“One o’ them b’longs to the Swab,” said Billy.
“Ay,” said Joe, “if he hadn’t swabbed up too much liquor this morning, he wouldn’t steer like that. Why, he will foul her!”
As he spoke the Swab’s bowsprit passed just inside one of the ropes of the other vessel, and was snapped off as if it had been a pipe-stem.
“Sarves him right,” growled Gunter.
“It’s a pity all the same,” said Trevor. “If we all got what we deserve, we’d be in a worse case than we are to-day mayhap.”
“Come, now, Gunter,” said Joe, “don’t look so cross. We’ll have a chance this arternoon, I see, to bear away for the mission-ship, an’ git somethin’ for your shins, and a bandage for Spivin’s cut, as well as some cuffs for them that wants ’em.”
Captain Bright did not like visiting the mission-ship, having no sympathy with her work, but as she happened to be not far distant at the time, and he was in want of surgical assistance, he had no reasonable ground for objecting.
By this time the admiral had signalled to steer to the nor’-east, and the fleet was soon racing to windward, all on the same tack. Gradually the Evening Star overhauled the mission-ship, but before she had quite overtaken her, the wind, which had been failing, fell to a dead calm. The distance between the two vessels, however, not being great, the boat was launched, and the skipper, Luke Trevor, Gunter and Billy went off in her.
The mission vessel, to which reference has more than once been made, is a fishing-smack in the service of the Mission to Deep-Sea Fishermen, and serves the purpose of a floating church, a dispensary, a temperance halt and a library to a portion of the North Sea fleet. It fills a peculiar as well as a very important position, which requires explanation.
Only a few years ago a visitor to the North Sea fleet observed, with much concern, that hundreds of the men and boys who manned it were living godless as well as toilsome lives, with no one—at least in winter—to care for their souls. At the same time he noted that the Dutch copers, or floating grog-shops, were regularly appointed to supply the fleets with cheap and bad spirits, and stuck to them through fair-weather and foul, in summer and winter, enduring hardship and encountering danger and great risk in pursuit of their evil calling. Up to that time a few lay missionaries and Bible-readers had occasionally gone to visit the fleets in the summer-time, (see Appendix), but the visitor of whom we write felt that there was a screw loose here, and reasoned with himself somewhat thus:—