ail still
aweather, and the fleet hung around awaiting the admiral's final
decision. The night dropped down; the moon had no power over the rack of
dark clouds, and the wind rose, calling now and again like the Banshee.
A very drastic branch of Lewis Ferrier's education was about to begin.

Dear ladies! Kindly men! You know what the softly-lit, luxurious
sick-room is like. The couch is delicious for languorous limbs, the
temperature is daintily adjusted, the nurse is deft and silent, and
there is no sound to jar on weak nerves. But try to imagine the state
of things in the sick-room where Ferrier watched when the second gale
came away. The smack had no mainsail to steady her, but the best was
done by heaving her to under foresail and mizen. She pitched cruelly and
rolled until she must have shown her keel. The men kept the water under
with the pumps, and the sharp jerk, jerk of the rickety handles rang all
night.

"She do drink some," said the skipper.

Ferrier said, "Yes, she smells like it."

Down in that nauseating cabin the young man sat, holding his patient
with strong, kind hands. The vessel flung herself about, sometimes
combining the motions of pitching and rolling with the utmost virulence;
the bilge water went slosh, slosh, and the hot, choking odours came
forth on the night. Coffee, fish, cheese, foul clothing, vermin of
miscellaneous sorts, paraffin oil, sulphurous coke, steaming leather,
engine oil--all combined their various scents into one marvellous
compound which struck the senses like a blow that stunned almost every
faculty. Oh, ladies, have pity on the hardly entreated! Once or twice
Ferrier was obliged to go on deck from the fetid kennel, and he left a
man to watch the sufferer. The shrill wind seemed sweet to the taste and
scent, the savage howl of tearing squalls was better than the creak of
dirty timbers and the noise of clashing fish-boxes; but the young man
always returned to his post and tried his best to cheer the maimed
sailor.

"Does the rolling hurt you badly, my man?"

"Oh! you're over kind to moither yourself about me, sir. She du give me
a twist now and then, but, Lord's sake, what was it like before you
come! I doan't fare to know about heaven, but I should say, speakin' in
my way, this is like heaven, if I remember yesterday."

"Have you ever been hurt before?"

"Little things, sir--crushed fingers, sprained foot, bruises when you
tumbles, say runnin' round with the trawl wa