Yes! Reading, and James Simpson, the mate of the _Aid_, and William Wharrier, the engineer, who have been together more than twenty years, and have been out on almost every occasion that the life-boat has been called for, have all three of them done noble and gallant service time after time, and are indeed well worthy to be ranked among the Storm Warriors who have nobly fought in the great and good cause of saving life. And many another gallant fellow might I mention, whose name stands worthily on the Ramsgate life-boat roll-call; famous specimens of what a British sailor should be--full of daring and determination, and skill, and hardihood; men who are ready to encounter all danger, and to endure any amount of hardship, in answer to the holy call: to go forth and seek to save the shipwrecked and the perishing. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION. "The quality of mercy is not strain'd; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless'd; It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes: 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown;..." Whatever interest my readers may have felt in the narrative of gallant deeds wrought at one life-boat station on the coast, must be intensified at the thought of the noble work that is going on all round our sea-girt land--that, at almost all dangerous places where vessels are likely to be in distress, or lives in peril, there are life-boats ready to be manned, and brave fellows ever anxious promptly to launch forth 'mid the wind and sea, and battle their way to the rescue of the perishing. Yes, thank God, the gallant old Anglo-Saxon blood is still to the fore; the spirit of our ancestors has not died out, and we may well believe, from abundant evidence continually arising from very diversified fields, that it has not even in the least degenerated; for at all times can men be found ready to go forth either by sea or land, to dare all that men should dare, and to do all that men can do, when duty calls them to labours of self-sacrifice, endurance, and courage. And to the old bravery is now added modern science and organization, and the British coasts are guarded by a volunteer navy, equipped and marshalled by the Royal National Life-boat Institution. Two hundred and thirty-three life-boats form, at present, the great storm fleet of the Institution; the boats are stationed at the most dangerous places on the coast, and are kept always ready for service.