CHAPTER III.
THE SECOND GALE.
In thirty-six hours the gale had fined off, and the scattered and shattered vessels of the fleet began to draw together; a sullen swell still lunged over the banks, but there was little wind and no danger. Fullerton said, "Now, Ferrier, we have an extra medicine-chest on board, besides Blair's stock, and you've seen the surgery. You'll have plenty of work presently. After a gale like this there are always scores of accidents that can't be treated by rough-and-tumble methods. A skipper may manage simple things; we need educated skill. The men are beginning to know Blair's boat, and I wish we had just twelve like her. You see we've got at a good many of the men with our ordinary vessels, and that has worked marvels, but all we've done is only a drop in the sea. We want you fellows, and plenty of you. Hullo! What cheer, my lads! what cheer!"
A smack lumbered past with her mainsail gone, and her gear in a sadly tangled condition.
"Can you send us help, sir? We'm got a chap cruel bad hurt."
"We've got a doctor on board; he shall come."
All round, the rolling sea was speckled with tiny boats that careered from hill to hollow, and hollow to hill, while the two cool rowers snatched the water with sharp dexterous strokes. After the wild ordeal of the past two days these fishers quietly turned to and began ferrying the fish taken in the last haul. While the boat was being got ready, Ferrier gave Mrs. Walton and Miss Dearsley an arm each, and did his best to convey them along the rearing deck. The girl said—
"Is that the steam-carrier I have heard of? How fearful! It makes me want to shut my eyes."
To Marion Dearsley's unaccustomed sight the lurching of the carrier was indeed awful, and she might well wonder, as I once did, how any boat ever got away safely. I have often told the public about that frantic scene alongside the steamers, but words are only a poor medium, for not Hugo, nor even Clark Russell, the matchless, could give a fair idea of that daily survival of danger, and recklessness, and almost insane audacity. The skipper was used to put in his word pretty freely on all occasions, for Blair's men were not drilled in the style of ordinary yachtsmen. Freeman, like all of the schooner's crew, had been a fisherman, and he grinned with pleasing humour when he heard the young lady's innocent questions.