The Coxswains Bride | Page 8

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 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