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 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