Braelands turned his face towards Marion and a new life, and Andrew went back to his ship with a new and splendid interest. It began in wondering, “whether there was any good in a man abandoning himself to a noble, but vain regret? Was there no better way to pay a tribute to the beloved dead?” Braelands’s costly monument did not realise his conception of this possibility; but as he rowed back to his ship in the gathering storm, a thought came into his mind with all the assertion of a clang of steel, and he cried out to his Inner Man.
“That, oh my soul, is what I will do; that is what will keep my love’s name living and lovely in the hearts of her people.”
His project was not one to be accomplished without much labour and self-denial. It would require a great deal of money, and he would have to save with conscientious care many years to compass his desire, which was to build a Mission Ship for the deep sea fishermen Twelve years he worked and saved, and then the ship was built; a strong steam-launch, able to buffet and bear the North Sea when its waves were running wild over everything. She was provided with all appliances for religious comfort and teaching; she had medicines for the sick and surgical help for the wounded; she carried every necessary protection against the agonising “sea blisters” which torture the fishermen in the winter season. And this vessel of many comforts was called the “Sophy Traill.”
She is still busy about her work of mercy. Many other Mission Ships now traverse the great fishing-fleets of the North Sea, and carry hope and comfort to the fishermen who people its grey, wild waters; but none is so well beloved by them as the “Little Sophy.” When the boats lie at their nets on a summer’s night, it is on the “Little Sophy” that “Rock of Ages” is started and then taken up by the whole fleet. And when the stormy winds of winter blow great guns, then the “Little Sophy,” flying her bright colours in the daytime and showing her many lights at night, is always rolling about among the boats, blowing her whistle to tell them she is near by, or sending off help in her lifeboat, or steaming after a smack in distress.
Fifteen years after Andrew and Archie parted at the kirkyard, Archie came to the knowledge first of Andrew’s living monument to the girl they had both loved so much. He was coming from Norway in a yacht with a few friends, and they were caught in a heavy, easterly gale. In a few hours there was a tremendous sea, and the wind rapidly rose to a hurricane. The “Little Sophy” steamed after the helpless craft and got as near to her as possible; but as she lowered her lifeboat, she saw the yacht stagger, stop, and then founder. The tops of her masts seemed to meet, she had broken her back, and the seas flew sheer over her.
The lifeboat picked up three men from her, and one of them was Archie Braelands. He was all but dead from exposure and buffeting; but the surgeon of the Mission Ship brought him back to life.
It was some hours after he had been taken on board; the storm had gone away northward as the sun set. There was the sound of an organ and of psalm-singing in his ears, and yet he knew that he was in a ship on a tossing sea, and he opened his eyes, and asked weakly:
“Where am I?”
The surgeon stooped to him and answered in a cheery voice: “On the Sophy Traill!’’”
A cry, shrill as that of a fainting woman, parted Archie’s lips, and he kept muttering in a half-delirious stupor all night long, “The Sophy Traill! The Sophy Traill!” In a few days he recovered strength and was able to leave the boat which had been his salvation; but in those few days he heard and saw much that greatly influenced for the noblest ends his future life.