122 VIKINGS OF TO-DAY 



schoolmaster in the little church, we had a good 

 "fishermen's meeting." Dr. Bobardt was away all 

 day visiting sick people on a neighbouring island, 

 and holding service among them. No patients were 

 yet allowed in hospital, though it now only remained 

 to cover the floors and get the stores in. Sister 

 Carwardine had therefore arranged for the nursing 

 of one poor woman, on whom an operation had been 

 necessary, in a room of a cottage near at hand. 



As the mail steamer was shortly expected, and 

 would certainly bring patients for the hospital, the 

 following day was spent by all hands in rendering 

 the hospital inhabitable; and by evening our first 

 patient was comfortably located in a room on the 

 ground floor, while the sister spent her first night 

 in hospital in an arm-chair. 



Next day, before leaving for the north, Dr. Bobardt 

 again being away visiting, I was called on to bury 

 a poor fellow, father of a family of five, who had 

 died from consumption in a neighbouring cove. The 

 burial-ground is a small plot at the bottom of a deep 

 ravine on the seaboard side of the island. On each 

 side rose barren rocky crags, behind was the bleak 

 island top, while in front lay the great Atlantic, 

 bearing on its heaving bosom, as far as the eye 

 could see, countless mighty icebergs. As the sad 

 procession wound along the defile, carrying in its 

 rude wood covering what was so recently a living, 

 hopeful human being; as they laid it in its last long 

 resting-place amidst these cold and desolate sur- 



