The Coxswain's Bride

STORY ONE, CHAPTER 1.

THE RISING TIDE--A TALE OF THE SEA.

The coxswain went by the name of Sturdy Bob among his mates. Among the
women of the village he was better known as handsome Bob, and, looking
at him, you could not help seeing that both titles were appropriate, for
our coxswain was broad and strong as well as good-looking, with that
peculiar cast of features and calm decided manner which frequently
distinguish the men who are born to lead their fellows.

Robert Massey, though quite young, was already a leader of men--not only
by nature but by profession--being coxswain of the Greyton lifeboat,
and, truly, the men who followed his lead had need to be made of good
stuff, with bold, enthusiastic, self-sacrificing spirits, for he often
led them into scenes of wild--but, hold! We must not forecast.

Well, we introduce our hero to the reader on a calm September evening,
which blazed with sunshine. The sun need not have been mentioned,
however, but for the fact that it converted the head of a fair-haired
fisher-girl, seated beside Bob, into a ball of rippling gold, and
suffused her young cheeks with a glow that rudely intensified her
natural colour.

She was the coxswain's bride-elect, and up to that date the course of
their true love had run quite smoothly in spite of adverse proverbs.

"I can't believe my luck," said Bob, gravely.

He said most things gravely, though there was not a man in Greyton who
could laugh more heartily than he at a good joke.

"What luck do you mean, Bob?" asked Nellie Carr, lifting her eyes from
the net she was mending, and fixing them on the coxswain's bronzed face
with an air of charming innocence. Then, becoming suddenly aware of
what he meant without being told, she gave vent to a quick little laugh,
dropped her eyes on the net, and again became intent on repairs.

"To think," continued Bob, taking two or three draws at his short pipe--
for our hero was not perfect, being, like so many of his class,
afflicted with the delusion of tobacco!--"to think that there'll be no
Nellie Carr to-morrow afternoon, only a Mrs Massey! The tide o' my
life is risin' fast, Nellie--almost at flood now. It seems too good to
be true--"

"Right you are, boy," interrupted a gruff but hearty voice, as a burly
fisherman "rolled" round the stern of the boat, in front of which the
lovers were seated on the sand. "W'en my Moggie an' me was a-coortin'
we thought, an' said, it was too good to be true, an' so it was;
leastwise it was too true to be good, for Moggie took me for better an'
wuss, though it stood to reason I couldn't be both, d'ee see? an' I soon
found her wuss than better, which--"