A Knight of the Nets

She is still busy about her work of mercy. Many other Mission Ships now traverse the great fishing-fleets of the North Sea, and carry hope and comfort to the fishermen who people its grey, wild waters; but none is so well beloved by them as the "Little Sophy." When the boats lie at their nets on a summer's night, it is on the "Little Sophy" that "Rock of Ages" is started and then taken up by the whole fleet. And when the stormy winds of winter blow great guns, then the "Little Sophy," flying her bright colours in the daytime and showing her many lights at night, is always rolling about among the boats, blowing her whistle to tell them she is near by, or sending off help in her lifeboat, or steaming after a smack in distress.

Fifteen years after Andrew and Archie parted at the kirkyard, Archie came to the knowledge first of Andrew's living monument to the girl they had both loved so much. He was coming from Norway in a yacht with a few friends, and they were caught in a heavy, easterly gale. In a few hours there was a tremendous sea, and the wind rapidly rose to a hurricane. The "Little Sophy" steamed after the helpless craft and got as near to her as possible; but as she lowered her lifeboat, she saw the yacht stagger, stop, and then founder. The tops of her masts seemed to meet, she had broken her back, and the seas flew sheer over her.

The lifeboat picked up three men from her, and one of them was Archie Braelands. He was all but dead from exposure and buffeting; but the surgeon of the Mission Ship brought him back to life.

It was some hours after he had been taken on board; the storm had gone away northward as the sun set. There was the sound of an organ and of psalm-singing in his ears, and yet he knew that he was in a ship on a tossing sea, and he opened his eyes, and asked weakly:

"Where am I?"

The surgeon stooped to him and answered in a cheery voice: "On the 'Sophy Traill!'"

A cry, shrill as that of a fainting woman, parted Archie's lips, and he kept muttering in a half-delirious stupor all night long, "The Sophy Traill! The Sophy Traill!" In a few days he recovered strength and was able to leave the boat which had been his salvation; but in those few days he heard and saw much that greatly influenced for the noblest ends his future life.

All through the borders of Fife, people talked of Archie's strange deliverance by this particular ship, and the old story was told over again in a far gentler spirit. Time had softened ill-feeling, and Archie's career was touched with the virtue of the tenderly remembered dead.

"He was but a thoughtless creature before he lost wee Sophy," Janet said, as she discussed the matter; "and now, where will you find a better or a busier man? Fife's proud of him, and Scotland's proud of him, and if England hasn't the sense of discerning who she ought to make a Prime Minister of, that isn't Braelands's fault."

"For all that," said Christina, sitting among her boys and girls, "Sophy ought to have married Andrew. She would have been alive to-day if she had."

"You aren't always an oracle, Christina, and you have a deal to learn yet; but I'm not saying but what poor Sophy did make a mistake in her marriage. Folks should marry in their own class, and in their own faith, and among their own folk, or else ninety-nine times out of a hundred they marry sorrow; but I'm not so sure that being alive to-day would have been a miracle of pleasure and good fortune. If she had had bairns, as ill to bring up and as noisy and fashious as yours are, she is well spared the trouble of them."

"You have spoiled the bairns yourself, Mother. If I ever check or scold them, you are aye sure to take their part."

"Because you never know when a bairn is to blame and when its mother is to blame. I forgot to teach you that lesson."

Christina laughed and said something about it "being a grand thing Andrew had no lads and lasses," and then Janet held, her head up proudly, and said with an air of severe admonition:

"It's well enough for you and the like of you to have lads and lasses; but my boy Andrew has a duty far beyond it, he has the 'Sophy Traill' to victual and store, and send out to save souls and bodies."

"Lads and lasses aren't bad things, Mother."

"They'll be all the better for the 'Sophy Traill' and the other boats like her. That laddie o' yours that will be off to sea whether you like it or not, will give you many a fear and heartache. Andrew's 'boat of blessing' goes where she is bid to go, and does as she is told to do. That's the difference."

Difference or not, his "boat of blessing" was Andrew's joy and pride. She had been his salvation, inasmuch as she had consecrated that passion for hoarding money which was the weak side of his character. She had given to his dead love a gracious memory in the hearts of thousands, and "a name far better than that of sons and daughters."