Tells of more than one Surprise.  
“Was that your boat that went down?” shouted Groggy Fox of the Cormorant, as he sailed past the Fairy, after the carrying-steamer had left, and the numerous fishing-smacks were gradually falling into order for another attack on the finny hosts of the sea.
 
They were almost too far apart for the reply to be heard, and possibly Bryce’s state of mind prevented his raising his voice sufficiently, but it was believed that the answer was “Yes.”
 
“Poor fellows!” muttered Fox, who was a man of tender feelings, although apt to feel more for himself than for any one else.
 
“I think Dick Martin was in the boat,” said the mate of the Cormorant, who stood beside his skipper. “I saw them when they shoved off, and though it was a longish distance, I could make him out by his size, an’ the fur cap he wore.”
 
“Well, the world won’t lose much if he’s gone,” returned Fox; “he was a bad lot.”
 
It did not occur to the skipper at that time that he himself was nearly, if not quite, as bad a “lot.” But bad men are proverbially blind to their own faults.
 
“He was a cross-grained fellow,” returned the mate, “specially when in liquor, but I never heard no worse of ’im than that.”
 
“Didn’t you?” said Fox; “didn’t you hear what they said of ’im at Gorleston?—that he tried to do his sister out of a lot o’ money as was left her by some cove or other in furrin parts. An’ some folk are quite sure that it was him as stole the little savin’s o’ that poor widdy, Mrs Mooney, though they can’t just prove it agin him. Ah, he is a bad lot, an’ no mistake. But I may say that o’ the whole bilin’ o’ the Martins. Look at Fred, now.”
 
“Well, wot of him?” asked the mate, in a somewhat gruff tone.
 
“What of him!” repeated the skipper, “ain’t he a hypocrite, with his smooth tongue an’ his sly ways, as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, an’ now—where is he?”
 
“Well, where is he!” demanded the mate, with increasing gruffness.
 
“Why, in course nobody knows where he is,” retorted the skipper; “that’s where it is. No sooner does he get a small windfall—leastwise, his mother gets it—than he cuts the trawlers, an’ all his old friends without so much as sayin’ ‘Good-bye,’ an’ goes off to Lunnon or somewheres, to set up for a gentleman, I suppose.”
 
“I don’t believe nothin’ o’ the sort,” returned the mate indignantly. “Fred Martin may be smooth-tongued and shy if you like, but he’s no hypercrite—”
 
“Hallo! there’s that mission ship on the lee bow,” cried Fox, interrupting his mate, and going over to the lee side of the smack, whence he could see the vessel with the great blue flag clearly. “Port your helm,” he added in a deep growl to the man who steered. “I’ll give her a wide berth.”
 
“If she was the coper you’d steer the other way,” remarked the mate, with a laugh.
 
“In course I would,” retorted Fox, “for there I’d find cheap baccy and brandy.”
 
“Ay, bad brandy,” said the mate; “but, skipper, you can get baccy cheaper aboard the mission ships now than aboard the coper.”
 
“What! at a shillin’ a pound?”
 
“Ay, at a shillin’ a pound.”
 
“I don’t believe it.”
 
“But it’s a fact,” returned the mate firmly, “for Simon Brooks, as was in the Short-Blue fleet last week, told me it’s a noo regulation—they’ve started the sale o’ baccy in the Gospel ships, just to keep us from going to the copers.”
 
“That’ll not keep me from going to the copers,” said Groggy Fox, with an oath.
 
“Nor me,” said his mate, with a laugh; “but, skipper, as we are pretty nigh out o’ baccy just now, an’ as the mission ship is near us, an’ the breeze down, I don’t see no reason why we shouldn’t go aboard an’ see whether the reports be true. We go to buy baccy, you know, an’ we’re not bound to buy everything the shop has to sell! We don’t want their religion, an’ they can’t force it down our throats whether we will or no.”
 
Groggy Fox vented a loud laugh at the bare supposition of such treatment of his throat, admitted that his mate was right, and gave orders to launch the boat. In a few minutes they were rowing over the still heaving but now somewhat calmer sea, for the wind had fallen suddenly, and the smacks lay knocking about at no great distance from each other.
 
