The Coxswain's Bride, Robert Michael Ballantyne [7 ebook reader TXT] 📗

the boiling sea. Giving one agonised cry, the grandfather leaped after her, but the surging boat swept in at the moment, and the old man fortunately fell into that instead of the sea. He was not hurt, for strong arms had been upraised to receive him. The little child rose above the foam as she was whirled past the stern of the boat by a swift current. Bob Massey saw her little out-stretched arms. There was no time for thought or consideration. With one bound the coxswain was overboard. Next moment the crew saw him far astern with the child in his arms.

"Get 'em all aboard _first_!" came back, even against the wind, in Bob's powerful, deep-toned voice.

Another moment, and he was lost to sight in the boiling waste of waters. Slag knew well what he meant. If they should cast off the rope before rescuing all, for the purpose of picking up the coxswain, there would be no possibility of getting back again to the schooner, for she was fast breaking up. Every current and eddy about these sands was well known to Joe Slag, also the set of the tides--besides, had not Bob got on his lifebelt? He felt, nevertheless, that it was a tremendous risk to let him go. But what could poor Slag do? To cast off at once would have been to sacrifice about a dozen lives for the sake of saving two. It was a fearful trial. Joe loved Bob as a brother. His heart well nigh burst, but it stood the trial. He did his duty, and held on to the wreck!

Duty, on that occasion, however, was done with a promptitude, and in a fashion, that was not usual in one of his sedate nature. Fortunately, none but men remained on the wreck by that time.

"Tumble 'em in--sharp!" cried Slag.

The lifeboat men obeyed literally, and tumbled them in with a celerity that might almost have awakened surprise in a sack of potatoes!

To haul up the anchor would have been slow work. Slag--economical by nature--became extravagant for once. An axe made short work of cable and anchor.

"Let 'em go!" he growled, as the boat drifted away.

The sail was set with miraculous speed, for now the wind was in their favour, and the gay lifeboat bounded off in the direction where Bob had disappeared, as though it felt a lively interest in the recovery of its coxswain. It seemed as if the very elements sympathised with their anxiety, for just then the gale sensibly abated, and the rising sun broke through a rift in the grey clouds.

"There he is--I see him!" shouted the man in the bow--pointing eagerly ahead.

"It's on'y a bit o' wreck, boy," cried a comrade.

"Right you are," returned the bowman.

"There he is, though, an' no mistake, this time. Port!--port! hard-a-port!"

As he spoke, the boat swept round into a sort of cross-current among the waves, where an object resembling a man was observed spinning slowly round like a lazy teetotum. They were soon alongside. A dozen claw-like hands made a simultaneous grasp, and hauled the object on board with a mighty cheer, for it was, indeed, the coxswain--alive, though much exhausted--with his precious little curly-haired burden in his arms.

The burden was also alive, and not much exhausted, for the weather was comparatively warm at the time, and Bob had thrust her little head into the luxuriant thicket of his beard and whiskers; and, spreading his great hands and arms all over her little body, had also kept her well out of the water--all which the great buoyancy of his lifebelt enabled him easily to do.

Shall we describe the joy of the widow and the grandfather? No; there are some sacred matters in life which are best left to the imagination. The sunshine which had begun to scatter the clouds, and flood both land and sea, was typical of the joy which could find no better means than sobs wherewith to express gratitude to the God of mercy.

We have said that the gale had begun to abate. When the lifeboat escaped from the turmoil of cross-seas that raged over the sands and got into deep water, all difficulties and dangers were past, and she was able to lay her course for Greyton harbour.

"Let's have another swig o' that cold tea," said Bob Massey, resuming his rightful post at the helm. "It has done me a power o' good. I had no notion that cold tea was so good for warmin' the cockles o' one's heart."

Ah! Bob Massey, it was not the cold tea, but the saving of that little girl that sent the life's blood careering so warmly through your veins! However, there's no harm done in putting it down to the credit of the cold tea. Had the tea been hot, there might have been some truth in your fancy.

"What's the time?" asked Bob, with a sudden look of anxiety.

"Just gone ten," said Slag, consulting a chronometer that bore some resemblance to an antique warming-pan.

The look of anxiety on the coxswain's countenance deepened.

"Ease off the sheet a bit," he said, looking sternly over the weather quarter, and whistling for a fresher breeze, though most men would have thought the breeze fresh enough already.

As if to accommodate him, and confirm the crew in the whistling superstition, the breeze did increase at the moment, and sent the lifeboat, as one of the men said, "snorin'" over the wild sea towards the harbour of Greyton.

