cordial; but do you know I should not like to sign a cheque just now. His cordiality has had distinct effect on my joints, and I wish really that his left hand were lighter. Social intercourse can only be carried on with difficulty when you feel as if a large sack had fallen on you from the third floor of a warehouse."

The good Joseph always drew back with a timid air of maidenly modesty when Tom approached him, and I quite sympathize with this bashfulness. It has never been my fortune to exchange courtesies with a large and healthy polar bear, so I cannot describe the operation, but I should imagine that Tom's salute would aid one's imagination.

This delightful rough diamond called on Miss Dearsley to choose the lee side, and then he addressed himself to a superb young fellow who was leaning against the wainscot, and easily following the pitching of the ship. "Look here, Ferrier, you can't find one bigot in this ship's company, but we've all had a lot of experience, and we find that religion's your only blasting-powder to break up the ugly old rocks that we used to steer among. We find that we must have a clear passage; we fix our charge. Whoof! there you are; good sailing-room; bee-yootiful—oh! fahscinating."

"I quite follow you, and I sympathize with you so far as I am concerned personally; but when Fullerton persuaded me to come out I only thought of the physical condition of your people, and that is why I asked for Mr. Blair's yacht so that I might have a genuine, fair show. You see, I fear I am wanting in imagination, and the sight of physical pain touches me so directly, that I never can spare a very great deal of sympathy for that obscure sort of pain that I cannot see; I'm hand and glove with you, of course, and I shall go through with the affair to the finish; but you must doctor the souls, and let me attend to the bodies for the present."

The speaker was a powerful, broad fellow, with a kind of military carriage; his tall forehead was crossed by soft lines of tranquil thought, and he had the unmistakable look of the true student. Lewis Ferrier came south to Cambridge after he had done well at Edinburgh. He might have been Senior Wrangler had he chosen, but he read everything that he should not have read, and he was beaten slightly by a typical examinee of the orthodox school. Still, every one knew that Ferrier was the finest mathematician of his year, and there was much muttering and whispering in academic corners when he decided at last to go in for medicine. He said, "I want something practical," and that was all the explanation he ever gave to account for his queer change. He took a brilliant medical degree, and he decided to accept a professorship of Biology before attempting to practise. His reasons for being out on the North Sea in an autumn gale will come out by degrees.

A gentle-looking man stepped up to Ferrier and laid a white hand on his arm. "We shall never interfere with you in the least degree, my dear Ferrier. We'll take such help as you can give. We need all we can get. When you are fairly in the thick of our work you will perhaps understand that we have vital need of religion to keep us up at all. You can't tell what an appalling piece of work there is before us; but I give you my word that if religion were not a vital part of my being, if I did not believe that God is watching every action and leading us in our blind struggles, I should faint at my task; I should long for extinction, though only cowards seek it of their own accord."

A quiet, short man broke in here. He had sat smiling softly as the talk went on. His face was gently humorous, and all the signs of a placid and pure life were there. This smiling philosopher said, "That's right, Fullerton. Ferrier's like my old mare used to be in the days when she was a little peacocky and fiery—she always wanted to rush her journeys. She steps soberly now. We'll teach him something before we've done with him. You know, my dear boy, you must understand that the greater number of these men are, well—uncultivated, do you understand. They're not so squalid, perhaps, as Lapps or Esquimaux, but they're mostly as dense. We've fought hard for a long time, and we're making some headway; but we can do little, and if we could not get at our men by religion we couldn't manage at all. I've brought you into a queer country, and you must be prepared for a pretty set of surprises. My sister and my niece have been out before, and I persuaded Mrs. Walton and Miss Dearsley to take a turn. As soon as my people have got over their troubles we'll all make a dead set at you, you audacious young materialist that you are." Then John Blair smiled gently once more, and there was a certain pride visible as his sad eyes twinkled on his young favourite.

This company of kind folks were all of the sort called evangelical, and they were bound on a strange errand, the like of which had brought one of the men out to sea many times before. The yacht was now chasing one of the great North Sea trawling fleets, and Fullerton's idea was to let the gallant young doctor see something of the wild work that goes on among the fishing-boats when the weather is ugly.

The dark, solemn young lady sat very still while the men talked, and her face had that air of intense attention which is so impressive when it is not simulated. I think she was a spiritual relative of Joan of Arc and Madame Roland. It seems dreadful to say so, but I am not sure that she would not have played Charlotte Corday's part had occasion arisen. In low, full tones she asked, "Did no one ever work among the fishers before Mr. Fullerton found them out?" "No one, except the fellows who sold vile spirits, my dear," said Blair.

"Not a single surgeon?"

"Not one. That's why we decided to kidnap Ferrier. We want to give him a proper school of surgery to practise in—genuine raw material, and plenty of it, and you must help us to keep him in order. Fancy his trying to convert us; he'll try to convert you next, if you don't mind!"

The girl paid no heed to the banter. She went on as if in a reverie.

"It is enough to bring a judgment on a nation, all the idle women and idle men. Mamma told me that a brewer's wife paid two thousand pounds for flowers in one month. Why cannot you speak to women?"

"We mustn't blame the poor ladies," said Fullerton: "how could they know? Plenty of people told them about Timbuctoo, and Jerusalem, and Madagascar, and North and South America, but this region's just a trifle out of the way. A lady may easily sign a cheque or pack a missionary's medicine-chest, but she could not come out here among dangers and filth and discomfort, and the men ashore are not much pluckier. No; in my experience of English people I've always found them lavish with their help, only you must let them know what to help. There's the point."

"And you've begun, dear Mr. Fullerton, have you not?"

"Yes; but the end is far off. We were so late—so late in beginning, and I must pass away, and my place will know me no more; and many and many another will pass away. Oh, yes! we shall travel from gulf to gulf; but I think, sometimes, that my soul will be here on the wild nights. I must be near my men—my poor men!—and I'll meet them when their voyage is over."

The enthusiast spoke solemnly, and his queer diction somehow was not unbecoming or grotesque. I suppose George Fox and Savonarola did not use quite the ordinary language of their day and generation.

The doctor listened with a kind look on his strong face, and when the dark young girl quietly whispered "Amen!" our professor quite simply repeated the word.

Tom Lennard had been going through a most complicated series of acrobatic movements, and he now broke in—

"Ah! Harry Fullerton, if you're not an angel, you're pretty near one. Ah! that eloquence is of the most—the most—a kind of—ah! fahscinating—oh-h-h! fahscinating! But I believe this vessel has a personal spite against me, or else the sea's rising."

"It is, indeed," said Mr. Blair, who had