It was evident from the bustle on board many of them, and the launching of boats over their bulwarks, that not a few of the men intended to take advantage of this unexpected visit of a mission vessel. No doubt their motives were various. Probably some went, like the men of the Cormorant, merely for baccy; some for medicine; others, perhaps, out of curiosity; while a few, no doubt, went with more or less of desire after the “good tidings,” which they were aware had been carried to several of the other fleets that laboured on the same fishing-grounds.
 
Whatever the reasons, it was evident that a goodly number of men were making for the vessel with the great blue flag. Some had already reached her; more were on their way. The Cormorant’s boat was among the last to arrive.
 
“What does MDSF stand for?” asked Skipper Fox, as they drew near.
 
“Mission to Deep-Sea Fishermen,” answered the mate, whose knowledge on this and other points of the Mission were due to his intercourse with his friend Simon Brooks of the Short-Blue. “But it means more than that,” he continued. “When we are close enough to make ’em out, you’ll see little letters above the MDSF which make the words I’ve just told you, an’ there are little letters below the MDSF which make the words Mighty Deliverer, Saviour, Friend.”
 
“Ay! That’s a clever dodge,” observed Groggy Fox, who, it need hardly be said, was more impressed with the ingenuity of the device than with the grand truth conveyed.
 
“But I say, mate, they seems to be uncommonly lively aboard of her.”
 
This was obviously the case, for by that time the boat of the Cormorant had come so near to the vessel that they could not only perceive the actions of those on board, but could hear their voices. The curiosity of Skipper Fox and his men was greatly roused, for they felt convinced that the mere visit of a passing mission ship did not fully account for the vigorous hand-shakings of those on the deck, and the hearty hailing of newcomers, and the enthusiastic cheers of some at least of the little boats’ crews as they pulled alongside.
 
“Seems to me as if they’ve all gone mad,” remarked Groggy Fox, with a sarcastic grin.
 
“I would say they was all drunk, or half-seas over,” observed the mate, “if it was a coper, but in a Gospel ship that’s impossible, ’cause they’re teetotal, you know. Isn’t that the boat o’ the Admiral that’s pullin’ alongside just now, skipper?”
 
“Looks like it, mate. Ay, an’ that’s Stephen Lockley of the Lively Poll close astarn of ’im—an’ ain’t they kickin’ up a rumpus now!”
 
Fox was right, for when the two little boats referred to ranged alongside of the vessel, and the men scrambled up the side on to her deck, there was an amount of greeting, and hand-shaking, and exclaiming in joyful surprise, which threw all previous exhibitions in that way quite into the shade, and culminated in a mighty cheer, the power of which soft people with shore-going throats and lungs and imaginations cannot hope to emulate or comprehend!
 
The cheer was mildly repeated with mingled laughter when the crowd on deck turned to observe the arrival of the Cormorant’s boat.
 
“Why, it’s the skipper o’ the Ironclad!” exclaimed a voice. “No, it’s not. It’s the skipper o’ the Cormorant,” cried another.
 
“What cheer? what cheer, Groggy Fox?” cried a third, as the boat swooped alongside, and several strong arms were extended. “Who’d have looked for you here? There ain’t no schnapps.”
 
“All right, mates,” replied Fox, with an apologetic smile, as he alighted on the deck and looked round; “I’ve come for baccy.”
 
A short laugh greeted this reply, but it was instantly checked, for at the moment Fred Martin stepped forward, grasped the skipper’s horny hand, and shook it warmly, as well as powerfully, for Fred was a muscular man, and had fully recovered his strength.
 
“You’ve come to the right shop for baccy,” he said; “I’ve got plenty o’ that, besides many other things much better. I bid you heartily welcome on board of the Sunbeam in the name of the Lord!”
 
For a few seconds the skipper of the Cormorant could not utter a word. He gazed at Fred Martin with his mouth partially, and his eyes wide, open. The thought that he was thus cordially received by the very man whose character he had so lately and so ungenerously traduced had something, perhaps, to do with his silence.
 
“A–are—are you the skipper o’ this here wessel!” he stammered.
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