The Romance of the Coast | Page 4

handy, and her owner determined to go off in her to
the brig. He was a fine fellow to look at--quite a remarkable specimen
of a man, indeed. Without any flurry, without a sign of emotion on his
face, he said, "Who's coming?" His two sons stepped out, and the boat
was moved towards the water's edge.
Just then a carter came down to look at the wreck. The carter's mare
was terror-stricken by the wrath of the sea, and galloped down the
beach. In passing the coble the mare plunged, and the axle-tree of the
cart staved in the head of the boat below the water-line. This was very
bad; but the leader of the forlorn hope did not give himself time to
waver. Taking off his coat, he stuffed it into the hole; and then, calling
in another volunteer, he said, "Sit against that." The men took their
places very coolly, and the little boat was thrust out amid the broken
water. Amidst all this the face of one woman who stood looking at the
men arrested my attention. It was very white, and her eyes had a look in
them that I cannot describe, though I have seen it since in my sleep.
The men in the boat were her husband and her sons. She said nothing,
but kept her hands tightly clasped; and her lips parted every time the
boat rose on the crown of a wave. We could not see those good fellows
half the time: all we could tell was that the man who was sitting against
the jacket had to bale very hard. Presently the deep bow of the boat rose
over a travelling sea, and she ground on the sand. She was heavily
laden with the brig's crew of limp and shivering Danish seamen. And it
was not a moment too soon for her to be ashore: the brig parted almost
directly, and the wreckage was strewn all along the beach.
The men who did this action never had any reward. And it did not
matter; for they took a very moderate view of their own merits. They
knew, of course, that they had done a good morning's work; but it never
occurred to them that they ought to have a paragraph in the newspapers
and be called brave. The sort of courage they exhibited they would
have described, if their attention had been called to it, as "only natural."
The old hero who went through a heavy sea with a staved-in boat is still
living. His name is Big Tom, and his home is at Cresswell, in the
county of Northumberland. He does not know that he is at all heroic;

but it is pleasant to think of him after reading about those wretched
excursionists who drowned each other in sheer fright within sight of his
home. He has often saved life since then. But when he puts out to sea
now he does not need to use a stove-in coble: he is captain of the smart
lifeboat; and his proudest possession is a photograph which shows his
noble figure standing at the bow.

THE FISHERWOMAN.
On bleak mornings you might see the movements of Peggy's stooping
figure among the glistening brown weeds that draped the low rocks;
and somehow you always noticed her most on bleak mornings. When
the joy of the summer was in the air, and the larks were singing high up
in the sky, it seemed rather pleasant than otherwise to paddle about
among the quiet pools and on the cold bladder-wrack. But when the sky
was leaden, and the wind rolled with strange sounds down the chill
hollows, it was rather pitiful to see a barefooted woman tramping in
those bitter places. The sea seemed to wait for every fresh lash of the
blast; and when the grey water sprang into brief spurts of spray you felt
how cruelly Peggy's bare limbs were cut by the wind. But she took it all
kindly, and made no moan about anything. Towards eight o'clock you
would meet her tramping over the sand with her great creel full of bait
slung on her forehead. Her feet gripped at the sand, and her strong leg
looked ruddy and hard. Her hands were always rough, and covered with
little scratches received while she baited the lines; but these were no
miseries to Peggy, and her face always seemed composed and quiet.
She would not pass you without a word, and her voice was pleasant
with low gutturals. If her eyes reminded you of the sea, you put it down
to a natural fancy. They were not at all poetic or sentimental; for Peggy
was a rough woman. But something there was in the gleam of her pale
clear eyes that made