary vessels, and that has
worked marvels, but all we've done is only a drop in the sea. We want
you fellows, and plenty of you. Hullo! What cheer, my lads! what
cheer!"

A smack lumbered past with her mainsail gone, and her gear in a sadly
tangled condition.
"Can you send us help, sir? We'm got a chap cruel bad hurt."
"We've got a doctor on board; he shall come."
All round, the rolling sea was speckled with tiny boats that careered
from hill to hollow, and hollow to hill, while the two cool rowers
snatched the water with sharp dexterous strokes. After the wild ordeal
of the past two days these fishers quietly turned to and began ferrying
the fish taken in the last haul. While the boat was being got ready,
Ferrier gave Mrs. Walton and Miss Dearsley an arm each, and did his
best to convey them along the rearing deck. The girl said--
"Is that the steam-carrier I have heard of? How fearful! It makes me
want to shut my eyes."
To Marion Dearsley's unaccustomed sight the lurching of the carrier
was indeed awful, and she might well wonder, as I once did, how any
boat ever got away safely. I have often told the public about that frantic
scene alongside the steamers, but words are only a poor medium, for
not Hugo, nor even Clark Russell, the matchless, could give a fair idea
of that daily survival of danger, and recklessness, and almost insane
audacity. The skipper was used to put in his word pretty freely on all
occasions, for Blair's men were not drilled in the style of ordinary
yachtsmen. Freeman, like all of the schooner's crew, had been a
fisherman, and he grinned with pleasing humour when he heard the
young lady's innocent questions.
"Bless you, Miss, that's nothing. See 'em go in winter when you can't
see the top of the steamboat's mast as she gets behind a sea. Many and
many's the one I've seen go. They're used to it, but I once seen a
genelman fainthe was weak, poor fellow--and we took aboard a dose of
water that left us half-full. He would come at any risk, and when we
histed him up on the cutter's deck, and he comes to, he shudders and he
says, 'That is too horrible. Am I a-dreaming?' But it's all use, Miss.
Even when some poor fellows is drowned, the men do all they can; and

if they fail, they forget next day."
"Could you edge us towards the cutter, skipper?" said Fullerton.
"Oh, yes. Bear up for the carrier, Bill; mind this fellow coming down."
The beautiful yacht was soon well under the steamer's lee, and the
ladies watched with dazed curiosity the work of the tattered, filthy,
greasy mob who bounded, and strained, and performed their prodigies
of skill on the thofts and gunwales of the little boats. Life and limb
seemed to be not worth caring for; men fairly hurled themselves from
the steamer into the boats, quite careless as to whether they landed on
hands or feet, or anyhow. Fullerton exclaimed--
"Just to think that of all those splendid, plucky smacksmen, we haven't
got one yet! I've been using the glass, and can't see a face that I know.
How can we? We haven't funds, and we cannot send vessels out."
Miss Dearsley's education was being rapidly completed. Her strong,
quick intelligence was catching the significance of everything she saw.
The smack with the lost mainsail was drawing near, and the doctor was
ready to go, when a boat with four men came within safe distance of
the schooner's side.
"Can you give us any assistance, sir? Our mate's badly
wounded--seems to a' lost his senses like, and don't understand."
A deadly pale man was stretched limply on the top of a pile of
fish-boxes. Mrs. Walton said--
"Pray take us away--we cannot bear the sight."
And indeed Marion Dearsley was as pale as the poor blood-smeared
fisherman. Ferrier coolly waited and helped Tom and Fullerton to hoist
the senseless, mangled mortal on deck. The crew did