BRAVE CORNISH LADIES. 



221 



the captain, he seized it, but even then seemed irresolute whether to save himself or 

 perish with his brig-. After a quarter of an hour the love of life constrained him to fasten 

 the rope round his body, and the foolhardy man was dragged ashore. Within an hour 

 nothing was to be seen of the vessel but a few floating spars. The cheers which greeted 

 the captain's rescue were but feeble compared with those that had welcomed the return of 

 the coastguardsman whose life had been risked in attempting to save him. Brave Gould! 

 The coastguardsmen, however, do not enjoy a monopoly of bravery in Cornwall. There 

 are courageous women there, some of them very young. 



LIFE-HOAX GOING TO A WRECK ON DOOM BAR, I>AI)STO\V. 



Towards the end of October, 1879, a well-earned presentation was made at Padstow, to 

 five young ladies of an equal number of silver medals and testimonials inscribed on vellum, the 

 vote of the National Life-boat Institution. The four Misses Prideaux Brune and Miss Nora 

 O'Shaughnessy had taken a boat through a heavy sea, at the risk of their own lives, 

 to save an exhausted sailor from a capsized boat, two of the companions of whom had 

 perished before their arrival. Samuel Bate, late the assistant coxswain of the Padstow life- 

 boat, was towing the ladies' boat astern of his fishing smack, when seeing the accident, they 

 requested to be cast off, and that being done, though against his convictions, he states that they 

 rowed " like tigers " to the rescue through a furious sea, and he has no doubt that the man 

 would have perished like his companions but for their prompt arrival. Such noble-hearted 

 girls make us still more proud of Cornwall, which has given England aye, the world so 

 many noble men. 