It was a grand sight to behold the pier of the little port on that stormy morning. Of course, it had soon become known that the lifeboat was out. Although at starting it had been seen by only a few of the old salts--whose delight it was to recall the memory of grand stormy times long past, by facing the gales at all hours in oiled coats and sou'-westers--the greater part of the fishing village only became aware of the fact on turning out to work in the morning. We have said that the gale had moderated, and the sun had come out, so that the pier was crowded, not only with fisher-folk, but with visitors to the port, and other landsmen.

Great was the hope, and sanguine the expectation of the crowd, when, after long and anxious waiting, the lifeboat was at last descried far out at sea, making straight for the harbour.

"All right, Bill," exclaimed an old fisherman, who had been for some time past sweeping the horizon with his glass, "the flag's a-flyin'."

"What does that mean?" asked a smart young lady, who had braved the blast and run the risk of a salt-wash from the sprays at the pier-end in her eager desire to see the boat arrive.

"It means, Miss, that they've managed to save somebody--how many, in course, we can't tell till they come."

There was a strong disposition on the part of the crowd to cheer when this was said.

After a few minutes' further observation, the old man with the glass murmured, as if speaking to himself, "I do believe she's chock-full o' people."

When this was repeated, the suppressed cheer broke forth, and the excitement increased. Soon the people with good eyes could see for themselves that the swiftly approaching boat was as full as she could hold, of human beings. At the same time, those who were in the boat could see the swarms of sympathisers on the pier who awaited their arrival.

But there was one man who took no note of these things, and seemed indifferent to everything around him. The coxswain of the lifeboat was spiritually absent from the scene.

"You seem to've got the fidgets, Bob," remarked Joe Slag, looking earnestly at his friend. "That swim has been too much for 'ee."

"'Taint that, Joe," replied Bob, quickly. "What's the time now, lad?"

Pulling out the antique warming-pan again, Slag said it was nigh a quarter past ten, and added that he, (Bob), seemed to be "uncommon consarned about the time o' day that mornin'."

"And so would you be, lad," returned the coxswain, in a low voice, as he advanced his mouth to his comrade's ear, "if you was in my fix. I've got to be spliced this day before twelve, an' the church is more'n two miles inland!"

"That's awk'ard," returned Slag, with a troubled look. "But, I say, Bob, you've kep' this uncommon close from us all--eh? I never heerd ye was to be spliced so soon."

"Of course I kep' it close, 'cos I wanted to give you an' my mates a surprise, but it strikes me I'll give some other people a surprise to-day, for there's no time to put on clean toggery."

"You'll never manage it," said Slag, in a sympathetic tone, as he once more consulted the warming-pan. "It's gettin' on for half arter ten now, an' it takes a mortal time to rig out in them go-to-meetin' slops."

"Do I look anything like a bridegroom as I am?" asked the coxswain with a curious glance.

"Sca'cely," replied Slag, surveying his friend with a grim smile--"(mind your helm, Bob, there's a awk'ard run on the tide round the pier-head, you know.) No; you're not wery much like one. Even if your toggery was all ship-shape--which it ain't--it would stand dryin', and your hair would be the better o' brushin'--to say nothin' o' your beard--an' it do seem, too, as if a bit o' soap might improve your hands an' face arter last night's work. No, Bob, I couldn't honestly say as you're exactly ship-shape as you stand."

"Listen, Joe Slag," said Bob Massey, with sudden earnestness. "I've never yet come in after a rescue without seein' the boat hauled up an' made snug. `Dooty first, an' pleasure arter,' that's bin my motto, as _you_ know. But dooty lies in another direction _this_ day, so you promise to see her hauled up, an' cleaned, an' properly housed, won't you?"

"In coorse I does."

"Well, then," continued Bob, in the same low, earnest tone, "arter that's done, you'll go an' invite all our mates an' friends to a jolly blow-out in the big shed alongside o' my old mother's house. Don't tell who invites 'em, or anything about it, an' ask as many as like to come-- the shed's big enough to hold 'em all. Only be sure to make 'em understand that they'll get no drink stronger than coffee an' tea. If they can't enjoy themselves on that, they may go to the grog-shop, but they needn't come to _me_. My mother will be there, and she'll keep 'em in order!"

"What!" exclaimed Slag, with a look of slight surprise. "Your mother! Her what's bin bed-ridden for years, an' hasn't got no legs at all-- leastwise not to speak of?"

"Just so, lad. We'll lift her in, bed an' all. Now you be off to the bow. Oars out, lads; stand by the halyards!"

They were by that time close to the pier-head, where the people were shouting and cheering, some of them even weeping, and waving hats, 'kerchiefs, sticks, and umbrellas, almost wild with joy at seeing so many fellow-creatures rescued from the maw of the hungry sea.

The first man who leaped