A Dream of the North Sea by James Runciman
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James Runciman >> A Dream of the North Sea
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"Hah! mistook you for an angel. Eh? Not much mistake when you like to be
good, but when you begin picking my pocket, there's not much of the
angel about that, I venture to say."
So spoke the old gentleman; but the anecdote delighted him so much that
for two or three days he snorted "Angel!" in various keys all over the
house, until the servants thought he must have turned Atheist or
Republican, or something generally contemptuous and sarcastic. The girl
had him in her toils, and the fascination was too much for him. She
could look grand as a Greek goddess, calm and inscrutably imposing as
the Venus of Milo; but she could also play _Perdita_, and dance with her
enslaved ones like a veritable little witch. Robert Cassall was
captured--there could not be much error about that. He asked, with a
sudden snap of teeth and lips which made his niece start: "And how much
do you want to coax out of me, Miss Molly. Give me an idea. Of course
I'm to be the uncle in the play, and 'Bless you, me chee-ill-dren,' and
the rest. Oh yes!"
"Oh, one vessel could be kept up for L30,000."
"What! Per year?"
"No. The interest on L30,000 in North Western Railway stock would
support a vessel well. _You_ could easily support two."
"This girl's got bitten by a money-spending tarantula. Why you'd dance
a million away in no time. _Why_, in the name of common sense, why
should I support two vessels and their hulking crews--who chew tobacco,
of course, don't they? To be sure, and hitch their slacks! Why should I
support all these manly tars!"
"Now! I'll be angry. I'll tell you why. You know you have more money
than you can ever spend. You promise me some, and you're very good, but
I'd almost rather live on my own than have too much. Well, I can't bear
to think of your dying--but you must die, my own good dear, and you will
have to divide your money before you go. There will be a lot of
heart-burning, and I'm afraid poor me won't come off very lightly if I
am left behind you. You will want a memorial."
"You remember me and do as I would like you to do, and we sha'n't
trouble our minds much about memorials. I thought of almshouses,
though."
"Oh! uncle dear, and then the Charity Commissioners may come in, and
give all your money to fat, comfortable tradesmen's children, or
well-to-do professional men, instead of to your old people, and the
clergyman will be master of your money; and the old people will not be
grateful, and all will go wrong, and my dear uncle will be forgotten.
Oh! no."
"I say, come, come; you're too knowing. You're trying to knock a pet
scheme of mine on the head."
The old man was genuinely concerned, and he felt as if some prop had
been knocked away from him. But his sweet niece soon brought him round.
She had scared his vanity on purpose, and she now applied the antidote.
"Supposing you give us two ships, you give yourself a better memorial
than poor Alleyn of Dulwich, or Roan of Greenwich. Dear uncle, a charity
which can be enjoyed by the idle is soon forgotten, and the pious
founder is no more than a weed round the base of his own monument; he
has not even a name. But you may actually see your own memorial working
good long, long before you die, and you may see exactly how things will
go on when your time is over. When you make out your deed of gift, exact
the condition that one vessel must always be called after you, no matter
how long or how often the ships are renewed. Sir James Roche can advise
you about that. Place your portrait in the ship, and make some such
provision as that she shall always carry a flag with your name, if you
want to flaunt it, you proud thing! Then something like, at any rate,
three thousand sufferers will associate your name with their happiness
and cure every year; and they will say in every port in England, 'I was
cured on the _Robert Cassall,'_ or 'I should have lost that hand,' or 'I
was dying of typhoid and our skipper thought I needed salts, but they
cured me on the _Robert Cassall_.' And the great ships will pass your
beautiful ship, and when people ask 'What is that craft, and who is
Cassall?' they will say that Cassall gave of his abundance during his
lifetime, so that seamen might be relieved of bitter suffering; and
those brave men will be so very grateful. And oh! uncle, fancy going out
to sea in your own monument, and watching your own wealth working
blessedness before your eyes. Why, you will actually have all the
pleasures of immortality before you have lost the power of seeing or
knowing anything. Oh, uncle dear, think if you can only see _one_
sailor's limbs saved by means of your money! Think of having a hundred
living monuments of your goodness walking about in the beautiful
world--saved and made whole by you!"
