In the next fleet the same scenes made things in general lively.  The skipper of the ordinary Mission smack came on board, and joyously cried:  “I’m main glad you’re come, sir.  We’ve got one case that beats me.  I can’t do anything at all.”  Sir James Eoche’s boat with the balanced stretcher was sent, and a crippled man was whipped up and slid along the boarding-stage before he had time to recover from his surprise.  He had a broken patella—­a nasty case—­and he had gained the distinction of being the first man put to bed in that airy, charming ward.  He will probably claim this honour with more or less emphasis during the rest of his lifetime.  I fear that curiosity of an aggravated kind caused one or two gentlemen to be suddenly afflicted with minor complaints; but Ferrier had a delightful way of dealing with doubtful martyrs, and the vessel was soon cleared of them.

So the Robert Cassall scoured the North Sea like a phantom, sometimes crawling in the wake of the fleet when the gear was down, sometimes flying from one bank to another.  In the course of two long, sweeping rounds she proved that she was worth all the other cruisers put together—­for medical and surgical purposes alone.  Danger was reduced to a minimum, and the sick men were, one by one, returned safely to their own vessels.  When, on a rather calm day, a tubular boat was tried, and a prostrate man was seen flying over the water with what intelligent constables call “no visible means of support,” the general opinion of the smacksmen was that no one never knowed what would come next.  Some gentlemen threatened to be gormed if they did not discover a solution of this new and awful problem; others, more definite, were resolved to be blowed; and all the oldsters were agreed that only a manifest injustice could have caused them to be born so soon.

Robert Cassall was at length assured by experience that his enterprise had quadrupled the power of the Mission, and he only longed to see how his little miracle would succeed in winter.  As for Lewis, he set himself to make a model hospital; his men were made to practise ambulance work daily; they had practical lectures in the evening, and, in a month, before the coals had given out, the mere attendants could have managed respectably if their adored martinet had given in from any cause.  One last picture before the Bobert Cassall makes her brief scurry home.

The long sea was rolling very truly; the sick men in the wards were resting—­clean, quiet, attentive; the nurses lounged at the dispensary door; Tom Lennard leaned his great bulk against the elaborately solid machinery which Ferrier had designed for purposes of dentistry, and the grim, calm old man sat with a tender smile in his eyes which contrasted prettily with the habitual sternness of his mouth.

A deep contralto voice was intoning a certain very noble fragment of poetry from a book that the men loved to hear when its words were spoken by that stately dame, who now read on from psalm to psalm:  “For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Thine eyes; nevertheless, Thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto Thee.”