Fullerton broke in with dreamy distinctness, "I think the doctor will agree with me that you must never frame a theory from a small number of instances. I never even ventured to hint what I should like to any of our friends until I had been at sea here for a long time. I'm convinced now that there is much misery all over the fishing banks, and I have a conviction that I shall help to remove it. I am called to make the effort, but I never listen to sentiment without also hearing what common sense has to say. Perhaps we should all see the everyday life of the men, and see a good deal of it before we begin theorizing. Look at that smack away on our port bow. I'll be bound one or two are hurt in some way there. That's one of 120 sail that we saw; multiply 120 by 20, and then you have the number of vessels that we must attend under this crackbrained scheme of ours. All the ledger and daybook men say we are crackbrained. Now, if we can go on doing just a little with our ordinary dispensaries, is it wise to risk playing at magnificence? You see I am taking the side of Mr. Commonsense against my own ideas."
"I certainly think you may succeed," said Miss Dearsley.
"So do I; and now you see my point. We want to persuade other people as quickly as possible to think as we do. To persuade, we must back all our talkee-talkee by facts, and to get facts we must work and endure in patience. You see what an amazingly clear political economist I am. Wait till we run into the fleet; we shall be sure to catch them before the trawls go down for the night, and, unless I'm mistaken, some of us will be astonished. I never go into a new fleet without seeing what a little weir we have at present to check a Niagara of affliction."
Mrs. Walton had much to do with many philanthropic movements, and men were always glad to hear her judgments—mainly because she was not a platform woman. She turned an amused look on Fullerton, and said, "Of course a woman can't deal with logic and common sense and all those dreadful things, and I know what a terribly rigid logician Mr. Fullerton is. I think, even without seeing any more misery and broken bones and things, that we have no very great difficulty before us. The case is as simple as can be—to a woman. There is an enormous fund set aside by the public for charity, and everybody wants to see a fair distribution. If a slater comes off a roof and breaks a limb, there is a hospital for him within half an hour's drive in most towns. If one of our men here breaks his arm, there is no hospital within less than two days' steam. We don't want the public to think the fisher is a more deserving man than the slater; we want both men to have a fair chance. Charitable men can see the slater, so they help him; they can't see the fisher without running the chance of being bruised and drenched, so they don't help him—at present. They don't want good feeling; they want eyes, and we must act as eyes for them. Women can only be useful on shore; you gentlemen must do everything that is needed out here. I'm very glad I've seen the North Sea in a fury, but I should not care to be a mere coddled amateur, nor would any one else that I work with."
"Quite right, madam," said the professor, nodding his head with the gravity of all Cambridge; "and I should like to see women taking part in the management of our sea hospitals if the scheme is ever to be any more than a dream. The talking women are like the talking men: they squabble, they recriminate, they screech and air their vanity, and they mess up every business they touch. But if you have committee work to do, and want economy and expedition, then give me one or two lady members to assist."
Then Blair called, "Come along, skipper; she's going easy. Bring up one or two of the men and we'll have some singing."
Now the ordinary sailor sings songs with the merriest or most blackguard words to the most dirge-like tunes; but our fishermen sing religious words to the liveliest tunes they can learn. I notice they are fonder of waltz rhythms than of any others. The merchant sailor will drawl the blackguard "I'll go no more a-roving" to an air like a prolonged wail; the fisherman sings "Home, beautiful home" as a lovely waltz. Blair always encouraged the men to sing a great deal, and therein he showed the same discretion as good merchant mates.
I cannot describe Freeman's ecstasies, and I wish I could only give an idea of the helmsman's musical method. This latter worthy had easy steering to do, so he joined in; he was fond of variety, and he sang some lines in a high falsetto which sounded like the whistling of the gaff (with perhaps a touch of razor-grinding added); then just when you expected him to soar off at a tangent to Patti's topmost A, he let his voice fall to his boots, and emitted a most bloodcurdling bass growl, which carried horrid suggestions of midnight fiends and ghouls and the silent tomb. Still, his mates thought he was a musical prodigy; he was entranced with the sweetness and power of his own performance, and the passengers were more than amused, so every one was satisfied.
The gentlemen who vary my slumbers by howling "The Rollicking Rams" in eight different keys at four in the morning would call the ship's company of that schooner soft. There are opinions and opinions. At any rate the hours passed softly away until the yacht ran clean into the thick of the fleet, and the merry, eldritch exchange of salutes began.
The second breeze had been worse than the first, and many men had gone; but the smacksmen, by a special mercy, have no time for morbid brooding. They will risk their lives with the most incredible dauntlessness to save a comrade. The Albert Medal is, I make bold to say, deserved by a score of men in the North Sea every year. The fellows will talk with grave pity about Jim or Jack, who were lost twenty years ago; they remember all his ways, his last words, his very relatives; but, when a breeze is over, they make no moan over the lost ones until they gather in prayer-meetings.