The girl frightened the plucky old gentleman. His voice trembled, and he
said, "Why, we must send you to Parliament! You can beat most of those
dull sconces. Why, you're a no-mistake born orator--a talkee-talkee
shining light! But if you go in for woman's rights and take to short
hair, I shall die, after burning my will! And now you kiss me, my
darling, and don't scare me any more with that witch's tongue." Was ever
millionaire in such manner wooed? Was ever millionaire in such fashion
won? The gipsy's eyes glowed, and her heart heat in triumph. Was this
the Diana of Ferrier's imagination? Was this the queen of whom that
athletic young gentleman was silently dreaming as he swung over the
pulsing mountains of the North Sea? This slyboots! This most infantile
coax!
I wish some half-dozen of the most charming young ladies in England
would only begin coaxing, and coax to as good purpose! I would go out
next summer and willingly end my days in work on the water, if I thought
my adorable readers would only take Marion Dearsley's hint, and help to
blot out a little misery and pain from this bestained world.
While Mr. Cassall was standing, with his teacup, before the glowing wood
fire, he said, "Be my secretary for half an hour, Molly, my pet. Write
and ask Blair, and that other whom I don't know--Fullerton. Yes; ask
them to dinner. And, let me see, you can't ask Mr. Phoenix the
Sawbones?"
"Who, uncle?" "Why, the young doctor that performs such prodigies, of
course."
"He's out on the sea now, dear, and I expect that he's in some
abominable cabin--"
"Catching smallpox to infect cleanly people with?"
"No, dear. He is most likely tending some helpless tatterdemalion, and
moving about like a clever nurse. He is strong--so strong. He pulled a
man through a wave with one hand while he held the rigging with the
other, and the man told me that it was enough to tear the strongest man
to pieces"
"Here, stop the catalogue. Why, Sawbones must be Phoebus Apollo! If you
talk much more I shall ask him a question or two. Go on with your
secretary's duties, you naughty girl."
So ended the enslavement of Robert Cassall, and so, I hope, began his
immortality. Oh! Marion Dearsley; sweet English lady. This is what you
were turning over in your maiden meditations out at sea. Demure, deep,
delicious plotter. What a _coup_! All the mischievous North Sea shall be
jocund for this, before long. Surely they must name _one_ vessel after
_you_! You are a bloodless Judith, and you have enchanted a perfectly
blameless Holofernes. I, your laureate, have no special song to give you
just now, but I think much of you, for the sake of darkened fishers, if
not for your own.
Mr. Cassall invited Sir James Roche to meet the other men. Sir James was
the millionaire's physician and friend, and Cassall valued all his
judgments highly, for he saw in the fashionable doctor a money-maker as
shrewd as himself; and, moreover, he had far too much of the insular
Briton about him to undervalue the kind of prestige which attaches to
one who associates with royal personages and breathes the sacred
atmosphere of money. Sir James was an apple-faced old gentleman, who had
been a miser over his stock of health and strength. He was consequently
ruddy, buoyant, strong, and his good spirits were infectious. He
delighted in the good things of the world; no one could order a dinner
better; no one could better judge a picture; no one had a more pure and
hearty liking for pretty faces;--and it must be added, that few men had
more worldly wisdom of the kind needed for everyday use. He could fool a
humbug to the top of his bent, and he would make use of humbugs, or any
other people, to serve his own ends; but he liked best to meet with
simple, natural folks, and Cassall always took his fancy from the time
of their first meeting onward.
Sir James spent the afternoon in driving with his host, and they
naturally chatted a great deal about Mr. Cassall'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 cashier in a draper's shop. If she marries
young, she will he picked up by some embarrassed 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 lavishing 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 fellowship. 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 passed in the usual pleasant humdrum style; nobody wanted to
shine; 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
Cassall 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 ships
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. Cassall 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
ships, 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.
Cassall, 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 quantity." Besides, it is absolutely against rules to take
infectious cases on board the mission vessels. "Cassall 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."
Cassall 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 ships, without
saying anything about ways and means for keeping the ships up. My dear
Cassall, 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
ships quite safe we must be constantly renewing. It's the _maintenance_
funds that puzzle us. If you give us a ship 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 L1,200 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 L30,000 for a sailing ship 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. Brassey 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, amidships. The wards must be amidships, 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 shore."
"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 L4,000 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. "Cassall 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.
Cassall 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, Cassall,"
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 L150,000 to
carry out my pet fad. I'd bear it, and go on bearing it, quite
gallantly, I assure you, my friend."
A very happy pair of people were left to chat in Cassall'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 shellbacks, and
made all sorts of nautical jokes. The discussion as to who should be
admiral promised to supply a month's fun, but Cassall 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. Cassall 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 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:--
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