isitor to receive. A warmer or more cordial greeting
could scarcely have been offered the Governor General himself. It was
given with the fine hearty fervour and characteristic hospitality of
the Newfoundland fishermen and seamen.

The _Albert's_ anchor chains had scarce ceased to rattle before boats
were pulling toward her from every vessel in the harbor. Ships enough
sailed down the coast, to be sure, but if they were not fishing
vessels they were traders looking to barter for fish, bearing sharp
men who drove hard bargains with the fishermen, as we shall see. But
here was a different vessel from any of them. Everybody knew that
_this_ was not a fisherman, and that she was _not_ a trader. What
_was_ her business? What had she come for? What did her blue flag
mean? These were questions to which everybody must needs find the
answer for himself.

Great was their joy when it was learned that the _Albert_ was a
hospital ship with a real doctor aboard come to care for and heal
their sick and injured, and that the doctor made no charge for his
services or his medicine. This was a big point that went to their
hearts, for there was scarce a man among them with any money in his
pocket, and if Doctor Grenfell had charged them money they could not
have called upon him to help them, for they could not have paid him.
But here he was ready to serve them without money and without price.
The richest, who were poor enough, and the poorest, could alike have
his care and medicine. Here, indeed, was cause to wonder and rejoice.

Many of the fishermen took their families with them to live in little
huts at the fishing places during the summer, and to help them prepare
the fish for market. Forty or fifty men, women and children were
packed, like figs in a box, on some of the schooners, with no other
sleeping place than under the deck, on top of the cargo of provisions
and salt in the hold, wherever they could find a place big enough to
squeeze and stow themselves. Under such conditions there were ailing
people enough on the schooners who needed a doctor's care.

The mail boat from St. Johns came once a fortnight, to be sure, and
she had a doctor aboard her. But he could only see for a moment the
more serious cases, and not all of them, hurriedly leave some medicine
and go, and then he would not return to see them again in another two
weeks. The mail boat had a schedule to make, and the time given her
for the voyage between St. Johns and