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

out when the lifeboat touched the pier was the coxswain, dripping, dirty, and dishevelled.

"Bless you, my gallant fellow!" exclaimed an irrepressible old enthusiast, stepping forward and attempting to grasp the coxswain's hand.

But Bob Massey, brushing past him, ran along the pier, leaped a fence, and sprang up the steep path that led to the cliffs, over the top of which he was finally seen to bound and disappear.

"Poor fellow!" exclaimed the irrepressible enthusiast, looking aghast at Slag, "exposure and excitement have driven him mad!"

"Looks like it!" replied Slag, with a quiet grin, as he stooped to assist the widow and little Lizzie to land, while ready hands were out-stretched to aid and congratulate the old grandfather, and the rest of the rescued people.

The coxswain ran--ay, he ran as he had been wont to run when he was a wild little fisher-boy--regardless alike of appearances and consequences. The clock of the village steeple told him that the appointed hour had almost arrived. Two miles was a long way to run in heavy woollen garments and sea-boots, all soaked in sea-water. But Bob was young, and strong, and active, and--you understand the rest, good reader!

The church had purposely been selected at that distance from the village to prevent Bob's comrades from knowing anything about the wedding until it should be over. It was a somewhat strange fancy, but the coxswain was a man who, having taken a fancy, was not easily turned from it.

In order to her being got comfortably ready in good time, Nellie Carr had slept the night before at the house of an uncle, who was a farmer, and lived near the church. The house was in a sheltered hollow, so that the bride was scarcely aware of the gale that had been blowing so fiercely out at sea. Besides, being much taken up with cousin-bridesmaids and other matters, the thought of the lifeboat never once entered her pretty head.

At the appointed hour, arrayed in all the splendour of a fisherman's bride, she was led to the church, but no bridegroom was there!

"He won't be long. He's _never_ late," whispered a bridesmaid to anxious Nellie.

Minutes flew by, and Nellie became alarmed. The clergyman also looked perplexed.

"Something must have happened," said the farmer-uncle, apologetically.

Watches were consulted and compared.

At that moment a heavy rapid tread was heard outside. Another moment, and Bob Massey sprang into the church, panting, flushed, dirty, wet, wild, and, withal, grandly savage.

"Nellie!" he exclaimed, stopping short, with a joyful gaze of admiration, for he had never seen her so like an angel before.

"Bob!" she cried in alarm, for she had never before seen him so like a reprobate.

"Young man," began the clergyman, sternly, but he got no further; for, without paying any attention to him whatever, Bob strode forward and seized Nellie's hands.

"I dursen't kiss ye, Nell, for I'm all wet; but I hadn't one moment to change. Bin out all night i' the lifeboat an' saved over thirty souls. The Brentley boat's done as much. I'm ashamed, sir," he added, turning to the clergyman, "for comin' here like this; but I couldn't help it. I hope there's nothin' in Scriptur' agin' a man bein' spliced in wet toggery?"

Whether the clergyman consulted his Cruden's Concordance with a view to clear up that theological question, we have never been able to ascertain; but it is abundantly clear that he did not allow the coxswain's condition to interfere with the ceremony, for in the _Greyton Journal_, of next day, there appeared a paragraph to the following effect:

"The marriage of Robert Massey, the heroic coxswain of our lifeboat,
(which, with all its peculiar attendant circumstances, and the gallant
rescue that preceded it, will be found in another part of this day's
issue), was followed up in the afternoon by a feast, and what we may
style a jollification, which will live long in the memory of our
fisher-folk.

"Several circumstances combined to render this wedding-feast unique.
To say nothing of the singular beauty of the bride, who is well known
as one of the most thrifty and modest girls in the town, and the
stalwart appearance of our coxswain, who, although so young, has
already helped to save hundreds of human lives from the raging sea,
the gathering was graced by the presence of the bridegroom's
bed-ridden mother. Old Mrs Massey had been carried in, bed and all,
to the scene of festivity; and it is due to the invalid to state that,
despite rheumatics and the singularity of her position, she seemed to
enjoy herself exceedingly. Besides this, the friends and comrades of
the coxswain--backed by the enthusiastic groomsman, Joe Slag--would
not permit Massey to don wedding garments, but insisted on his dancing
himself dry, in the rough garb in which he had effected the rescue.
This he had no difficulty in doing, having already run himself more
than half dry in hastening from the lifeboat to the church, which
latter he reached only just in time.

"The little girl whom Massey personally saved was also present, with
her mother and grandfather; and one interesting episode of the evening
was the presentation to our coxswain of a gold watch and a purse of
fifty sovereigns by the grateful old grandfather. Another peculiarity
of the proceedings was that Massey insisted--although the clergyman
was present--on his old mother asking God's blessing on the feast
before it began. All who are acquainted with our liberal-minded vicar
will easily understand that he highly approved of the arrangement.

