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.