LITMIR.BIZ

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came daily to collect the fish they caught and to take the catch to market. Once in every three months a vessel was permitted to return to its home port for rest and necessary re-fitting, and then the men of her crew were allowed one day ashore for each week they had spent at sea. Now and again there came to the hospital sick or injured men returned from the fleet on these home-coming vessels.

      When Grenfell passed his final examinations in 1886, and was admitted to the College of Physicians and Royal College of Surgeons of England, Sir Frederick Treves suggested that he visit the North Sea fishing fleets and lend his service to the fishermen for a time before entering upon private practice. The great surgeon, himself a lover of the sea and acquainted with Grenfell's inclinations toward an active outdoor life, was also aware that Grenfell was a good sailor.

      "Don't go in summer," admonished Sir Frederick. "Go in winter when you can see the life of the men at its hardest and when they have the greatest need of a doctor. Anyhow you'll have some rugged days at sea if you go in winter."

      He went on to explain that a few men had become interested in the fishermen of the fleets and had chartered a vessel to go among them to offer diversion in the hope of counteracting to some extent the attraction of the whiskey and rum traders whose vessels sold much liquor to the men and did a vast deal of harm. This vessel was open to the visits of the fishermen. Religious services were held aboard her on Sundays. There was no doctor in the fleet, and the skipper, who had been instructed in ordinary bandaging and in giving simple remedies for temporary relief, rendered first aid to the injured or sick until they could be sent away on some home-bound vessel and placed in a hospital for medical or surgical treatment. Thus a week or sometimes two weeks would elapse before the sufferer could be put under a doctor's care. Because of this long delay many men died who, with prompt attention, would doubtless have lived.

      "The men who have fitted out this mission boat would like a young doctor to go with it," concluded Sir Frederick. "Go with them for a little while. You'll find plenty of high sea's adventure, and you'll like it."

      In more than one way this suited Grenfell exactly. The opportunity for adventure that such a cruise offered appealed to him strongly, as it would appeal to any real live red-blooded man or boy. It also offered an opportunity to gain practical experience in his profession and at the same time render service to brave men who sadly needed it; and he could lend a hand in fighting the liquor evil among the seamen and thus share in helping to care for their moral, as well as their physical welfare. He had seen much of the evils of the liquor traffic during his student days in London, and he had acquired a wholesome hatred for it. In short, he saw an opportunity to help make the lives of these men happier. That is a high ideal for any one—to do something whenever possible to bring happiness into the lives of others.

      This was too good an opportunity to let pass. It offered not only practice in his profession but service for others, and there would be the spice of adventure.

      He applied without delay for the post, requesting to go on duty the following January. Whether Sir Frederick Treves said a word for him to the newly founded mission or not, I do not know, but at any rate Grenfell, to his great delight, was accepted, and it is probable the group of big hearted men who were sending the vessel to the fishermen were no less pleased to secure the services of a young doctor of his character.

      At last the time came for departure. The mission ship was to sail from Yarmouth. Grenfell had been impatiently awaiting orders to begin his duties, when suddenly he received directions to join his vessel prepared to go to sea at once. Filled with enthusiasm and keen for the adventure he boarded the first train for Yarmouth.

      It was a dark and rainy night when he arrived. Searching down among the wharves he found the mission ship tied to her moorings. She proved to be a rather diminutive schooner of the type and class used by the North Sea fishermen, and if the young doctor had pictured a large and commodious vessel he was disappointed. But Grenfell had been accustomed in his boyhood to knocking about with fishermen and now he was quite content with nothing better than fell to the lot of those he was to serve.

      The little vessel was neat as wax below deck. The crew were big-hearted, brawny, good-natured fellows, and gave the Doctor a fine welcome. Of course his quarters were small and crowded, but he was bound on a mission and an adventure, and cramped quarters were no obstacle to his enthusiasm. Grenfell was not the sort of man to growl or complain at little inconveniences. He was thinking only of the duties he had assumed and the adventures that were before him.

      At last he was on the seas, and his life work, though he did not know it then, had begun.

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ON THE HIGH SEAS

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      The skipper of the vessel was a bluff, hearty man of the old school of seamen. At the same time he was a sincere Christian devoted to his duties. At the beginning he made it plain that Grenfell was to have quite enough to do to keep him occupied, not only in his capacity as doctor, but in assisting to conduct afloat a work that in many respects resembled that of our present Young Men's Christian Association ashore.

      The mission steamer was now to run across to Ostend, Belgium, where supplies were to be taken aboard before joining the fishing fleets.

      It was bitterly cold, and while they lay at Ostend taking on cargo the harbor froze over, and they found themselves so firm and fast in the ice that it became necessary to engage a steamer to go around them to break them loose. At last, cargo loaded and ice smashed, they sailed away from Ostend and pointed their bow towards the great fleets, not again to see land for two full months, save Heligoland and Terschelling in the far distant offing.

      The little vessel upon which Grenfell sailed was the first sent to the fisheries by the now famous Mission to Deep-Sea Fishermen; and the young Doctor on her deck, hardly yet realizing all that was expected of him, was destined to do no small part in the development of the splendid service that the Mission has since rendered the fishermen.

      On the starboard side of the vessel's bow appeared in bold carved letters the words, "Heal the sick," on the port side of the bow, "Preach the Word."

      "Preaching the Word" does not necessarily mean, and did not mean here, getting up into a pulpit for an hour or two and preaching orthodox sermons, sometimes as dry as dead husks, on Sundays. Sometimes just a smile and a cheery greeting is the best sermon in the world, and the finest sort of preaching. Just the example of living honestly and speaking truthfully and always lending a hand to the fellow who is in trouble or discouraged, is a fine sermon, for there is not a man or boy living whose life and actions do not have an influence for good or bad on some one else. We do not always realize this, but it is true.

      Grenfell little dreamed of the future that this voyage was to open to him. He knew little or nothing at that time of Labrador or Newfoundland. He had never seen an Eskimo nor an American Indian, unless he had chanced to visit a "wild west" show. He had no other expectation than that he should make a single winter cruise with the mission schooner, and then return to England and settle in some promising locality to the practice of his profession, there to rise to success or fade into hum-drum obscurity, as Providence might will.

      The fishermen of the North Sea fleet were as rough and ready as the old buccaneers. They were constantly risking their lives and they had not much regard for their own lives or the lives of others. With them life was cheap. Night and day they faced the dangers of the sea as they worked at the trawls, and when they were not sleeping or working there was no amusement for them. Then they were prone to resort to the grog ships, which hovered around them, and they too often drank a great deal more rum than was good for them. They were reared to a rough and cruel life, these fishermen. Hard punishments were dealt the men by the skippers.

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