"Macpherson's no freethinker," said Captain Morgan, who was a friend of the editor, and inclined on the strength of it to occupy the intellectual chair at the White Horse. "Macpherson says we'll have to try again after the war, or it will be blood and iron all round." "He's upset by the war," said Captain Davidson, "and he's taken to writing poytry in his paper. He'd best be careful or he'll lose his circulation." "Ah!" said Kendrick. "That's what 'ull finish him for the council. What we want is practical men. Poytry would destroy any man's reputation. There was a great deal of talk caused by his last one, about our trawler chaps. 'Fishers of Men,' he called it; and I'm not sure that it wouldn't be considered blasphemious by a good many." Captain Morgan shook his head. "Every Sunday evening," he said, "my missus asks me to read her Macpherson's pome in the _Gazette_, and I've come to enjoy them myself. Now, what does he say in 'Fishers of Men'?" "Read it," said Kendrick, picking the _Gazette_ from the litter of newspapers on the table and handing it to Morgan. "If you know how to read poytry, read it aloud, the way you do to your missus. I can't make head or tail of poytry myself; but it looks blasphemious to me." Captain Morgan wiped his big spectacles while the other two settled themselves to listen critically. Then he began in his best Sunday voice, very slowly, but by no means unimpressively: _Long, long ago He said, He who could wake the dead, And walk upon the sea-- "Come, follow Me._ "_Leave your brown nets and bring Only your hearts to sing, Only your souls to pray, Rise, come away._ "_Shake out your spirit-sails, And brave those wilder gales, And I will make you then Fishers of men._" _Was this, then, what He meant? Was this His high intent, After two thousand years Of blood and tears?_ _God help us, if we fight For right and not for might. God help us if we seek To shield the weak._ _Then, though His heaven be far From this blind welter of war, He'll bless us on the sea From Calvary._ "It seems to rhyme all right," said Kendrick. "It's not so bad for Macpherson." "Have you heard," said Davidson reflectively, "they're wanting more trawler skippers down at the base?" "I've been fifty years, man and boy, at sea," said Captain Morgan; "that's half a century, mind you." "Ah, it's hard on the women, too," said Davidson. "We're never sure what boats have been lost till we see the women crying. I don't know how they get the men to do it." Captain John Kendrick stabbed viciously with his forefinger at a picture in an illustrated paper.