The fishermen turned their drunken eyes in the direction indicated, and, after blinking a few seconds, clearly made out the large blue flag, with its letters MDSF, fluttering in the light breeze that had risen with the sun.
With curses both loud and deep the Dutchman trimmed his sails, and slowly but decidedly vanished from the scene. Thus the tide began to turn on the North Sea!
The light breeze went down as the day advanced, and soon the mission vessel found herself surrounded by smacks, with an ever-increasing tail of boats at her stern, and an ever-multiplying congregation on her deck. It was a busy and a lively scene, for while they were assembling, Fred Martin took advantage of the opportunity to distribute books and medicines, and to bind up wounds, etcetera. At the same time the pleasant meeting of friends, who never met in such numbers anywhere else—not even in the copers—and the hearty good wishes and shaking of hands, with now and then expressions of thankfulness from believers—all tended to increase the bustle and excitement, so that the two invalid clergymen began at once to experience the recuperative influence of glad enthusiasm.
“There is plenty to do here, both for body and soul,” remarked one of these to Fred during a moment of relaxation.
“Yes, sir, thank God. We come out here to work, and we find the work cut out for us. A good many surgical cases, too, you observe. But we expect that. In five of the fleets there were more than two thousand cases treated last year aboard of the mission smacks, so we look for our share. In fact, during our first eight weeks with this fleet we have already had two hundred men applying for medicine or dressing of wounds.”
“Quite an extensive practice, Dr Martin,” said the clergyman, with a laugh.
“Ay, sir; but ours is the medical-missionary line. The body may be first in time, but the soul is first in importance with us.”
In proof of this, as it were, the skipper now stopped all that had been going on, and announced that the real work of the day was going to begin; whereupon the congregation crowded into the hold until it was full. Those who could not find room clustered on deck round the open hatch and listened—sometimes craned their necks over and gazed.
It was a new experience for the invalid clergymen, who received another bath of recuperative influence. Fervour, interest, intelligence seemed to gleam in the steady eyes of the men while they listened, and thrilled in their resonant voices when they sang. One of the clergymen preached as he had seldom preached before, and then prayed, after which they all sang; but the congregation did not move to go away. The brother clergyman therefore preached, and, modestly fearing that he was keeping them too long, hinted as much.
“Go on, sir,” said the Admiral, who was there; “it ain’t every day we gets a chance like this.”