examinations at
London University later, and become a doctor.

While Grenfell was in the hospital, murder was quite the fashion in
London. Many a time his patients had a policeman sitting behind a
screen at the foot of the bed, ready to nab them if they got up and
tried to climb out of a window.

One day, Sir Frederick Treves said to him: "Go to the North Sea, where
the deep-sea fishermen need a man like you. If you go in January, you
will see some fine seascapes, anyway. Don't go in summer when all of
the old ladies go for a rest."

Grenfell turned the idea over and over in his mind. He had always
loved the sea and been the friend of sailors and fishermen. He liked
the thought of the help he could be as a doctor among them. So he
decided to cast in his lot with the fishermen who go from England's
East Coast into the brawling North Sea.

Yarmouth, about 120 miles northeast of London, is the headquarters of
the herring fisheries, which engage about 300 vessels and 3,000 men.
A short distance off the shore are sandbanks, and between these and
the mainland Yarmouth Roads provides a safe harbor and a good
anchorage for ships drawing eighteen or nineteen feet of water.

So one pitch-black and rainy night Grenfell packed his bag and went to
Yarmouth. At the railway-station he found a retired fisherman with a
cab that threatened to fall apart if you looked at it too hard. They
drove a couple of miles alongshore in the darkness, and found what
looked like two posts sticking out of the sand.

"Where's the ship?" asked Grenfell.

"Those are her topmasts," answered the sea-dog. "Tide's low. The rest
of her is hidden by the wharf."

Grenfell scrambled over a hillock and a dim anchor-lantern showed him
the tiny craft that for many days and nights was to be his tossing
home in the great waters.

In answer to his hail, a voice called back cheerily: "Mind the
rigging; it's just tarred and greased."

But Grenfell was already sliding down it, nimble as a cat, though it
was so sticky he had to wrench his hands and feet from it now and
then.

The boat was engaged in peddling tobacco among the ships of the North
Sea fishing-fleet, and for the next two months no land was seen,
except two distant islands: and the decks were never free from ice and
snow.

Aboard many of the boats to which they came the entire crew, skipper
and all, were 'prentices not more than twenty years old. These lads
got no pay, except a little pocket-m