CHAPTER VI.

THE MISSION HALL.

And now you know what our people have been driving at all the time.  I have reported their talk, and we shall have very little space for more of it, as the time must shortly come for swift action.  From the moment when Ferrier groaned with despair, a lightning thought shot into Marion’s brain and settled there.  She had a grand idea, and she was almost eager to get ashore:  one indefinite attraction alone held her.  Ferrier was almost as eager to return, for his electric nature was chafed by the limitations that bound him; he knew he could do nothing without further means and appliances, and, in the meantime, he was only half doing work of supreme importance.  He wished to glance slightly at the social and spiritual work of the fleet, but his heart was in his own trade.

The weather held up nicely, and on the morning after Ferrier saved the broken-ribbed youngster, the schooner had a rare crowd on board.  The men tumbled over the side with lumbering abandonment, and met each other like schoolboys who gather in the common-room after a holiday.  As Blair said, they were like a lot of Newfoundland puppies.  Poor Tom Betts came up among the roistering crowd—­pale, weary, and with that strange, disquieting smile which flits over sick men’s faces; he was received as an interesting infant, and his narratives concerning the marvellous skill of the doctor were enough to supply the fleet with gossip for a month.  None of the “weeds” of the fleet were on board, and the assembly might be taken as representing the pick of the North Sea population.  With every observant faculty on the stretch Ferrier strolled from group to group, chatting with man after man; no one was in the least familiar, but the doctor was struck with the simple cordiality of all the fellows.  A subtle something was at work, and it gradually dawned on the young student that these good folk had the sentiment of brotherhood which is given by a common cause and a common secret.  The early Christians loved one another, and here, on that grey sea, our sceptic saw the early Christian movement beginning all over again, with every essential feature reproduced.  All types were represented; the grave man, the stern man, the sweet-faced dreamy man—­even the comic man.  The last-named here was much beloved and admired on account of his vein of humour, and he was decidedly the Sydney Smith of the fleet.  His good-temper was perfect; a large fellow of the Jutish type lifted him with one huge arm, and hung him over the side; the humorist treated this experience as a pleasant form of gentle exercise, and smiled blandly until he was replaced on deck.  When he was presented with a cigar, he gave an exposition of the walk and conversation of an extremely haughty aristocrat, and, on his saying, “Please don’t haddress me as Bill.  Say ‘Hahdeyedoo, Colonel,’” the burly mob raised such a haw-haw as never was heard elsewhere, and big fellows doubled themselves up out of sheer enjoyment, the fun was so exquisite.