THE CRUISE OF THE "WILLING MIND."


The cruise happened before the steam-trawler ousted the smack from the
North Sea. A few newspapers recorded it in half-a-dozen lines of
small print which nobody read. But it became and--though nowadays the
_Willing Mind_ rots from month to month by the quay--remains staple
talk at Gorleston ale-houses on winter nights.

The crew consisted of Weeks, three fairly competent hands, and a
baker's assistant, when the _Willing Mind_ slipped out of Yarmouth.
Alexander Duncan, the photographer from Derby, joined the smack
afterwards under peculiar circumstances. Duncan was a timid person,
but aware of his timidity. He was quite clear that his paramount
business was to be a man; and he was equally clear that he was not
successful in his paramount business. Meanwhile he pretended to be,
hoping that on some miraculous day a sudden test would prove the straw
man he was to have become real flesh and blood. A visit to a surgeon
and the flick of a knife quite shattered that illusion. He went
down to Yarmouth afterwards, fairly disheartened. The test had been
applied, and he had failed.

Now, Weeks was a particular friend of Duncan's. They had chummed
together on Gorleston Quay some years before, perhaps because they
were so dissimilar. Weeks had taught Duncan to sail a boat, and had
once or twice taken him for a short trip on his smack; so that the
first thing that Duncan did on his arrival at Yarmouth was to take the
tram to Gorleston and to make inquiries.

A fisherman lounging against a winch replied to them---