"To crown all, the feast was conducted on strictly teetotal
principles. We have frequently advocated the principles of total
abstinence in these columns--at least for the young, the healthy, and
the strong--and we are glad to acknowledge that this wedding has
greatly helped our cause; for the fun and hilarity in all, the vigour
of limb in dancing, and of lung in singing--in short, the general
jollity--could not have been surpassed if the guests had been swilling
rivers of beer and brandy, instead of oceans of tea. Yes, as one of
the Irish guests remarked, `It was a great occasion intoirely,' and it
will be long before the event is forgotten, for the noble deeds of our
Greyton lifeboat are, from this day forward, intimately and
inseparably connected with her coxswain's wedding!"

Thus spake the Greyton oracle; but, prophet though that journal professed to be, the oracle failed to discern that from that time forward the names of Robert Massey and Joe Slag would very soon cease to be connected with the Greyton lifeboat.


STORY ONE, CHAPTER 3.

Soon after the wedding recorded in the last chapter an event occurred which entirely altered the character and current of our coxswain's career, at least for a time. This was the sudden death of the bed-ridden old mother, who had played such an interesting part at the wedding-feast.

To our hero, who was a tender-hearted man, and a most affectionate son, the blow was almost overwhelming, although long expected.

"I don't think I can stay here much longer," he said one evening to his pretty wife, as they sat together outside their door and watched the village children romping on the sands; "everything minds me o' the dear old woman, an' takes the heart out me. If it wasn't for you, Nell, I'd have been off to the other side o' the world long before now, but I find it hard to think o' takin' you away from all your old friends and playmates--and your Aunt Betty."

A peculiar smile lit up Nellie's face as her husband concluded.

"I should be sorry to leave the old friends here," she replied, "but don't let that hinder you if ye want to go away. I'd leave everything to please you, Bob. And as to Aunt Betty--well, I'm not ungrateful, I hope, but--but _she_ wouldn't break her heart at partin' wi' _me_."

"Right you are, Nell, as you always was, and always will be," said Massey. He laughed a short, dry laugh, and was grave again.

It was quite evident that Aunt Betty would not be a hindrance to the departure of either of them and no wonder, for Betty had received Nellie Carr into her family with a bad grace when her widowed brother, "old Carr," died, leaving his only child without a home. From that day Betty had brought the poor little orphan up--or, rather, had scolded and banged her up--until Bob Massey relieved her of the charge. To do Aunt Betty justice, she scolded and banged up her own children in the same way; but for these--her own young ones--she entertained and expressed a species of affection which mankind shares in common with cats, while for Nellie Carr she had no such affection, and contrived to make the fact abundantly plain. As we not infrequently find in such circumstances, the favoured children--which numbered seven--became heart-breakers, while the snubbed one turned out the flower of the flock.

"Then you're sure you won't think it hard, Nell, if I ask you to leave home and friends and go wi' me over the sea?"

"Yes, Bob, I'm quite sure. I'm willin' to follow you to the end o' the world, or further if that's possible!"

"Then the thing's settled," said Massey, with decision, rising and thrusting his short pipe into his vest pocket, the lining of which had already been twice renewed in consequence of the inroads of that half-extinguished implement.

In pursuance of his "settled" purpose, our coxswain proceeded to the lifeboat-shed in search of his bowman, Joe Slag, and found him there.

"Joe," said he, in the quiet tone that was habitual to him, "Nell and I have made up our minds to go to Australia."

"To Austrailly!" exclaimed Slag, leaning his arms on the mop with which he had been washing down the lifeboat.

"Ay; I can't settle to work nohow since the dear old woman went away; so, as Nell is agreeable, and there's nothin' to keep me here, I've decided to up anchor and bear away for the southern seas."

The bowman had seated himself on a cask while his friend was speaking, and gazed at him with a bewildered air.

"Are 'ee in arnest, Bob?"

"Ay, Joe, in dead earnest."

"An' you say that you've nothin' to keep you here! What's this?" said Slag, laying his strong hand tenderly on the blue side of the boat.

"Well, I'll be sorry to leave _her_, of course, an all my friends in Greyton, but friends will get along well enough without me, an' as for the boat, she'll never want a good coxswain while Joe Slag's alive an' well."

"You're wrong there, mate," returned the bowman, quickly, while a look of decision overspread his bluff countenance, "there'll be both a noo cox'n and a noo bowman wanted for her before long, for as sure as the first goes away the tother follers."

"Nonsense, Joe; you're jokin' now."

"Yes, I'm