“It’s neither. It’s the Guide, or the Boy Jim, or the Retriever—not quite sure which.”
“Now, Captain Bream, shall we put you on board the mission-ship at once, or will you wait to see us boarded for empty trunks?”
“I’ll wait,” returned Captain Bream.
Soon the steamer hove-to, not far from the admiral’s vessel. The smacks came crowding round like bees round a hive, each one lowering a boat when near enough.
And once again was enacted a scene similar in many respects to that which we have described in a previous chapter, with this difference, that the scramble now was partly for the purpose of obtaining empty boxes. Another steamer had taken off most of their fish early that day, and the one just arrived meant to wait for the fish of the next morning.
It chanced that a good many of the rougher men of the fleet came on board that evening, so that Captain Bream, whose recent experiences had led him half to expect that all the North Sea fishermen were amiable lions, had his mind sadly but effectively disabused of that false idea. The steamer’s deck soon swarmed with some four hundred of the roughest and most boisterous men he had ever seen, and the air was filled with coarse and profane language, while a tendency to fight was exhibited by several of them.
“They’re a rough lot, sir,” said the mate as he leant on the rail of the bridge, gazing down on the animated scene, “but they were a rougher lot before the gospel-ship came out to stay among them, and some of the brightest Christians now in the fleet were as bad as the worst you see down there.”
“Ay, Jesus came to save the lost, and the worst,” said the captain in a low tone—“praise to His name!”
As soon as the trunks had been received, the admiral bore away to windward, and the fleet began to follow and make preparation for the night’s fishing; for the fish which were destined so soon to smoke on London tables were at that moment gambolling at the bottom of the sea!
“We must run down to the mission smack, and put you aboard at once, sir,” said the mate, “for she follows the admiral—though she does not fish on Saturday nights, so that the hold may be clear of fish and ready for service on Sundays.”